Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the motion, “That, in view of the growing protectionism in the United States...this House calls upon the government to intervene forthwith and persistently with the United States administration and the Congress in order to protect Canadian jobs, and urge the United States to protect its international agreements, including the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization”.
I am reminded by my colleague of the words of President Obama two days ago, when he said:
I think it would be a mistake though, at a time when worldwide trade is declining, for us to start sending a message that somehow we're just looking after ourselves and not concerned with world trade. I think we need to make sure that any provisions that are in there are not going to trigger a trade war.
This is not the first time that the protectionist impulse has found expression in the United States, a protectionist impulse that is not unrelated to the economic crisis besetting the United States if not the global economic meltdown as a whole. In the months following the great stock market crash of 1929, and amidst the fear and uncertainty of that period, protectionist forces in the United States pushed for legislation that would shelter local industries and jobs. The result was, as we recall, the Smoot-Hawley act, which hiked tariffs to all-time highs on some 70 agricultural products and 900 manufactured items.
Economists are divided on whether the law, which touched off retaliatory measures from both Europe and Canada, turned a deep recession into a protracted depression. However, on one thing they do agree: these protectionist measures took a bad situation and made it worse. For example, between 1929 and 1934 world trade declined 66%. Much of that weakening can be blamed squarely on the Smoot-Hawley act.
Let us fast-forward to the 1980s, when the Government of Canada sought at the time to improve access to the United States markets to improve productivity and employment, encourage foreign direct investment, strengthen the competitiveness of Canadian firms in global markets and ensure the steady improvement of living standards for Canadians as a whole. Accordingly, in May of 1986, the Canadian and U.S. governments began to negotiate a free trade agreement. By October 19, 1987, this 20-chapter agreement was finalized. It came into effect on January 1, 1989.
This agreement included a schedule for the elimination of all tariffs on trade between Canada and the U.S. by January 1, 1998. Admittedly, the implementation of this agreement generated employment losses in some sectors and gains in others. However, on the whole, the economies of both countries became more integrated. Exports flowed to the United States, and in turn there was more U.S. investment in Canada and the like.
This brings me to NAFTA, the second of the three great trade agreements. In January of 1994, Canada, the U.S. and Mexico launched the North American Free Trade Agreement. Many of the same issues raised in the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement surfaced again with regard to NAFTA and found expression in the discussions and debate in this House. Canadian businesses wanted Mexico to open up for them, while organized labour and workers feared that Canadian businesses would relocate to Mexico to take advantage of lower labour costs and lower environmental standards.
At the same time, Canadian nationalists wanted assurances that Canadian sovereignty would be respected and that Canada could protect its culture, water, resources, and standards on health, safety, labour and social programs. Some provinces were also worried about the potential impact of NAFTA on specific regional industries, whether it was British Columbia's softwood lumber or Ontario's car manufacturing.
On the whole, I think one can say that the agreement did bring economic growth and rising standards of living for the citizens of all three countries, and that it established a strong foundation for future growth, however imperfect and inadequate some of the dimensions of that agreement may appear to be.
This brings me to the third of the final agreements, the WTO agreement. The WTO serves as an international organization representing 153 member states and 95% of total world trade. Its mandate is to supervise and liberalize international trade.
It operates under a spectrum of rules, which Canada and the U.S. contributed to, and we have a rule of law trade relation system.
What the three agreements, these three path-breaking developments, really have in common and which should underpin now our multilayered representation to the United States and Canada with respect to this protectionist impulse, are the following.
First, these are not just agreements on free trade, those which I have cited and referred to, but in fact they have ushered in a global culture of free trade.
Second, they reflect the highly integrated nature of both the American and Canadian economies and the harm that protectionism would have on our industry, commerce and the economy of both countries. However, what must be appreciated is how unique the bilateral trade relationship is. I will quote certain data:
The cross-border flow of goods and services added up to almost $700 billion in 2008. The United States absorbs roughly four-fifths of Canada's exports, and supplies nearly two-thirds of its imports. The Canadian market, in return, takes up more than one-fifth of U. S. exports and provides one-sixth of its imports. Canada is a larger market for U. S. goods and services than all 27 countries of the European Union combined.
The third principle is the importance of the rule of law underpinning the culture of free trade to which President Obama has referenced on more than one occasion.
Finally, the fourth principle is the internationalization of free trade, that free trade is not just a bilateral norm or even a regional norm, but it has become an international norm underpinned by a whole framework of international law.
The American president may be said to be a rule of law president. We saw this when among his first executive orders was an order to ban torture, to order the closing of Guantanamo and to ensure that the struggle against terror would be anchored in the rule of law.
We saw this when, during the electoral campaign and then again in his inaugural address, the President spoke of the rule of law underpinning American foreign policy, international relations, United Nations multilateralism and the promotion of human security. We see this also in his eschewing of protectionism, which could trigger, as he put it, a trade war instead of global free trade.
Therefore, I want to recommend that the rule of law not only underpin our bilateral relationships in the matter of free trade, but the entire Canada-U.S. relationship in the matter of international law, foreign policy and diplomacy as a whole in two respects, and I will close with these examples.
First, President Obama has spoken of the importance of and, indeed, his commitment to the prevention of genocide. As we meet, we are confronted with two instances on genocide in the 21st century, the state sanctioned incitement to genocide in Ahmadinejad, Iran, and the genocide by attrition in Darfur.
These remind us of the two great lessons of the last 60 years since the genocide convention was adopted on December 9, 194: first, that the Holocaust and the genocide that followed in the Balkans, Rwanda and Darfur occurred not because of any machinery of death but because of the state sanctioned incitement to genocide; and second, was that these mass atrocities occurred because of indifference and inaction on the part of the international community.
Therefore, we should convey our willingness to work with President Obama, first, to invoke the rule of law principle and to invoke the remedies under the genocide convention to hold Ahmadinejad, Iran to account. In other words, the genocide convention and its obligations are not just a policy option. They are international legal obligations. As joint state parties to the genocide convention, we should work in order to combat the crime that has already been committed under the genocide convention, namely the direct and public incitement to genocide.
The second is with regard to Darfur. We should work together with the American president to combat the genocide by attrition in Darfur and invoke the responsibility to protect principle under the rubric of the rule of law.
