Mr. Speaker, we are at report stage of this bill. My colleague has moved a series of amendments at this stage which, although they are only a small part of the overall bill, would have the effect of destroying the bill by deleting some key clauses in the bill.
It is quite appropriate that the House should support those amendments for the deletion of those provisions. This is another in a series, the Colombia free trade deal being the most egregious example, of bilateral trade agreements that we have entered into that are not in the interests of Canada. In many cases they are downright exploitive of the country that we negotiate them with.
If we analyze trading arrangements, the ones that are the fairest, as opposed to the nomenclature of being freest, are clearly the ones that are done at the multilateral level rather than the bilateral level. With a few notable exceptions, Canada is in a position with a country like Panama. We dominate it. We have heard figures that trading is relatively modest between the two countries by international standards, but it is much more to our advantage.
In this kind of relationship the smaller, weaker party is at a distinct disadvantage once the agreement goes into play. That is particularly true when one understands the history of this model of trading agreements. We accord what in effect is state status to very large multinational corporations under the NAFTA agreement. We have seen very clear examples where we have been the negative beneficiary of the clause that gives them that status and the right to sue national governments, in effect being on par with them.
A classic example where we were the negative beneficiary was the one involving a chemical substance that Canada wanted to ban and did so. Part of the refining process for this substance was in Sarnia near my community. We ended up paying something like $13 million or $18 million to a multinational corporation, without even fighting it. The Liberals at that time just caved, which they are really good at.
The one that really bothers me is when Mexico was at the receiving end of this type of a lawsuit. A multinational corporation based in the U.S. was moving toxic materials into a very poor community in Mexico. The national government simply did not have the financial wherewithal to fight the suit and ended up having a judgment awarded against it for many millions of dollars. I think it was $20 million to $30 million U.S. which it had absolutely no ability to pay.
We see those kinds of abusive processes and it is why there are many countries in Central America and South America that will not enter into negotiations with Canada on those kinds of bilateral agreements because of that clause and because in a number of cases we are the dominant partner.
It is not good for our international reputation if we enter into these agreements with these kinds of countries. That is particularly so, as we saw with Colombia and its history of abuse of human rights, but it is also true with Panama.
We have heard repeatedly today, and it is conceded by all sides, it is a tax haven and a centre for money laundering and organized crime. Some 400,000 corporations are registered by the Panamanian government, hundreds of times probably out of proportion to the normal economic activity that many corporations would represent. They are all shell companies and a good number of them are used to launder money through organized crime syndicates. Others are there purely to avoid their tax responsibilities in their domestic countries.
That is the kind of country and government, maybe government more so than country, because I do not want to disparage the people of Panama, with which the Conservative government is entering into the agreement. The end result, when we enter into an agreement with like this with a country with those types of practices, we are condoning those practices.
It is really interesting that the Conservative government is doing this, the so-called tough on crime government. I have oftentimes very great doubts about whether the Conservatives would know anything about fighting crime, how to get at it, but we know, any of us who have studied it to any degree, and they should know, that if we are to get at organized crime, we get at the dollars.
By allowing Panama to continue to be a tax haven that inspires those corporations to register there, it also makes it very easy for it to launder money through there. By doing that, the drug trafficking and human trafficking that goes on within those organized crime syndicates, Panama clearly is assisting them in their operations and we in effect are condoning it when we sign on to this kind of agreement.
It is a very good reason why we should not be signing this. In addition to that, there are others. I want to deal with one in particular around setting standards.
If I have time, I will go to the environment, but I want to deal with labour standards. I must admit I was somewhat taken aback by the last speaker when he said that the Panamanian government was making progress. I am dealing now with labour standards, because this agreement, if it is processed to its final stage and is signed and ratified by both countries, does not have any meaningful provisions in it that would ensure workers in Panama would have even minimal standards of job protection, health and safety standards and environmental standards.
In 2010 there was some perception by the president of Panama that somehow the Panamanians were not friendly enough, and it is really hard to imagine this is the case, to the corporate world. Therefore, they passed a law in the summer of 2010 which eliminated environmental impact studies on projects deemed to be of social interest. That would be infrastructure programs, I assume, in many cases.
Then they went on and made it illegal to have mandatory dues collections for collective bargaining arrangements. People cannot do that in Panama, something on which my community led the way, back after the second world war. The ban formerly came out of Windsor in 1945, so now it is illegal to do that in Panama.
It allowed employers to fire striking workers when they were in the course of a legal strike. It criminalized street blockades, civil protests. It also protected police from prosecution when they abused workers in a strike-breaking situation.
That is the kind of country that we are going to be signing on to, and it is beyond the pale that we would be doing so.