Mr. Speaker, if I sound a bit repetitious of my hon. colleague, I probably will be. First, I want to say at the outset that the NDP is not against trade, in fact, Canada is a trading nation, and we know that. We need to seek out new trading partners around the world in order to export and import goods and services. However, what we in the New Democratic Party are so concerned about is that the rights and privileges that we enjoy as a society are part of those benefits in terms of any fair trade or free trade deal that we have.
There is a difference. We in the NDP have advocated for many years for fair trade, not necessarily free trade, but fair trade where coffee growers in South America, for example, get a fair return on their investment, as well as textile workers, et cetera. We want to ensure that those people from formerly third world countries are not exploited to the benefit of a few companies or a few individuals here in Canada.
Most important, what is imperative from our perspective is that when we open up trade deals with countries, such as Colombia, that the environment and human and labour rights be first discussed long before anything about economics.
I heard my hon. colleague from Kings—Hants talk about when he was in Colombia and how he met individuals who joined the military or the other group because there were no other economic opportunities and thus they may have slipped into the drug trade and so on. If free trade, in the eyes of the government, were to prevent that from happening, what is going on in Mexico right now where we have a NAFTA deal with that country and there are thousands upon thousands of people involved in the drug trade. In fact, many people are being murdered in Mexico on a weekly basis because of this. The reality is that trade did not stop that.
When NAFTA and free trade were signed 20 years ago, it was the NDP that said that human and labour rights and environmental rights must be included in those deals, but it did not happen. They were put in as side deals. Where are the documents and the conversations that talk about those side deals? Where are those human rights and environmental rights for all Mexicans right now? One would need to search long and hard to be able to get them and to see what concrete action Canada, or any other nation for that matter, has taken.
This is our fear. We believe that if the Canadian government signs a free trade deal with Colombia, the next thing it will talk about is other deals with countries similar to that. Human rights and environmental rights in Colombia will not be monitored by the Canadian government nor any other foreign agency. It will just continue on as business as normal, which is our greatest fear.
We have a kindred spirit with the workers of Colombia and their unions, associations and religious institutions. We believe they have a right to live in peace, freedom and democracy. Yes, trade will expand those aspects but they cannot be used as a side deal. They cannot be used as something we will talk about later. They must be paramount in the initial discussions.
If Colombia is serious about forming a fair trade deal with Canada and Canada is serious about forming a fair trade deal with Colombia, then those issues can be discussed. They could be imprinted on the front pages of that trade deal and there could be serious cross-monitoring and observation to ensure that the human rights abuses, the labour abuses and the environmental degradation going on in that country come to a stop.
On a sidebar, we in this country, through something called schedule 2 of the mining regulations, allow mining companies to take a perfectly healthy lake like Sandy Pond in Newfoundland and destroy it and use it as a tailing pond. Instead of having an independent tailing system free and clear of any aquatic systems, we allow this perfectly healthy lake to be destroyed just for the benefit of the mining companies. If we do that in Canada, what makes us think that any mining company in Colombia would do any better? In fact, it would probably do worse. This is the type of hypocrisy we have in Canada.
We talk about environmental and human rights from the government perspective but the reality, in many cases, is that we do not even practise it in our own home. If we have these types of domestic laws in Canada, what would the Colombian government allow in any kind of a trade deal?
It sort of has the cart before the horse in this particular regard. We have said very clearly that human and environmental rights are first and economics, profits and companies are second. We believe that is the way to go. If we did that and set that as a shining example for Colombia, imagine what we could do in those particular aspects right now in the entire southern cone.
While I am up here, I have to give special kudos to a company called Just Us! Coffee in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. This company has done a tremendous job in fair trade tea, coffee and chocolate. It has gone completely past the government and organized these deals themselves to ensure that the producers and growers of these beans and chocolate get fair remuneration for their products. If one group of individuals can do this, imagine what we should be doing as a government. We should be ensuring that those on the bottom of the economic scale get the hand up we have been asking for.
I have heard the expression that a rising tide lifts all boats. It is absolutely correct, but a rising tide can also sink boats if it comes up too fast. The government and the official opposition like to talk about human rights in a parliamentary sense, but we never really get down to the brass tacks and actually see them negotiate these things first, long before the economic opportunities exist.
We want to reconfirm that the New Democratic Party is not against trade deals with countries around the world. We would like to ensure that the workers of Colombia, especially the union leaders, have the opportunity to engage in discourse with their government without fear of being murdered.
Many years ago we celebrated and commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Hungarian revolution. Thousands of Hungarians came over to Canada and commemorated the anniversary of being here for 40 years. I will never forget the sign they were displaying in the National Arts Centre. If I am not mistaken, some of Elvis Stojko's relatives said that it was nice to move to a country where politicians could retire and they are not executed.
That is what Canada is all about. We should be exporting these ideals around the world and especially in the country of Colombia. If we did that, I am sure the government would have our support. Until that happens, we have to raise our objections to these types of trade deals. In the long run, history has shown that it is workers and the environment that will suffer and very few companies will profit from this type of undertaking.