Debates of Feb. 15th, 2001

Supply

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, maybe the hon. member did not hear the part of my speech where I said that at least the Bloc is putting forward an issue for debate that is important to all Canadians. I did not insult the intelligence of the members opposite. I think it is a legitimate issue to be put on the table.

I also said, however, that I fear the old hidden agenda of Quebec's place at the table for international trade agreements. Sovereignty for the province of Quebec is always the motive behind everything that group of parliamentarians does. I find it regrettable.

Every agreement that has been signed, whether NAFTA, WTO, Canada-Chile or Canada-Israel, went through the exact process where negotiations were done by professional negotiators. That is not to say that I or others do not have expertise or interest. It is the old saying about a horse built by a committee becomes a camel. Let us imagine an agreement negotiated by 301 people in a public place like this. What in God's name would we wind up with?

The process is that it will be negotiated. It will be brought into this place where our responsibility will be to debate it, to ratify it on behalf of the Canadian people and to ensure it is in the best interest of all Canadians.

[Deepak Obhrai, Canadian Alliance, Calgary East, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague from the other side and as usual he got too excited and brought forward issues that had no relevance to the debate.

I want the member to confirm something he just said. If I am not mistaken I just heard him say that the treaty will come back to the House and be debated here before it is ratified. Is that what I heard the member say?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not excited at all. It may just be my normal glowing personality the member is referring to. I was saying that the standard process is that there is a negotiating team. In this case 34 countries are involved in the negotiation.

My point in relationship to the motion is that hon. members opposite would have us bring draft agreements and amendments into the House to debate them before there is any agreement between the chief negotiators of the 34 countries.

It is a recipe for gridlock. It is an impossible situation in which to put together a quality agreement. It would simply allow those who would to grandstand on issues. It would not work to the betterment of all Canadians in the international trade agreements.

We will follow the normal process that has been followed in the past and negotiate agreements in the best interests of the country.

[Marcel Gagnon, Bloc, Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, unless I am mistaken, the member is saying that in future all our problems will be solved by experts. What are we doing here then?

He said that we should not be asking questions, but that we should accept what the experts come up with. He says “What would 301 members of parliament at the negotiating table accomplish?” We are not asking for every one of us to take part in the negotiations.

I represent a riding, and Quebecers who want to know what is going on. The member says that we want to talk about health, education, labour. But what does he think is on the table when free trade agreements are negotiated? This will affect the future of all Quebecers and all Canadians. We have the right to ask questions. We have the right to know what we are getting ourselves into.

The member said that almost no one but those who voted for the Liberals deserve to run this beautiful country, Canada—or something like that, at the beginning of his speech—and that the opposition does not carry much weight.

What does the member think we are doing here in this House, if not representing a segment of the population that has questions to ask? It is not the people on your side who will have to field questions, but the members on our side.

[The Speaker]

I would ask the hon. member for Champlain to address all remarks through the Chair. The hon. member for Mississauga West.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would invite the hon. gentlemen to maybe put himself to sleep tonight and get the instant Hansard and read it. He will find out that I said none of the things that he has accused me of saying.

In fact, the opposite is true. I said that I believe there is a clear cut role for the opposition in this place, The fact is that the Canadian people returned the Liberal Party, Jean Chrétien and this—

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Mississauga West meant the Prime Minister, I sense that.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I did, and my apologies. I know better. They returned us to government. We have a responsibility to govern.

I totally understand and appreciate the role of opposition. I said I had no difficulty with the fact that the Bloc put forward this kind of a motion. It is much more constructive than many of the others that we have seen. However, let us be clear what the motion says. It says that the House demand that the government bring any draft agreement on the free trade zone area of the Americas before the House. They want us to bring to the House a draft agreement, an amendment, a change or a negotiation point. It is a recipe for gridlock that will not be in the interests of Canadians.

