Mr. Speaker, I move that the second report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, tabled on Thursday, December 16, 1999, be concurred in.
I rise today to speak to the second report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, tabled on Thursday, December 16, 1999. This report is entitled “Exporting in the Canadian Interest: Reviewing the Export Development Act”.
First, I will deal with the form and then I will talk about the content.
Members may not know this, but the way the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade approved this report was rather odd, even though the report is of a paramount importance. It is therefore totally unacceptable for the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, or rather the Liberal majority on the committee, to have approved this report in such a hurry.
Believe it or not, the whole approval process took fifteen minutes. The Liberal majority approved this report of close to one hundred pages—and I stress this—in less than fifteen minutes. Moreover, in view of the fact that some Liberal members on the committee had hardly ever taken part in this review, it was obvious that nothing was going to stop the government from having the report approved on the sly, just before the Christmas recess, unless Liberal backbenchers are able to read faster than the best speed readers.
More importantly, the Export Development Corporation does for $34.7 billion worth of business. In 1998, its profits amounted to $135 million. It is unconscionable to take only fifteen minutes to approve a report dealing with such huge amounts of public money.
Just by pure chance, that particular day when we were determined to maintain the pace of the committee meetings, was the very day that this House debated Bill C-20, a bill which is attempting to stifle the democratic rights of Quebecers to decide on their own future.
The cavalier and disdainful attitude of the Liberal majority in adopting this report at the committee on foreign affairs and international trade will remain in my memory as one of the blackest and most tragic episodes in my parliamentary experience. Heaven only knows that, in my six years on that committee, we have never had to rush the adoption of a report through in such an unacceptable way.
That said, nevertheless the Bloc Quebecois considers that the spirit of the Export Development Act generally responds fairly well to the objectives behind it when it was passed. There is, however, still some room for improvement in the way the Export Development Corporation operates.
We identified three flaws in the committee report, and I would like to address them now.
First of all, as many of those who spoke before the foreign affairs and international trade committee pointed out so clearly, there seems to be a flagrant lack of transparency in the way the corporation operates, and there are serious shortcomings as far as access to information is concerned.
For example, it was impossible for a Bloc Quebecois member on this committee to obtain a breakdown of the corporation's financial activities in Quebec. It is therefore not surprising that it is difficult for the House to know if EDC is respecting the spirit and the letter of the law. That is why we also wanted the Export Development Corporation to be subject to the Access to Information Act.
Bloc Quebecois members are not the only ones worried about this lack of transparency. On October 20, 1998, then Minister for International Trade, Sergio Marchi, engaged Gowling, Strathy and Henderson to review the Export Development Act.
In June 1999, project leader Guy David tabled his report, which contained 39 recommendations, one of which had to do with the issue of accountability and transparency. What is now known as the Gowlings report recommends, and I quote:
EDC should be required to post, on a regular basis, specific information regarding transactions it has supported. Such information might include, for example, the name of the borrower, country, name of exporter, amount and type of financial support, term and a brief description of the goods, services or project involved. Transactions should be posted within 60 days of signing.
Our second reservation is much the same and has to do with the Export Development Corporation's respect for human rights.
Although the Export Development Corporation offers financing services, its particular focus is credit insurance. The risks assumed by the corporation may include factors of a political nature. However, in its evaluation of political risks in each country, the Export Development Corporation does not take into account the human rights situation in the countries where the businesses it is helping are operating.
In the opinion of the Bloc Quebecois, before granting any money, before providing financial support to any business, the EDC should at least make sure the business adheres to the code of conduct set out by the OECD with regard to human rights.
We find it unacceptable that the Export Development Act could be used to circumvent the values treasured by all Quebecers and Canadians. It is disturbing to think that the Export Development Corporation might help businesses operating in developing countries where they contribute to propagate values conflicting with ours.
In fact, a disturbing situation has just confirmed our apprehensions. No later than last week, KPMG published the results of a poll conducted with 1,000 chief executive officers of Canadian corporations. The results are more than worrisome.
Fifty-eight per cent of the corporations and government organizations that responded to the poll have no senior manager responsible for ethics. Only 38% of respondents said they provided ethics training to their managers and, one time in three, less than one hour a year is devoted to such training.
In spite of all the public discussions that have taken place in recent years on child labour in developing and emerging countries, 16% of exporting businesses have yet to adopt a policy on this issue.
Perhaps even more telling and sad is the fact that the response rate to the survey was extremely low in the private sector, at under 8%. Businesses do not care much about ethics, to say the least. But Canadian businesses are not the only ones to blame. The example is set a the top.
As members know, civil war has been raging in Sudan for several years. A number of non-governmental organizations have condemned the fact that slavery is practised openly. Serious violations of fundamental rights are a common occurrence. Over one million civilians have been killed and 4.5 million people have been displaced within the country.
Talisman Energy, an oil company based in Calgary, does business in Sudan. A few months ago, the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs promised to impose sanctions on Talisman if it was demonstrated that the company's presence in Sudan was contributing to the continuation of the civil war in that country.
Also, the American government urged the Canadian government to prohibit Canadian businesses from investing in that African country, which serves as a haven for terrorist organizations.
Yet last week the Minister of Foreign Affairs announced that he no longer had any plans to exercise any sanctions against Talisman, despite the fact that his special envoy, John Harker, has demonstrated that oil is a key factor in the terrible civil war that is being waged in Sudan.
Moreover, international observers do not see any hope for a ceasefire as long as oil exploration continues. This is compounded by the fact that the royalties being paid to the Sudanese government are being used in the war effort.
As Bernard Descôteaux rightly asked in an editorial in Le Devoir last week, “Is there no limit to our complicity in a morally reprehensible situation? Clearly, today the Canadian government is accepting this complicity”.
The Export Development Corporation is in strange position. When the government directing it is interested only in the smell of money and of trade, how could we expect the EDC to be inspired by noble ethical and moral values?
Finally, the third problematical element in this second report by the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade addresses the EDC's environmental responsibilities.
The Gowlings report made one recommendation on this which we felt to be very reasonable: “Canada should encourage the early development of an international consensus on environmental guidelines and procedures for export credit agencies. In the meantime, EDC should adopt a substantively and methodologically clear and transparent environmental framework”.
I will dispense with the reading of another recommendation of 424 words, in which anyone could get irretrievably lost in a maze of pompous, complicated and inapplicable language.