Debates of May 10th, 2010

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Madam Speaker, my rebuttal will be simple. Let us just set the record straight. The funding for the Atlantic coastal action program has not been terminated. The shift to an ecosystems based approach is not simple. It takes time to do it the right way and the best way for Atlantic Canadians and for all Canadians. Above all else, we are else committed to doing this the right way. That is our responsibility to Canadians and we take that responsibility seriously.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Madam Speaker, I was going to rise in the House to ask the parliamentary secretary why the government was trying to evoke closure in the Standing Committee on International Trade on discussions around the Canada-Colombia trade deal. Dozens of groups, labour unions, human rights organizations, experts in human rights have all requested to come before the trade committee and the government has moved to close things down immediately without hearing from those groups.

We have heard from business lobbyists, who play an important role, and it is good to hear from them. However, to say that in any way the government actually understands the human rights situation in Colombia, when it refuses to hear from human rights or labour organizations, underscores the hypocrisy of the government.

However, I do not have to ask my question any more because it has become very clear over the last few days why the government has moved to shut down debate. First, there was the explosion of the secret police scandal in Colombia. The Colombian secret police is involved systematically in intimidating and killing Colombian dissidents, people who stand up for labour and human rights.

I will cite one as part of the DAS secret police scandal. Journalist Claudia Julieta Duque said that it all started when the secret police started making phone calls telling her that her 10-year-old daughter would be cut into pieces. She stated:

They called saying they would leave her fingers all over my house, that they would rape her. Sometimes I received 70 threats in one day.

This journalist was considered a threat because she was investigating the murder of a renowned Colombian journalist. She found out that the threats came from the DAS, the Colombian secret police. She also said this about President Uribe:

The President had a speech against those opposing him...Those speeches were simultaneous with the actions of the secret police against us. There is a clear relation between a speech that accuses and a secret police that attacks.

The exposure of these secret police actions, killings and threats against friends and family, absolutely despicable criminal activity, is something that has exploded in the last few days. This would explain the government's haste to try to remove any discussion on Colombia and its refusal to hear from labour and human rights activists who have requested to come before committee.

Canadians expect that Canadian values will be upheld by Parliament and that when people request to come before committee, people who have expertise the government obviously does not have, the government should move to allow them to testify.

The second piece of evidence is the denunciation of the so-called election practices taking place in Colombia. After a pre-electoral observation mission, it has been reported that there is widespread fear in the Colombia population around this election, that there is coercion and intimidation of voters, misuse of identity documents, vote buying and selling, illegal possession of identity documents, public moneys transferred for illicit uses in the election and control of public transportation to prevent voters from moving freely. In short, there is a situation where the government is deliberately using violence, fear and intimidation to try to get the result it wants.

Not one Canadian would stand for elections that are not free and fair, yet the government has tried to ram this bill through committee and refuses to hear evidence from people who can speak directly to this issue. The question is simple. Why the refusal to hear from Canadians who know about human rights and can inform the government as to why it is doing the wrong thing?

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Madam Speaker, it is certainly the hon. member's privilege to go from the question he had actually planned to ask, strictly on human rights, to another issue. I will try to deal with both.

The public can decide whether or not to take the hon. member's allegations as fact, or maybe the public would be wise to do a bit of investigation into the issue themselves, read up on the facts, listen to what everyone is saying about this particular subject, and ensure that what the hon. member has said is correct.

The same hon. member came to committee a couple of months ago on this very same issue, with breaking news that two families of indigenous people had been murdered in the jungle by the government forces. Of course, all hon. members at committee were outraged that such a thing could occur. We realize there is a lot of violence in Colombia, but that is a pretty serious allegation.

When we actually studied that allegation, we found out that the two families of indigenous people were not murdered by the government in Colombia at all. They were murdered by the socialist insurrection, or FARC, in the jungles in Colombia because they were narco-traffickers who are as much the cause as the paramilitaries of individual human rights abuses in Colombia. However, let us be clear. Certainly, I would invite hon. members and citizens to check the record on that.

The government has already explained many times that human rights are at the centre of our relationship with Colombia. We monitor the human rights situation in Colombia and regularly raise human rights issues with Colombian officials at the highest level in both Bogota and Ottawa. We hold formal senior level consultations on human rights with Colombia. We also raise human rights issues in Colombia in a multilateral form, such as the universal periodic review mechanism of the UN Human Rights Council and the International Labour Organization.

Furthermore, when we signed the FTA, we also signed a labour cooperation agreement and an agreement on the environment. In the labour cooperation agreement, both countries committed to ensure that their laws respect the International Labour Organization's declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work, which uphold human rights in a number of areas.

Without question, human rights challenges remain in Colombia. However, in recent years the government of Colombia has demobilized over 30,000 paramilitaries and weakened the two main armed groups. Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial summary or arbitrary executions, said in June 2009, following his visit to Colombia, that while vulnerable groups remain threatened in Colombia, there was also a dramatic improvement in the security situation since 2002. The hon. member does not have to take that hon. gentleman's word for that, but I will certainly take it.

The total number of homicides has been substantially reduced. The security levels in many parts of the country have been transformed and we continue, as Canadians, to support substantial development, peace and security activities in Colombia. DFAIT's global peace and security fund has disbursed over $18 million since 2006 on peace-building activities and efforts to pursue justice for victims of the conflict in Colombia.

This is not a simple conflict. This is not an easy conflict. This is a conflict that has gone on for decades. At the end of the day, what needs to be recognized here is that Colombia is making important headway on--

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

The hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Madam Speaker, what is clear is that murder is not something the government should be rubber-stamping. The murder rate of labour activists has increased over the last few years. The disappearances have increased over the last few years. The number of false positives, which is an innocent term which describes a horrifying reality of paramilitaries murdering innocent peasants and then dressing them up as guerrillas.

The fact is that the Colombian Association of Jurists talks about rampant sexual torture carried out by the secret police in Colombia, the paramilitary forces affiliated with the government that this member supports, and of course the Colombian military.

All of this is available if the member or any government member actually had the foresight to read the human rights reports coming through Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Mining Watch, or the Canadian Council of International Co-operation. All of those human rights reports explain what is actually happening in Colombia. If the hon. member had read those reports, he would know--

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Madam Speaker, I have been to Colombia. I have met dozens and dozens of Colombians. We have had dozens of human rights advocates and NGOs at committee. I have read thousands of words of testimony and listened to thousands of words of testimony.

The reality is that the situation in Colombia has improved. It has improved dramatically. Is the situation perfect? Absolutely not. No one is trying to pretend that it is; however, no one should ever say that it has not improved dramatically and substantially in a quantitative way from the situation that was there, certainly in the 1990s and early 2000s.

I think everyone in this House believes that human rights and increased prosperity through trade and investment are not mutually exclusive. At the same time the FTA was signed, we also signed a labour co-operation agreement and an environmental co-operation agreement. Under the terms of that agreement, we both have to uphold fundamental principles.

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6:50 p.m.)