Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for the very important and greatly appreciated work that she does for her constituents.
The problems with the right to negotiate, freedom of association and the right to strike are likely to be very serious for the countries of South America, primarily for Panama, because this type of agreement contains no guarantee those rights will be protected.
We are already flouting the rights of our Canadian workers by stopping them from negotiating their collective agreements and by preventing negotiations in good faith. Basically, the government is telling employers that they do not have to try and negotiate because it will be there to save them and to give them exactly what they want at the expense of the workers, who will have to make do with whatever salaries and working conditions employers want to give them. This kind of risk is very real, and it already exists in Panama, where the workers do not have the same rights as we do at all.
In signing such agreements without protecting their rights, we will merely be worsening their working conditions, and we will not be able to pass on the democratic social values particular to Canadian society that should be spread throughout the world.