[Grant Hill, Canadian Alliance, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to come back to the question of my colleague. I distinctly heard the member say that this agreement would come to the House of Commons, would be debated in the House of Commons and would be ratified here. Would he go back over that statement and say whether or not that was accurate because I do not believe it is accurate. I believe it is completely wrong. It would make this motion redundant if in fact it were accurate.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member understands the process. There is a negotiating team, in this case, with 34 countries. They will enter into an agreement. There is no question about that. Canada will be part of it. Before any implementation of that agreement, it will come back to this place, as every other agreement has.

Do not try to twist my words or anything that is going on in the process. It is standard with the FTA, or the WTO, or Chile or with Israel. This agreement will be done in exactly the same way.

I would also invite that member to read Hansard . There will be a lot of people falling asleep early tonight as they research Hansard to find out what was really said.

Committees Of The House

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations between the leaders of all the parties in the House and I believe you would find consent for the following motion dealing with a change in name to one of our standing committees. I move:

That Standing Order 104(2)(k) be amended by adding immediately after the word “Industry” the words “Science and Technology”.

[The Speaker]

Does the hon. the parliamentary secretary have the unanimous consent of the House to propose the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(Motion agreed to)

The House resumed consideration of the motion and of the amendment.

Supply

[Stéphan Tremblay, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean—Saguenay, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today we are debating a topic which is of paramount importance to me since the summit of the Americas on the free trade area of the Americas will be held in Quebec City next April 20 and 21.

By an absolutely incredible coincidence, as far as I am concerned, this will also be a very important anniversary: on April 20 three years ago I attempted to initiate a crucially important debate on the social impacts of globalization. As you will recall, I attempted to raise the issue by walking out of the House with my seat, which I brought to my constituents.

The question I wanted to raise was this: in the context of globalization, what is happening to political power? The statistics show clearly that, in spite of the economic growth of the past few years, there is an increase in poverty.

This debate meant a lot to me then and still does. Whether we talk about globalization or “continentalization”, most of the issues are very similar. I have worked very hard for our role to be taken seriously, as well as for an in-depth debate on the revolution we are experiencing today. Who is in charge? Who is in charge of the political agenda? Is it the elected representatives, international bodies or the marketplace? These are very important questions.

I am convinced I am not the only parliamentarian who is wondering who is in charge of the world economic agenda. The mere fact that we are asking the question indicates that somewhere there is a lack of transparency or a lack of democracy.

I have a number of concerns regarding the future. As the youngest parliamentarian in this House, I did something very daring and I asked myself a number of questions. I believe there is now somebody younger than I am in this House. But I can still wonder about the kind of society I will be living in, 20 or 30 years from now, as the gap between rich and poor is getting wider and wider.

I do not like the term free trade area too much. Economic trade area of the Americas would be more to my liking. I am in no way against international trade. It is a very good thing. For one thing, I want to be able to have bananas, and I hope people in other countries will be able to continue to buy maple syrup. My example is somewhat trivial, but it shows how important international trade is.

What I do not like is the word free. Does it mean there are no rules? Certainly not. We need a trade framework and what I would call rules of the game.

Why should we have rules of the game? Because the economy cannot be set apart from the social issues. We cannot say that trade agreements do no concern people, that they are purely a commercial matter, while the social impact is something else. That is not true. Everything is connected, and that is why we need more extensive debates. Hence, the importance of this opposition day and, at the same time, the tragedy that we are having a single day of debate on this issue.

We should have more extensive discussions. We should have a debate on social values. We do not need to ask why people took to the streets in Seattle, in Prague, in Nice, or in Washington, and why they will do the same in Quebec City in April. It is because they are concerned. They are wondering, and they do not like the kind of society that seems to be emerging. I share their concerns.

I wonder what will happen if the economy is left to its own devices, if we have free trade everywhere. I think a free market system will only lead to increased competition. The question I ask myself is what the consequences of this increased competition will be.

I will point out some of the possible consequences. To be competitive, a business will probably try to hire the brightest people, which is very commendable. In this knowledge based economy, we all have that goal.

To lower its production costs, will this same business have a tendency to overexploit natural resources, to pay no attention to the environment, to lower salaries or to simply lay off workers? Another thing would be to try not to pay taxes. These are all things to be expected when a business wants to remain competitive.

