Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to briefly make some comments on the motion introduced by the member for Joliette, Motion No. 391. I congratulate the member for bringing the motion before the House. It is an extremely important discussion and one that needs a good deal more public debate and parliamentary debate.
I guess I should not be surprised, but I never cease to be disappointed, that instead of really addressing the substantive issue that has brought forward the motion, what we heard from the government member who spoke was the usual hyperbolic ecstasy about how wonderful and flawless the free trade agreements have been into which the government has entered.
Although I did not manage to hear all of his comments due to another commitment, I did hear enough to know that basically what he was doing was waxing eloquent about how much satisfaction there is among investors with the provisions of this series of free trade agreements into which Canada has entered and would propose to further involve itself.
I have no doubt that it is true that in the main investors are quite pleased with the support of the government to put in place what has been acknowledged to be a unique provision in a trade agreement which is one, we could say, I think if we were to look at it superficially, to just address the question, of being evenhanded and fair in the treatment of investors.
However, I think if we were to look more closely at the concerns that arise from a great many individual citizens, a great many parliamentarians of not just one political stripe but several, and certainly among a good many countries that have had the opportunity to look at this issue from the point of view of whether they would want to see a chapter 11, as currently included in NAFTA, reproduced and further extended to all of North America, there are indeed substantive concerns that underlie the reservations that have been raised.
I think at the very heart is not the idea that any of the critics of chapter 11, any of those who feel that chapter 11 should be eliminated or massively renegotiated, is the concern that in fact what has happened is that the rights of citizens and, in some cases, the rights of communities, have been subjugated to the rights of investors.
I know that some who would critique those concerns would ask whether we were totally unconcerned that investors can face arbitrary measures that might result in unfair expropriation of property. We are not for a moment. There is the need, absolutely, to have a rules based system that governs international trade. Let me say clearly that is why the New Democratic Party has talked in the whole debate about fair trade. We made it clear that we are very much in favour of a rules based trading system.
The question is who will really get to craft, to shape the rules. Who will be the beneficiary and who will be the victim of rules if they are not evenhanded? I think that fundamentally it is the responsibility of governments to ensure that the ability of governments to act in the public interest is not just protected and preserved but in fact enhanced.
If there is one thing that has characterized a number of very alarming decisions that have been reached under this chapter 11 provision, which in our view needs to be overhauled, it is the subjugation of the public interest, the common good.
I could not believe my ears when I heard a member of the official opposition talking enthusiastically about how important it is to have regulations that provide important protections. These were welcome remarks to hear from those who have been so enthusiastic about deregulation on so many fronts embracing the importance of having regulations to govern trade relations as they should every other aspect of our economic and social relationships where there is the potential for the public interest to be overruled by powerful personal or private interests.
If we look at what has been at the heart of the Metalclad case and what has been at the heart of the MMT Ethyl Corporation case, it has been, in both of those cases, a real concern about the inability of citizens and communities to protect the public good. A suggestion was made that in the case of Metalclad the real problem was that Mexican laws were somehow inadequate or underdeveloped and therefore Metalclad had a claim to essentially say that they had interfered with its profits and therefore it had a basis for seeking redress.
Even if people are not familiar with all of the details of those cases, if what they are concerned about is protecting the public from environmental hazards, protecting the public from threats to public health, and it is determined that a municipality, in the case of Mexico, is not free to act on behalf of its citizens, then there is something wrong with the rules or the way in which the rules are being interpreted and enforced.
I do not think it is an accident that many municipal governments across this country have expressed alarm about this and some other provisions of the trade agreements into which the government has so enthusiastically entered or is trying to entice Canadians. The reality is that municipal governments are also there to protect the public interest. They have to be able to do so within a frame of reference and within a regulatory regime that allows them to act on behalf of the communities they were elected to represent.
It is regrettable in the extreme that the government appears to have moved from an earlier position. I heard this expressed again and again by the international trade minister who recognizes the problems with chapter 11. I remember on several occasions when the international trade minister stood in the House and agreed that there were serious problems with chapter 11, that chapter 11 needed to be revised and revamped because it could not be allowed for corporate interests and corporate profits to override, as has happened in several high profile cases; the public interest, the public health and the community health.
I see that my time is up. I hope there can be some further serious engagement around the issues that are at the very heart of Motion No. 391 that has been introduced for debate today.
Perhaps government members could explain how it is that the government went from having a critical analysis of the problems posed by chapter 11, that allow for investor interests and corporate profits to take precedence over individual, community, citizen and public interest, and we could move forward with understanding at least why there has been this kind of retreat from what seemed to be a welcome enlightenment, a welcome progressive insight by the government as to why this needed to be addressed.
I congratulate the member for Joliette for putting the motion before the House and I hope we will have some further constructive debate on the issue.