Mr. Speaker, it is very interesting to further discuss the Canada–Honduras free trade agreement. From my standpoint as the critic for international human rights, I have a particular interest in the type of trade agreements that have been signed by the government.
From my standpoint as the critic for human rights, human rights must take a priority in the packaging and pulling together of any agreement with any country. When I look at the kinds of things that are important to me, is the partner we are about to do business with at a fundamental level, with an actual bilateral free trade agreement, is that a partner who respects democracy? For me, especially human rights, does it have adequate labour standards? Are these things codified in law? Is the economy of the proposed partner in balance with Canada? Are we very much higher than it is? Is there a sense of equity in that agreement?
Finally, once the free trade agreement has reached the draft form, are the terms of that satisfactory? I would suggest from the view of the NDP, it is not satisfactory. Honduras is the murder capital of the world. Think about it. More people are murdered there than anywhere else in the world. It has very undemocratic practices. Obviously, the institutions are weak because they are not able to give fundamental policing services to their people. It has very low standards when it comes to human rights and the so-called rule of law.
On this side of the House we recognize there is a significant importance to trade and to the agreements that are reached. We just do not believe the types of agreements that have been repeatedly put together by the government, where human rights and labour laws and many times environmental law are side agreements, unenforceable by law; in other words, are just window dressing to help sell this agreement.
For example, on May 15 of this year we are supposedly going to receive a report on what impact of the Colombia–Canada free trade agreement has had on human rights in Colombia. The last one we received was nowhere near the type of comprehensive report we were anticipating. When the debate on that free trade agreement happened in this place, we were told by the other side that we could look forward to a very comprehensive report. It just has not been forthcoming.
I want to draw attention to the U.S. Senate call for accountability in Honduras that took place on June 18, 2013. Senator Ben Cardin, a Democrat, which will not be a surprise, a senior member of the foreign relations committee and 20 of his Senate colleagues together sent a letter to John Kerry, urging him to work to support human rights in Honduras and free, fair and peaceful elections which were slated for that November. They went on to say that “Given the ‘reported violence and impunity linked to state entities in Honduras’, the letter questions the State Department's decision to certify that the government is implementing policies to protect due process of law and ‘prosecuting military and police personnel who are credibly alleged to have violated human rights’”.
We are talking about the military and the police, the ones who are supposed to enforce human rights and protect the public and enforce the laws of the land.
They went on to say that “U.S. taxpayers demand accountability at the highest levels when their resources are used for any purpose, especially in foreign assistance”.
This free trade agreement is not about direct foreign assistance but about an even closer working relationship between Canada and Honduras.
They went on to ask for “a detailed assessment of the effectiveness of the efficacy of current Honduran government efforts to protect freedom of expression and association, the rule of law, and due process, and to investigate extrajudicial killings and abuses allegedly [again] involving police and military…”.
Many of the murders taking place in this country are by these public officials or by the military. The rampant violence in Honduras has its roots further back in history. In the 1980s, Honduras was controlled by military governments. When they demilitarized, the process that followed failed to hold to account those who committed serious offences, serious human rights abuses were overlooked, plus a culture of impunity was widespread in that country. Again, there was a coup in 2009, and there is a continuation of that sense of impunity.
When we hear today that it is the military and police who are committing these crimes, it tells us very clearly that this country is very close to a failed state.
If we are going to have a free trade agreement with this country, would we not think it sensible for us, a nation of rights and human rights observation, to ask of the other country, as part of that agreement, to establish an improvement, benchmarks for changes to the human rights in that country, and to have that codified into the agreement?
Trade has to be more about the betterment of both parties, and in a country where the people deal with governments noted as being corrupt, it is very concerning that our officials, our government, could reach and conclude an agreement with such a nation.
Further to the agreement itself, there has been a complete lack of transparency in the negotiation process of this trade agreement. Despite repeated calls by civil society in Canada, the Government of Canada has failed to make public the text of the agreement during the negotiation process.
If we look at our country, when legislation is proposed and the lack of input to the development of legislation here at home, it should be no surprise, sadly, that this is the case in dealing with this agreement. We have people who are world experts in relationships with South American countries, in particular, who could have offered insight, but they were not allowed to take part in any fashion.
The government's token environmental impact assessment of the Canada–Honduras free trade agreement, which was released in October 2013, omitted any assessment of impact of Canadian investments in Honduras because those figures were considered confidential.
We have had, repeatedly in this House, calls for corporate and social responsibility for legislation to be put into place in this House. It went to a vote here previously, on Bill C-300, which was lost, as I recall, by about 12 votes.
Very clearly, when we talk about an environmental assessment and consider the impact of Canadian companies in another country, these things should not be confidential to Canadians. We have expectations of our companies. My presumption is that they are meeting our expectations, so why not provide the evidence? Those that are good companies and performing properly deserve the respect of this House. However, those who are not, deserve the criticism of this House.
Our view of this trade agreement is that it is a very flawed agreement with a very flawed nation. It leaves us wondering how far the Conservative government is prepared to go, when we think of Colombia and Honduras, and who it is willing to do business with.