I have nothing against competition, but I think there has to be a framework. In a free trade area of the Americas, we have to set rules, including social rules. In an economy which has a growing tendency to overheat and to skid, we must build safety rails to make sure we have a social safety net. We have to talk about health care, access to education, income security and environmental protection. These are all absolutely necessary.

I think this must be done through an open debate where both the public and parliamentarians have the opportunity to express their views.

My colleagues talked earlier about the multilateral agreement on investment. I hope we all got our lesson from what happened with this agreement that was negotiated behind closed doors and which parliamentarians were certainly not aware of. Fortunately, there was a leak. Things like that should remind us that it should not happen again.

Today, three years after this agreement failed, what are we doing? We are asking to see the documents, we are asking for parliamentarians to play their role and vote on the ratification of such an agreement. I find it almost absurd that we need to have this kind of debate, because it seems quite obvious to me. It is abundantly clear.

I feel there is still a long way to go. I think that we, as parliamentarians, have many questions to ask ourselves about the role we want to play in the globalization and continentalization of economies. As a member of parliament who was elected in a national forum, if I might say—every member of parliament in the world is elected to sit in a country's parliament—I think reflection is in order.

Finally, the issue of parliamentary reform has been raised regularly. I believe a reform of parliament is absolutely necessary. However, a true reform would mean pondering the issues and developing measures in order to redefine the role of members of parliament in a context of globalization and continentalization. I would like to talk to parliamentarians from Chile, Argentina and Guatemala. I would like to know about their own reality and their own difficulties. I am convinced that most of them have the same troubles and the same concerns as all of us here.

As we enter this new millennium, this is how we should review the role of parliamentarians. It is not sufficient to meet with members of other parliaments over a drink once in a while. We should meet regularly. How will we deal with issues that go beyond our borders? When I say this, naturally I am thinking about international democracy, the democracy of the International Monetary Fund, of the World Bank and of the World Trade Organization.

I am also thinking about the regularization of capital markets and issues such as the Tobin tax for example, issues that have to be submitted to scrutiny by many countries and parliamentarians. There is the Internet, the environment, the incessant expansion of international crime, the anticompetitive rules and those transnational giants emerging more and more to become worrisome monopolies; there are ethics issues like genetically engineered organisms and biosafety. There are numerous questions that go beyond the boundaries of this parliament and that will have to be examined in a much broader context since we cannot escape globalization or continentalization.

This is all the time I had, but I will gladly answer questions.

[Pat O'Brien, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister for International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, let me take this opportunity to congratulate you on your appointment to the chair.

I listened to the comments of the member from the Bloc with some interest. I support his call for meetings of parliamentarians other than in this House of Commons. Is the hon. member aware that when the House is recessed in the month of March, there will be in this very Chamber a meeting of elected members of parliament from throughout the Americas? As a member of parliament in this House he is certainly more than welcome to participate and I hope he will have the chance to do so.

[Stéphan Tremblay, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean—Saguenay, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yes, I am aware of it. I also know that there are some tensions between parliamentary groups, between COPA, FIPA and others, and it is unfortunate. Yes, I will certainly attend the meeting. We should also think about how tough it is to hold these kinds of meetings.

I had the opportunity to attend two meetings of international parliamentarians, the first one when the agreement on the prohibition of anti-personnel landmines was ratified in Mozambique and the second one at the Forum of Federations at Mont-Tremblant.

I can say though that in such meetings it is hard to have in-depth ongoing discussions like the ones we have in committee where we meet once a week, on a regular basis.

There are still obstacles to be overcome but I will definitely take part in such events. In fact, I promote them. I said earlier that it was not just about having a few cocktails, but that it was important to be able to address major issues.

Will we one day have an assembly sitting not just a few days but several weeks? Are we moving toward some kind of continental parliament? I am not talking about a continental government, but rather a continental parliament or even a world parliament where we could debate these issues.

I do not pretend to have the answers to all these questions, but I think we should look to the future and find forward looking solutions to some of today's problems.

