Mr. Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to speak to Bill C-46, the Canada-Panama bilateral free trade agreement.
We all know that in August 2009, the present government concluded negotiations with the Republic of Panama for a comprehensive free trade agreement designed to augment a previous agreement, the foreign investment promotion and protection agreement, called FIPA, that was signed between the previous Chrétien Liberal government and the Panamanian government in 1998.
The agreement before the House for debate includes service trade liberalization, principles and government procurement provisions, as well as one of the government's favourite processes, which is to sign side agreements on labour co-operation and the environment. I will say that we New Democrats are proud to say that those two things ought to be in the main text of any agreement, not in a side part of any agreement.
On September 23 of this year, the minister tabled the implementing legislation, Bill C-46. It behooves us to review the four main components of this, which include: free market access in goods and services, and that includes government procurement; investment protection provisions; labour agreement sections; and then an agreement on the environment.
I hasten to point out that we in the New Democratic Party are all eager to support trade agreements that benefit a majority of Canadian workers, farmers, small businesses and consumers. We all want trade agreements that work to achieve the larger societal goals of economic justice, poverty alleviation, healthier communities, pollution reduction, human rights and a healthy environment.
Unfortunately, my review of this documentation and the facts that surround it lead me to conclude that the Panama free trade agreement does not meet these goals.
I will review a couple of general thoughts before I go into some of the details.
First, it is important to point out that this deal is not about trade. I hear many members on the other side of the House comment that if one opposes this deal, one must therefore be opposed to trade. That is simply a red herring and it is a strawman argument. That is not the case at all and anybody who has any intellectual honesty will recognize that at once.
Canada trades with many countries of the world. We trade all the time. We trade with Panama and have been for a long time. The statistics that we have covered many times in this House show that we have an annual trade allotment of about $140 million a year with Panama. That is a small amount, of course, but it shows that trade is going on between the two countries.
Trade goes on between Canada and many countries.
The issue before this House is one of to whom we should advance the preferential concept of free trade. Let us pause and just reflect for a moment about what free trade really means. Free trade means the mutual elimination of tariffs on goods and services between the two countries. It allows goods and services to flow across the border into each other's country with no duties whatsoever attached to them.
In my view and in the view of the New Democratic Party, we have to take a very considered and judicious approach when we consider to whom we should advance such a powerful and preferential concept as free trade. We should decide very carefully with whom we will have this relationship because, of course, these agreements do not operate in a vacuum. They do not operate in theory. They have tangible, practical effects that would actually affect the lives of Canadian businesses and consumers.
I want to talk a bit about why I personally oppose this agreement.
First, there is the concept of understanding Panama's current labour situation. This past July there were reports of a new wave of anti-union repression in Panama. This resulted in several workers killed, over 100 injured and over 300 trade unionists arrested, including leaders of the SUNTRACS and CONATO trade unions.
This followed the government of Panama's reaction to protests against new legislation that restricted the right to strike and freedom of association, and that sought to enact provisions that would lead to jail for up to two years for any workers who took their protests to the streets. I am going to pause here. That is a country which, this past summer, enacted legislation that said it would jail its own citizens if they protested a governmental action peacefully in its streets.
I have heard some talk about how Panama is an emerging democracy. I have not heard any member of the opposite side explain how a government that is pursuing legislation that jails its citizens for expressing their views in their communities is a country with which we should hasten to do business.
The fact that that happened while this negotiation was going on, I would argue, does not bode well toward thinking that any labour protection that is in this agreement would provide any real protection of labour rights in Panama, as it lacks any effective mechanism for enforcement and the Panamanian government, quite clearly, intends to ignore it. Despite what it may have said or paid lip service to, its actions this past summer certainly cause one to think that its actions may not be consistent with its words.
According to the OECD, Panama is an offshore banking centre and is considered one of the most notorious tax havens in the world. Nothing in this agreement deals with the tax haven or the lack of transparency issue. A NAFTA-style free trade agreement would broaden the effects of FIPA and increase the corporate incentive for tax evasion. It would also provide multinationals with additional tools and incentives to challenge Canadian regulations.
I am going to talk for a minute about why that might be important to us on a societal level as opposed to on a financial level.
I am the New Democrat critic for public safety. I am engaged in many discussions with all members of this House, but particularly with my hon. colleagues on the government's side, about the need to have safe communities. I have done a bit of research on this issue. I would like to share that with my colleagues in the House and I hope they will pay attention to what I am about to say.
I did some research through the Library of Parliament and found out that a study was done and it was published this year by Cornell University, not by a trade union group or a left-wing think tank. This is an academic study that was published by Cornell University. It quotes research which says that some 75% of all sophisticated drug trafficking operations use offshore secrecy havens. The studies also show that drug money, and not the Euro market, was the principal cause for the phenomenal growth of the Caribbean havens in the 1970s and 1980s.
The study says that it is evident to all who have studied the offshore banking business that the growth has been fueled by the phenomenal increase in cash from the U.S. drug trade. Of the criminal cases identified by IRS investigations, that is the Internal Revenue Service in the United States, from 1978 to 1983 that occurred in the Caribbean, where, I would point out, Panama is located, 45% involved illegal transactions derived from legal income, that is tax evasion and otherwise legitimate trade. In the other 55%, illegal income was involved and 161 cases dealt with drug traffic. Of those, 29% involved the Cayman Islands and 28% involved Panama.
The government, stands in this House every day and lectures everybody sanctimoniously about caring for communities and cracking down on drug trafficking, just proposed in this House a free trade agreement with a country that is the number two launderer of drug money in the Caribbean. I have not heard any member say anything about that. The government wants free trade with drug traffickers. Of course, anybody who reads the paper would have known that, because Manuel Noriega, the ex-president of that country, is still serving time in jail after being convicted of massive narco-crimes.
That is the country with which the government wants to hasten to sign a free trade agreement and says that we are just opposed to trade. No, we are not. I am opposed to trade with drug havens and tax evaders, where drug money from drugs sold on the streets of the United States and Canada ends up in Panama, gets laundered and sent back here, and the government wants to make it easier.
I read something else that I want to share with my hon. colleagues. I read what this agreement does. Under the investment transfer provisions of this free trade agreement, it specifically says that nothing should impede the transfer of funds, either into or out of each country, from investments covered by this agreement.
Therefore, money between Panama and Canada under this agreement would actually flow without any controls whatsoever. Has anybody considered that if we sign this agreement, we will be making it easier for drug money to flow between these two countries? Are there any facts I have stated that any member in the House would dispute? Do they dispute that Panama is a known tax haven? No. Do they dispute that drug and narco-traffic occurs in Panama and it is one of the major sources for that in the Caribbean? No, I do not hear that. Do they dispute Cornell University academic research? I would be interested to hear their arguments about that.
I also want to talk a little bit about agriculture because I heard some members opposite talk about how this agreement would be good for farmers. When I read this agreement, it states that Canada would not eliminate over-quota tariffs on supply managed goods such as dairy, poultry and eggs. Additionally, Canada would not eliminate its tariffs on certain sugar products. Therefore, when it comes to dairy, poultry and eggs, this agreement does not even deal with that issue.
Nothing in this agreement will affect tariffs between the two countries on those issues at all. It is a complete red herring to mention that this agreement has anything to do with increasing or improving the lives of farmers because the agreement does not cover it. It retains the tariffs. If members want to sign an agreement that removes tariffs, they can do that, but this one does not.