Mr. Speaker, I said that I was very anxious to speak. I will continue to talk about the general principle of human rights and free trade agreements.
Free trade agreements are signed with an economic goal in mind and they must result in benefits. The free trade agreement with Colombia will essentially favour two groups: mining companies, which, through government help, will have access to Colombian subsoil and the Colombian government, which will receive taxes and so on from these mining companies. Why would they think that Colombians, that everyday people in Colombia, could benefit from this free trade agreement?
They can say that they are concurrently negotiating a human rights agreement. However, negotiating an agreement and taking concrete action to improve the human rights situation are two completely different things.
I was involved in the union movement for a number of years and, like my colleague, I am interested in the social aspects of what is happening in my riding. It is the balance of power that drives the relationship between the workers and the employers. If there is no local balance of power, there needs to be a national or regional balance. If that balance does not exist, the human rights situation will not improve and there will be no unions or laws to protect workers.
I am truly dumbfounded by the debate on this bill. My colleague said that farmers from out west could sell their products—wheat, oats or barley—to Colombia. If Canada were to do that, it should be because Colombians are not able to grow these grains to feed themselves. But, this is supposedly their primary resource.
What will Colombians gain from this agreement? Some might ask me why the government signed this agreement. It signed it because it thought it was in its own best interests and it did not need people's support. Everything I have read clearly shows that the mining companies are the ones who will benefit. They can move in and have, what I believe, is the other kind of free trade agreement.
First there was the FTA, even though the rest of Canada did not want it and had it imposed on them. Nevertheless, that agreement did not affect trade between states. Why not? Because no one could file a complaint without going through the state.
In the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement, which has support from both sides of the House, it is not the state that can lodge a complaint if there is a problem in a mine, but rather the company. The fact that companies can lodge international complaints directly against Colombia without Canada's consent is something new.
When two states have a relationship, they can negotiate to find a balance, but in this case, no one is trying to achieve such a balance.
A company might have expected to make a profit by setting up in a given location because it wanted to use the water from a river, for instance. If it cannot use the river because it is drying up or because farmers are forcing it out, that company could sue Colombia—according to the bill—for the profits it is losing. It makes no sense.
People are saying they want to help Colombia, but this will not help that country.
I invite my hon. colleges who are standing with their parties to take a close look at the balance of power underlying this agreement. It is not about trying to improve things through trade across borders that is beneficial to both parties, even though a free trade agreement normally tries to improve the situation for both parties.
I will close by saying that I read in the report that the Standing Committee on International Trade has expressed countless reservations about this free trade agreement, that it even went to Colombia and unfortunately learned that the government had proposed this free trade agreement before the committee could make any recommendations.
As the members have probably guessed, I do not support the bill.