[Pat O'Brien, Liberal, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I did not take the member's question as rhetorical so I will respond by saying that given the number of bilateral groups that exist in various countries around the world, I cannot think of a nation that is more connected to the world scene than Canada. As a member of parliament, I feel that I have a tremendous myriad number of opportunities, as does my colleague, to have tremendous regular input with people from virtually every country in the world that we interact with.

The member spoke about a lack of consultation and things being done in secret. It boggles my mind to hear those kind of comments coming from the Bloc today. Indeed there were questions posed in question period that followed that misperception.

Is the member aware that there is a government website and that the government receives comments daily from Canadians, including from the province of Quebec? Is the member aware that the government continues to receive written submissions from NGOs and stakeholders?

Is the member aware that 10 days ago there was a meeting with the Minister for International Trade and the trade ministers of all the provinces, including the important province of Quebec, where all these issues were discussed at great length? Is the member aware that the Minister for International Trade met in Quebec with NGOs such as Oxfam-Quebec. Is he aware of this extensive consultation?

[Stéphan Tremblay, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean—Saguenay, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I know that this kind of consultation is, unfortunately, not necessary. I will give an example.

Last fall, there was a meeting of the ministers of finance and the governors of the central banks of the G20. At that time, the Minister of Finance, who defined the G20 as a kind of board of governors of the world economy, met with a number of NGOs, or non-governmental organizations.

I wanted to take part, but what was I told? “No, it is for NGOs only”. So there was no open debate. The media was excluded. There is still a long way to go before there is any real transparency.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today on the Bloc Quebecois motion calling upon the government to bring any draft agreement on the free trade area of the Americas before the House so that it may be debated and put to a vote before ratification by the Government of Canada.

I wish to begin by reacting to the comments by the parliamentary secretary informing us today in the House that there is an Internet site which provides a method of consultation with the public and the NGOs.

Naturally, I thank the Canadian government for making this available to Canadians and Quebecers. If it wants to be really transparent in its consultation mechanisms, however, let it make the Canadian position public before the negotiations.

There is, of course, a consultation mechanism. What we have been trying to find out for weeks in this House, however, is the real position of the Canadian government only a few months or weeks away from the summit of the Americas, to be held in Quebec City in April.

I am not opposed to free trade, let me point out, far from it. I am one of the supporters of more open trade with the world. Today, I want to share some concerns about social and labour rights. Later on, the hon. member for Laurentides will elaborate on these issues. I would like to focus my comments on my concerns about the protection of environmental rights.

With the summit of the Americas just months away, in light of how the texts of the multilateral agreement on investment were negotiated, in light of the fact that we found out about the content of the negotiations on the Internet, and in light of the secrecy surrounding the talks on NAFTA's environmental clauses, I have every reason to be concerned about the upcoming negotiations.

The Bloc Quebecois is asking the federal government to negotiate environmental clauses within the trade agreements. This is critical. Since it is important to know where we are headed, let us look at what was done in the past.

In the case of the free trade agreement with the United States, we will recall that the environmental issue was raised as early as in 1991. Thanks to the effectiveness and involvement of all these organizations, these NGOs, especially those from Canada and the United States, which were allowed to speak to some extent, a final text including several environmental clauses was ready by 1992, so much so in fact that, at the time, the free trade agreement was dubbed the green agreement. Some were concerned that there would be a grey agreement. Quite the contrary. The so-called green agreement allowed a certain number of environmental provisions to be included.

I simply recall the preamble of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which states that the implementation of this agreement must be undertaken in a manner consistent with environmental protection.

I also recall article 104 of the Free Trade Agreement, which provides for the principle of primacy in the implementation and application of international agreements dealing with the environment.

I will mention two agreements, the Basel convention on the control of transboundary movements of hazardous waste and the international agreement on the environment. That is the Montreal protocol on the ozone layer.

Article 104.1 of the agreement provides for the upholding of these international agreements in the implementation of the Free Trade Agreement.

