Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst.
I rose at this time in particular because I sensed the debate is nearing an end. I want to spend a few minutes speaking about the impact that the trade agreements, NAFTA in particular, have had on the environmental position in the country.
Throughout this debate there have been various references made to some of the cases that have arisen. The one I want to mention, because I do not think it has been touched upon other than in passing, is the S.D. Myers v Canada case. The company was suing Canada, as it was allowed to do under the NAFTA agreement, because we would not export hazardous waste to the United States. We closed our borders to that.
We had the sovereign country of Canada taking a very environmentally sound position, one in fact that we were required to take under the Basel convention which deals with transboundary movement of hazardous waste. We were required under that convention to deal with our own hazardous waste. S.D. Myers wanted to treat our hazardous waste in the United States. When we closed our borders to that, the company sued us and won the decision. Canada ended up being punished for being a good international citizen, if I could put it that way. We followed the convention that we entered into in good faith with a number of other global partners but were then confronted under NAFTA to breach that convention.
One of the lawyers looked at this and speaking of the S.D. Myers v Canada decision said “It offers an interpretation of NAFTA rules that is so vague and confusing that it is tantamount to saying Canada is in breach of its NAFTA obligations because we say so”. I will come back to this later because one of the points I want to make is about the impact of NAFTA and trade agreements on our sovereignty, and more important on our democracy.
The other case I want to deal with is the Metalclad case to which other speakers have referred. From the environmentalist standpoint, it shows the essential lack of integrity that is part of the whole trade arrangement. I mean integrity in terms of protecting the environment.
This case involved a relatively impoverished municipality being faced with a claim that it had to accept toxic waste. Anyone would say that a municipality could not be forced to accept the waste. There is no arrangement in the world that should make a municipality take into its relatively impoverished municipal structure, by international standards, a huge toxic waste. Lo and behold to its surprise and shock it was told that it had to accept the dump. As we all know, that case is under appeal. Given the past practises of interpretations under NAFTA, one has to wonder about the possibility or even hope of success on that appeal. There are also a number of other cases.
A resolution was passed a week or so ago in the House and was supported by all parties I believe, except the NDP. It was moved by our friends in the Bloc. We voted against it out of concern for the environment. The resolution dealt with the softwood lumber issue. If we continue to go into these types of trading arrangements, we continue to expose ourselves to the types of rulings I just mentioned.
What we are really talking about in a trading arrangement, whether it be with the United States, Mexico or the rest of the hemisphere, is one that recognizes the sovereignty of Canada, recognizes democracy and recognizes our rights as a country to protect our environment, human rights and labour standards. We hear these themes on a continuous basis.
I would like to speak briefly about democracy. I made a list of the abrogation of democracy that we see and have seen since the free trade agreement which came in in the late eighties. At the top of that list is our loss of sovereignty. Faceless bureaucrats sit someplace making decisions that affect us.
In spite of the comments from my friend from Alberta, we have a situation where our youth feel that the only way they can express their opposition to these agreements is by taking to the streets, not as he suggested with violence in mind but simply exercising their democratic right to say this is their country, they live here and they have a right in terms of freedom of expression to say what the country is doing is wrong. What will they be faced with? Barricades and what, in effect, will amount to a police state in Quebec City in the latter part of April. This is something I can attest to very strongly. We faced the same thing in my home riding last June.
There is no opportunity in effect within the existing parliamentary system for these people to be heard. We do not get to vote on it. We do not even get to see the text. We are elected officials, elected by our constituents to come here and represent them and to act in their best interest. In fact we are muzzled.
One issue we will have to debate in the coming months and years is the alternatives which are available to us in what would be a much more democratic and useful trading arrangement with the rest of the world.