Mr. Speaker, a few months ago I rose in the House following the tabling of a so-called human rights impact assessment with regard to the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. I say “so-called” because the report was absolutely devoid of any assessment of the effect of the free trade agreement on the human rights situation in Colombia. This is concerning for a number of reasons.
First, the Conservative government has broken its own law. The legislation that implemented this agreement states the following:
Each Party shall provide a report to its national legislature by May 15 in the year after the entry into force of the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the Republic of Colombia and annually thereafter. These reports will be on the effect of the measures taken under the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the Republic of Colombia on human rights in the territories of both Canada and the Republic of Colombia.
The report tabled in Parliament by the Conservative government did not do this. It contained no reporting whatsoever on the effects of the free trade agreement on human rights. There were no measurements, no consultations with people on the ground and no analysis of the human and labour rights situations as they stand now. Instead, what we got was a re-statement of economic statistics that we already know.
I note that this reporting requirement was mandatory. It did not say “may”, it said “shall”. The government simply did not comply.
Second, the importance of the human rights impact assessment and the importance of it being a thorough and comprehensive assessment cannot be overstated.
Let me give a little history of the human rights impact assessment and why it is part of the free trade agreement. When we were studying the bill in the House we heard very disturbing stories about the human rights situation in Colombia: trade unionists being killed or disappearing in the most dangerous country in the world, as it is; government suppression of opposition; and the forced expulsion and removal of indigenous people from traditional land.
We heard that the Canadian government had failed to perform due diligence and had not followed UN guidelines for implementing a free trade agreement.
The UN's “Guiding principles on human rights impact assessments of trade and investment agreements” states that:
All States should prepare human rights impact assessments prior to the conclusion of trade and investment agreements.
Our government did not do any assessments prior to signing this agreement.
New Democrats took a principled stand against this deal not because we were anti-trade, as the Conservative camp often says. On the contrary, we are and always have been supportive of expanding trade opportunities for Canadian business. We opposed this deal because the Conservative government ignored experts and moved forward with an extreme trade agenda that ignored human rights.
However, in a minority Parliament, the Conservatives were able to secure the support of what has since become the third party by assuring Parliament that they would report back annually on the human rights situation. This empty report proves that was an empty promise.
Now we see that, with their majority, Conservatives are ramming through trade deals with partners with equally suspect records, Panama and Honduras, again without doing the due diligence of a human rights assessment beforehand.
Also telling is the fact that this government has failed to require human rights impact assessments in any new agreements. This tells us that Conservatives were never serious about human rights to begin with.
My question to the government is this. How can Canadians and the international community take Canada seriously on the issue of human rights when it does not live up to the commitments that it makes in writing?