It can therefore be said that the North American Free Trade Agreement is open, that it contains environmental standards, and that it goes further as far as the environment protection standards are concerned. Further than the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, and further than the GATT.

Today, people would like to see an open debate take place. There is certainly room for improvement. I will come back to the Free Trade Agreement.

People would like to see a stronger article 114 in NAFTA. This article deals precisely with sanctions, the possibility of recourses in the whole issue of pollution havens, by discouraging polluters when they come to pollute an environment.

Moreover, we think that, in future negotiations, there should be a strengthening of what has been created in the Free Trade Agreement with the United States, the commission for environmental co-operation.

We want that commission to be strengthened and given a clearer mandate, so that it can offset the power of large industries and big corporations on the international stage. The commission must be strengthened and given the ability to set up inquiries and table reports more regularly. Important meetings must be held between trade and environment officials on the implementation of free trade agreements in order to integrate environmental concerns.

We also want, in the summit of the Americas negotiations, the relation between investors and governments to be taken into account. We are concerned. When we consider the legal situation, when we consider the current challenges under the North American Free Trade Agreement, particularly in relation to chapter 11 on the relations between investors and governments, we see that a number of environmental regulations, in all three countries, have been challenged by investors.

Some investors and some corporations feel the environmental legislation in all three NAFTA member countries is too restrictive and have decided to challenge it. We must be vigilant. An expert on free trade agreements said he was deeply concerned about this situation.

Currently, there are two trends in the negotiations of the agreements for the free trade area of the Americas. One is to isolate environmental questions by redirecting them to other forums, such as the WTO or the OAS. But a new approach is being developed in which the aim is to consolidate the whole environmental aspect of free trade agreements. We support this model.

What we want as well, is to renegotiate the clauses of NAFTA in order to exclude the whole issue of water as a natural resource. I understand that water is not currently a commodity, it is not considered to be such, but basically we want water, as a natural resource, not to be considered a commodity and not to become an item for export.

In closing, I will quote a former Premier of Quebec, now an expert on free trade, Pierre-Marc Johnson, who said recently:

The way to the next summit of the Americas in 2001 in Quebec City is therefore unclear, and many obstacles to the inclusion of environmental issues in NAFTA must be removed.

In 1994, NAFTA was greeted as the greenest agreement in history. It remains to be seen whether history will repeat itself.

[Keith Martin, Canadian Alliance, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I compliment the Bloc on bringing this important issue to the forefront.

I would like to ask the hon. member a couple of very important questions on the issue of globalization. We heard earlier today, and the government would agree, that much of the opposition to globalization and to the World Trade Organization, like we saw in Seattle, has to do with actual misnomers. Many of these organizations and groups are in fact opposing that which they claim they want to support, such as the poor, environmental rules and regulations, job protection, minimum wages and many other issues.

I wonder whether the hon. member is prepared to work with members from across the party line in developing a movement within the House so that we can get the truth out about free trade, and ensure that the WTO and other forums that are engaging in freer trade ensure that they have an open discussion on the issues of environmental protection, labour laws, rules and regulations, worker protection and many of these other issues?

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is taking words out of my mouth. This is the essence of the motion. I hope that if the parliamentary secretary wants to intervene during the time I am allotted, he will not repeat that there is already an Internet site. We all know as parliamentarians that the site exists. However, I would like this government after it has consulted NGOs and the public to make public the documents Canada will use in its negotiations at the summit in April.

We hope that, in the principles to be set forth and as part of Canada's position in the negotiations, which, unfortunately, seems to have been given over to professional negotiators, as the parliamentary secretary told us, we will find protection of social rights, of the rights of workers and of the environment.

[Pat O'Brien, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister for International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague made reference to NGOs and to the process of consultation.

Does he feel that it is necessary for the government to hear from NGOs and from civil society in the FTAA consultative process? Does he feel that that is a wise thing to do? If he does would he speak to his colleague in the Bloc who preceded him who, if I heard him correctly and I am sure I did, felt that it was not necessary to consult with NGOs? Is there a common voice from the Bloc today or am I hearing a contradiction?