Mr. Speaker, I believe we should carefully and constructively study what the Canada-Panama free trade agreement says.
I believe we should discuss the questions already raised about human rights and tax havens. They should not be set aside. For example, we know that last July there was a new wave of union repression in Panama that resulted in the death of several workers, more than 100 injured workers and more than 300 arrests, including the arrests of the leaders of two unions, SUNTRACS and CONATO. That was the brutal response of the Panamanian government to protests against a new law restricting the right to strike and freedom of association and providing for prison sentences of up to two years for any worker who protests in the street. This simply shows that the agreement on labour co-operation will not really protect the rights of workers in Panama because it does not contain any real enforcement mechanism and the Panamanian government clearly intends to ignore it.
According to the OECD, Panama is an offshore banking centre and a tax haven. We have already discussed the issue of tax havens. This agreement does not address tax havens and the lack of financial transparency. A free trade agreement modelled after NAFTA would broaden the scope of the foreign investment promotion and protection agreement and would further encourage corporations to commit tax evasion. It would give multinationals other tools and reasons to challenge Canadian regulations.