Mr. Speaker, first I would like to say that we in Quebec have experienced a situation with foreign investment mining similar to but less dramatic than the one in Colombia.
Some 50 or 60 years ago, such investment yielded 1¢ a tonne. It was almost a free market. Those investments gave the government 1¢ for every tonne of iron ore. One cent! What is more, the miners' salaries were rock bottom.
Did the investments made at the time to extract our ore really contribute anything positive and allow Quebec to leave behind a bleak situation? Not at all. Those investments did not help. Well, that is what will happen in Colombia if investors are allowed to give minimal royalties to the government, which is not very strong, and pay minimum salaries because there are no laws to protect workers, or there are very few.
Unions are not strong enough to organize in Colombia and push for favourable conditions for the workers. They will end up in the same situation. It will amount to nothing more than exploitation.
This agreement with Colombia will protect investments such that they cannot be nationalized or taken over. Furthermore, if the investor feels wronged at any time, it can sue the Colombian government.
This agreement is being described as a balanced free trade agreement and there is talk of a common market. That is absolutely not the case. They are not interested in selling more automobiles. People in Colombia do not have money to spend on buying more automobiles. If our wheat is not sold in Colombia, it could be sold anywhere else in the world, what with the rising cost of food and the shortage of food around. It is not in the interest of Canada to conduct trade under this free trade agreement. The interest of Canada is to protect major Canadian investors wanting to extract raw materials in Colombia.
This is truly the height of the neo-liberalism of the past 30-odd years. It is not an agreement on trading goods, where producing goods will make money for a country. It has more to do with investment, making money on investments and exploiting a country to bring mined ore back to the fold.
So do not tell us that the agreement will be a balanced one in the interests of both parties. That is not the case. It will be of greater interest to Canadians and Canadian investors. I would not say that it is meant to protect only that kind of economy, since the economy is based on the production and the exchange of goods. At present, this agreement is not based on the exchange of goods, but rather on opportunities to go to Colombia to extract valuable raw materials.
That is why, as some of my colleagues have said, we oppose Bill C-23, which, we hope, will change drastically in committee, but we doubt it. In our opinion, trade is the foundation. We are also in favour of investment, but on the condition that investments are made with proper protections in place.
Chapter 11 of NAFTA does not protect people's interests. It was the beginning of a negative trend. The following has been said about chapter 11:
...foreign investors can apply directly to international courts, bypassing the filter of the public good that governments use;
That is one aspect of chapter 11. Here is another:
The concept of expropriation is so broad that any law that would reduce an investor's profits could represent an expropriation and lead to a lawsuit.
There is a third point that is also important and must be borne in mind:
...the amount of the lawsuit is not limited to the value of the investment but includes all potential future profits.
That is completely ridiculous.