moved:
Motion No. 1
That Bill C-2 be amended by deleting Clause 7.
Motion No. 2
That Bill C-2 be amended by deleting Clause 12.
Motion No. 3
That Bill C-2 be amended by deleting Clause 48.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the report stage amendments but I must say that these are the most egregious circumstances imaginable.
As we well know, the trade committee, which was supposed to vet and hold, as the Liberal Party promised, full and comprehensive hearings on Bill C-2, did not do that. The Liberals and Conservatives combined to shut down the hearings. It is for that reason the NDP is bringing forward these report stage amendments.
The Liberal and Conservative majority on the trade committee refused to hear from the Canadian Labour Congress and some of the largest trade unions in the country, such as the National Union of Public and General Employees and the Public Service Alliance of Canada. As we know, these are labour activists, people simply trying to improve the working conditions of themselves and their co-workers.
More trade union activists are killed in Colombia than anywhere else on earth. One would expect that the promise by the Liberal Party to have full and comprehensive hearings would have come to pass, but that was absolutely betrayed.
The Liberals not only refused to hear from the Canadian Labour Congress and labour activists from some of Canada's largest unions, they also refused to hear from any members of the labour movement from Colombia. These are people who often give their lives trying to improve working conditions in Colombia because of the immense brutality of the paramilitary organizations that are affiliated with the Colombia government. They refused to hear from any of the non-government activists affiliated with the labour movement.
Labour activists in Colombia, who often do their work as volunteers with threats to their lives and those of their families, simply wanted to go before the trade committee and give their points of view on 90% of the remaining labour movement in Colombia, not the government-affiliated labour movement but trade union activists who comprise 90% of the labour movement there. The Liberals and Conservatives said no to hearing from those labour activists. They said no to hearing from Afro-Colombians, individuals suffering the brunt of the brutal government-linked paramilitary groups that, there is no other way to put it, brutally slaughter hundreds of activists every year.
Rather than the trade committee hearing from African Colombians, aboriginal Colombians, the free labour movement in Colombia, not the government-sponsored part of the labour movement, rather than hearing from Canada's largest unions and labour activists from the Canadian Labour Congress, it closed out debate on Bill C-2. Through a pretty thuggish process, it simply shut out all of those groups and many civil society organizations and individuals, all of whom had written to members of the trade committee to appear before the committee. Then, in the space of just a few minutes per clause, it moved to rubber stamp this trade bill.
As we know, there is the so-called Liberal amendment that requires nothing more or less than the Colombian government to report on itself annually. I guess one of the reasons the Liberals moved closure on this issue before committee was that the witnesses who came forward were very clear about the fact that this amendment, which would force the Colombian government to report on itself, is simply not credible given its lies and deception.
What the committee heard from the CCIC, no less, was that there could be a historic precedent to put in place some independent and impartial human rights monitoring and evaluation both prior to and during this process. Quoting from the organization's testimony before the committee, it stated, “...the damage from a non-credible process is high...”.
What we have are no full and comprehensive hearings and a non-credible process that has been added in allowing the Colombian government to report on itself. The Liberals and Conservatives rammed this bill through without the due and appropriate consideration, without even hearing from the folks who the trade committee is bound to hear from. It is absolutely outrageous.
Our report stage amendments endeavour to tackle these issues: the lack of credibility and lack of process around this; and the fact that the Liberal Party has completely betrayed its past. I think it is fair to say that in the past, under previous leaders, the Liberal Party did have some legitimate connection to human rights. When we look at the history of the Liberal Party, there were times when the Liberal Party stood up for human rights issues. However, that is not the case today under the current leader. I believe profoundly that is one of the reasons that the Liberal Party is in such difficulty in the polls. People in this country want to choose between something more than far right to extreme right points of view.
In the Colombian trade deal, we have a government that, through its secret police, through its military and through its affiliated paramilitary organizations, has been nothing less than brutal with dissidents, the people who stand up for labour rights and human rights.
The NDP offered about 100 amendments to this trade agreement. What we talked about and what we put forward at committee stage was the very clear desire from the labour movement and human rights organizations across this country and in Colombia to have an independent and impartial human rights assessment prior to any implementation of this trade deal.
Given the fact that there are more serious human rights violations around labour activists in Colombia than anywhere else in the world and that, according to many sources, there are more forced and violent displacements and thefts of land in Colombia than anywhere else in the world, most of it done through organizations affiliated with the Colombia government, as well as human rights violations by the guerrillas operating in Colombia, no one is proposing offering a reward for those human rights violations. We, in this corner of the House, steadfastly resist offering a reward to the Colombian government for repeatedly bad behaviour.
The Colombian government might have a slick public relations firm but, quite frankly, the violations and the many reports speak for themselves. The fact is that we had more witnesses asking to come before committee than the trade committee has seen since I have been in Parliament in the last six years, and yet there was a closing off and refusal to hear systematically from human rights organizations, from activists involved in human rights work, work with the aboriginal community and work with the African-Colombian community, and labour activists.
Our many amendments that were brought forward called for an independent and partial human rights assessment, among many other things, prior to this bill being implemented and also to put in place a system so that if the Colombian government did not keep its commitments the trade agreement could be abrogated.
All of those amendments were refused despite the fact that two years ago, when the trade committee actually went down to Colombia, we had a unanimous recommendation that the Conservative government not proceed any further with this trade agreement until an independent and impartial human rights evaluation could be undertaken to determine to what extent this would have a negative impact on human rights.
Although that was unanimously agreed to at the time, the Conservatives stepped back within 24 hours and tried to, under pressure, I imagine, from the PMO, distance themselves from the report. However, it passed unanimously at committee. It is only the change in Liberal leadership that has led to the Liberal Party completely betraying its tradition of standing up on human rights.
The fact that we brought forward these amendments, that we were very clear about the importance of rebuilding the bill with a human rights focus and that so many organizations throughout the country said that they wanted to step forward and speak to this issue, I think attests to the fact that Canadians are profoundly concerned about the direction this Parliament is taking.
I have had the privilege of speaking at a number of public events throughout this country. I have been speaking about this issue at public events in Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes and western Canada. Canadians are very concerned about this issue.
To close, I will give one example in the riding of Davenport where 200 people came out to speak to the issue of concerns about the Liberal Party's stand on human rights and this pushing forward of the Colombian trade deal. People in Davenport and so many other ridings across the country want to see this bill receive the sober second thought these report stage amendments are designed--