Madam Speaker, I rise on another very important subject, the subject of democracy and the growing assault by corporate powers on democracy in the context of NAFTA and the proposed FTAA agreement.
On February 20 of this year I asked a question of the Minister for International Trade concerning Metalclad Corporation, which was at that time before the British Columbia supreme court defending its NAFTA right to run a toxic waste dump in Mexico, ignoring the health and environmental concerns of elected local and state governments.
I asked the Liberal government to intervene in this case and to speak out strongly against the impact of the chapter 11 investor state provision in NAFTA in these circumstances. I held a press conference with CUPE and Greenpeace pointing out the impact of chapter 11, the investor state provision, on democracy itself.
In this case members of the small Mexican community of Guadalcazar said they did not want to allow a toxic waste dump in their community. They had already seen the impact on their children and on the environment of the existing toxic waste facility there. They said no and Metalclad under the investor state provisions of NAFTA sued the government of Mexico.
Just a few days ago we learned that it had won before a secret tribunal and the B.C. supreme court just upheld the award of millions of dollars. This is an outrage and an attack on democracy itself.
Once again I call on the Canadian government today to speak out clearly and strongly against an investor state provision in the FTAA. The Minister for International Trade said he was opposed to it last year. Now he says he is in favour of it. He says it has worked well. In fact it has not worked well at all in the case of MMT and Ethyl Corporation, in the suit by United Parcel Service against the public post office in Canada and in a number of other cases such as the Methanex case. We as New Democrats say that this corporate attack on democracy has to stop.
More and more local councils are recognizing this as well. The city of Ottawa just passed a motion calling on the Canadian government not to sign any trade deal that includes this kind of investor state provision. The city of Vancouver was the first to do that.
I am calling today on our government to show that leadership and make it very clear that we believe in democracy. We still do not know the position of the Government of Canada. It has not posted any position on investment on its website. The text that was supposed to have been made public is still secret. We are still waiting for that text to be made public.
Ultimately, democracy, human rights and the environment must come ahead of corporate power and corporate profits. There must be no chapter 11 investor state provision. Metalclad made that very clear. The people of Mexico, the people of Canada, the people of the Americas are saying no to this attack on democracy. I call today on the government to defend democracy itself.