Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak today to the opposition motion proposed by the Bloc Quebecois member for Joliette and seconded by myself.
This is indeed in very direct continuity with the reflections proposed to us throughout the past week by the peoples' summit, the summit of the Americas and the public participation in the protest, as well as the public's desire to have a free trade agreement that respects social, economic and cultural aspects as well as all other concerns, so that we will have not just free trade within the Americas but also a society that will be able to reap its benefits.
There was one main message for me. As a parliamentarian who took part in the parliamentary forum at the people's summit and as someone who took part in the peaceful march, I realized that this was an extraordinary march which took place in Quebec City to show that people from all walks of life, women's groups, youth, unions and ordinary members of the public, simply wished to say “Yes, we can agree with a free trade area, but not the one that we know nothing about yet, the one about which we have seen only the trade side. We want to have a society that allows people to achieve things”.
For me, the motion that was moved today, practically the day after the summit, in a way ensures that our role as parliamentarians will continue. The motion reads as follows:
That the government put in place an open and ongoing process to keep Parliament informed of negotiations to establish a Free Trade Area of the Americas so as to allow parliamentarians to debate it and civil society to be consulted before official ratification by the government, authorized by Parliament.
Everywhere, this was the message I received from people. They are telling us “The FTAA is something major. It seems fairly complicated”. We had NAFTA, but some of the provisions in it do not seem to be working as well as they could, such as chapter 11 and the defence of rights issue. We are also in a very different situation, where the size of countries' economies and their prosperity are completely different.
For instance, 66% of all economic activity is concentrated in the United States and only 34% in the other countries. So, adjustments need to be made.
That is the message that was sent to us by citizens who want their parliamentarians to act as watchdogs, to ensure every step of the way that whatever agreement is reached is something useful that we all want. The worst thing would be to say: “Parliament will look into this at the end of the negotiations in 2005. We will see what came out of the negotiations”.
What we have come to realize from the current practice and also the answers the Prime Minister gave us today about the enforcement of chapter 11 of NAFTA is that we need to scrutinize things very carefully because in negotiations a lot of things are settled at the last minute. Concessions are made and our society and our young people should not have to pay for them. This is probably why I have given this matter considerable thought and I do hope this motion will be adopted.
Many of the young people who took part in the protest of the people's summit were there to say: “It is the world we will have to live in that you are defining and we want to ensure that this will be done according to criteria we find both interesting and acceptable. In the past, social gains were made by some countries and we have to ensure that we benefit from those and that everyone else does”.
Some environmental concerns were expressed by young people in a particularly brilliant manner. There were also concerns about working conditions and the whole issue of child labour. All these situations contribute to making this an important issue.
We must be aware, as parliamentarians, of how important it is to adopt this motion. It is important to adopt it in its initial version, but even more so in its amended version. If we cannot manage to adopt the amendment, at least let us adopt the main motion. However the amendment includes a very important element. It says “before official ratification by the government, authorized by parliament”. In other words, let us give back the power to those who were elected by the public, to those who received a mandate from the public.
The Prime Minister said that “it is during an election that these things are settled”. This is quite possible and we should all be aware of that. This is something I have been thinking about and I said it in the text. Parliamentarians and those who wish to become parliamentarians some day cannot ignore this plea, otherwise they will stop being parliamentarians or they never will become parliamentarians.
For those who did not listen to what was said last weekend, the next time there is an election in Quebec, in Canada or anywhere in the world, people will want to make sure that what is being negotiated by their government regarding the FTAA is negotiated under certain conditions, include certain programs and yield the desired result. I say that because the message is that people no longer want agreements signed exclusively on the basis of trade. They no longer want to be told that increased trade will create wealth. Increased trade can help to create wealth, but there is a responsibility that has not been adequately fulfilled by governments over the last ten years, and I am talking about the distribution of wealth. It is a responsibility of governments.
The private sector can create wealth, but it does not have the full responsibility of ensuring its distribution. It is the state's responsibility. Personally, I believe that the state is always better served when it is under the control of those who were elected by the people.
As parliamentarians, we have a responsibility. The people sent us a clear message in this regard. Now that dust is settling on the summit of the Americas and that negotiations are beginning, we must ensure, as parliamentarians, that we will have the necessary tools to follow up on it.
The motion states “That the government put in place an open and ongoing process”. My personal position on this is a suggestion that could be heeded. This open and ongoing process could easily, in my opinion, be a special parliamentary committee, consisting of members representing all aspects of negotiation, not just those having to do with trade, but social and environmental aspects as well, so that there is regular follow-up and so that, when there are progress meetings to move negotiations forward, there will be watchdogs in parliament as well.
The summit of the Americas left us with two images: one of people engaged in violent demonstrations on the perimeter and the other of people, on both sides of the wall, who were unable to address the basic issues. So they focussed on the wall. This was as true of heads of state on their side as it was of people on the other side, some of whose actions were reprehensible.
What the public is asking of these parliamentarians is that they negotiate in a civilized fashion, in their choice of words, in the ideas they put forward, and in their defence of opinions, so that when we are judged in the next election, it will be on the basis of having assumed our responsibilities and having said “Yes, we will conduct a regular follow-up and yes, ultimately, we will vote on the proposal. If it is acceptable, we will vote in favour, and if it is not, we will vote against”. This brings significant pressure to bear in negotiations.
Heads of state were not given a blank cheque. Furthermore, they were only too aware of this. Their mandate is to come up with a free trade agreement with a human face. If they do not fulfil this part of the mandate, the mandate will simply be taken away. However for this to happen, the House of Commons, like all parliaments concerned, must be able to make its views and position known, because we are the representatives of the public
We just had a summit where we were told that there were all sorts of people, including extremists.
Finally, the Comité de mobilisation du Cégep de Rivière-du-Loup, a group of students interested in this issue, came up with about ten recommendations to make the FTAA acceptable. Here is one of these recommendations:
That the FTAA not be established solely on an economic basis and that it not be a threshold to extend NAFTA but, rather, that it create a social balance in relation to NAFTA.
There are many such recommendations and they provide a framework that I find truly exciting. Today, this parliament has a responsibility to make a conscious decision and to ensure that negotiations will be adequately monitored.
This is what the public expects and I hope the government majority will have the courage to follow up on the message sent to it by the public.