Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to follow the member for Winnipeg—Transcona and speak today in support of this important motion. A very basic principle is being established in the motion which reads:
That this House demand that the government bring any draft agreement on the Free Trade Zone of the Americas before the House so that it may be debated and put to a vote before ratification by the Government of Canada.
It is somewhat surprising that a motion that deals with such a fundamental principle of debate within the House of Commons is something that has to be brought forward by an opposition party. It begs the question and highlights for us the gravity of the situation we are facing as the Government of Canada enters into these agreements.
The free trade area of the Americas, or the FTAA as it is known, equals NAFTA, the WTO, GATT and the MAI all rolled into one very powerful piece of trade legislation that has nothing to do with freedom.
It has everything to do with a transfer of massive powers from democratically elected governments to transnational corporations and a globalized corporate agenda which is about the suppression of democracy. That is the fundamental point that needs to be made. That is why any document or agreement on the FTAA must be brought to the House to be debated by members of the House and by the people of Canada.
The fundamental purpose of these agreements is to constrain all levels of government. We are not just talking about a national government or provincial governments, but even at the municipal level. Their purpose is to restrain all governments in their delivery of services and to allow transnational corporations access to public services, whether it be health care, hospitals, home care, dental care, child care, elder care, education, social assistance, environmental protection programs, transportation or culture. Those are the programs very much at threat as a result of the proposed FTAA.
I should like to quote the chair of the Council of Canadians who recently produced a very excellent report consisting of 40 pages entitled “The Free Trade Area of the Americas and the Threat to Social Programs, Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice in Canada and the Americas”. Ms. Barlow is well known for her work in providing education and awareness of the threat posed by these agreements. In the section outlining what impact there will be from the FTAA on Canadians she said:
The expanded powers proposed for the FTAA in combination with Chapter 11 of NAFTA and the introduction of “universal coverage of all service sectors” pose a grave threat to Canada's social programs. Universal health care, public education, child care, pensions, social assistance and many other social services are now delivered by governments on a not-for-profit basis.
She went on to say:
Until the recent GATS negotiations, and now the FTAA negotiations, Canada has always maintained that these social programs were a fundamental right of citizenship for all Canadians, and have exempted them from trade agreements. However, with these two agreements, the Canadian government is opening up itself, and every other level of government, to trade-sanctioned threats by transnational service corporations keen to break down the existing government monopolies in the hemisphere.
That lays out very clearly what we are facing in this round of negotiations. Of particular concern to us in the NDP, outlined by my colleague from Winnipeg—Transcona, are the investor state provisions that again are included in what is being proposed in this FTAA round of negotiations. This is something similar to what we have seen in NAFTA.
Indeed, in the NDP minority report produced in October 1999 we laid out very clearly what the impact is of investor state provisions and what has already happened in Canada as a result of those provisions being included in chapter 11 of NAFTA.
I will quote from my colleague's minority report in which he says:
Canadians have already seen how such a mechanism can be used by foreign investors to intimidate and sue their elected governments. Last year, U.S. based Ethyl Corporation successfully used the NAFTA investor-state procedure to extract $19 million from Canadian taxpayers, and to force the Canadian government to rescind its ban on the potentially toxic gasoline additive MMT.
That is what has already taken place under chapter 11. There are now other challenges underway, including one from Sun Belt Water Inc. in California that is looking to leave Canadians on the hook for as much as $10.5 billion U.S. That again brings us back to the issue of what is threatened under the FTAA.
One of the things I am very concerned about is the impact on municipalities. Right now in Vancouver, where I am from, a case taking place before the B.C. supreme court is a challenge by the Mexican government as a result of an earlier decision made by a NAFTA dispute panel in August 2000 in favour of the U.S. based Metalclad Corporation, which was seeking to locate a toxic waste plant in a town in Mexico. The local community and the national government opposed it. This is now again being challenged under NAFTA.
The impact of these trade agreements on local communities and their ability to control their own environment and health and the well-being of their own citizens is something that is very seriously undermined and would be completely violated if these particular agreements go ahead.
I want to spend my remaining minutes talking about the democratic process. It seems to me that one of the real signs of hope as we take on this struggle of trying to defeat these agreements has been the rise in the level of activism, particularly among young people. As we know, already there are incredible plans and campaigns underway to demonstrate, to rally, to educate and to build public awareness about just what is at stake in April in Quebec City.
The question we have is that while on the one hand we have the Prime Minister in China finally raising the issue of human rights in that country, what are the Prime Minister and the government prepared to do to defend people's human rights here in Canada? All indications are that we are now in the process of setting up a police state, a state of security around this international conference, to prevent citizens from being heard, from being seen, from being able to assemble and from having the right to free speech.
This is something we have seen before in Canada with APEC and the people's summit and the pepper spraying that took place. We are again seeing the those kinds of preparations being made to prevent people from exercising their democratic rights.
This motion is important, but it is only the tip of the iceberg. We have to stop these agreements, we have to defeat them and we have to defend the rights of citizens to organize, to mobilize and to speak out against these agreements. In supporting this motion, I hope all members of the House will go further and ensure that people who come from across Canada and want to take up this issue in Quebec City will not be denied their democratic rights to express their opinions about what these agreements are about and what kinds of threats they pose to our democratic system.