Mr. Speaker, first I would like to congratulate the member for Joliette for his speech and tell him that I totally agree with his criticisms concerning this bill.
For example, he spoke about the annual report of the Canadian Commercial Corporation. He suggested that there may be a translation problem with regard to the responsibility of businesses that are funded by this corporation. But I must reassure my colleague from Joliette and tell him that it is not a translation problem.
In fact I had underlined, underscored, exactly the same section of the annual report of the Canadian Commercial Corporation.
The bill itself is an innocuous bill. There is nothing particularly significant or profound about the changes that are proposed in this legislation. I venture to guess that only a handful of Canadians even are aware of the existence of the Canadian Commercial Corporation. In fact even if we asked members of the House how many of them are aware of the Canadian Commercial Corporation, how many of them are aware of the mandate and scope of the Canadian Commercial Corporation, not a lot of them are aware.
It obviously does some important work. It facilitates sales by Canadian corporations overseas. In a number of those areas we welcome and support that important work, there is no question about that.
I want to say that in the area in which it has the greatest mandate, which is under the defence production sharing agreement with the United States, we have some very serious concerns about that and particularly about the transparency of those transactions. I will deal with that in a moment.
My colleague from Joliette highlighted the issue of corporate social responsibility. One would have hoped that the Canadian Commercial Corporation, as a government financed agency, something that is ultimately a cannibal to the taxpayers of Canada who finance this, would be at the forefront on the issue of corporate social responsibility. Here is what it has to say on that issue. I am quoting from its most recent annual report:
The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has been chairing an ongoing process with Canadian business representatives on corporate social responsibility in the context of international trade transactions. The CCC continues to keep track of DFAIT's work in this area and will respond accordingly to relevant recommendations resulting from the process.
That is shameful. It is embarrassing that this is really the best the Canadian Commercial Corporation can do in the area of corporate social responsibility. It is absolutely unbelievable in terms of ethical business practices. It is facilitating the trade by Canadian corporations overseas. I think it has a special responsibility in doing that to lead on issues of the rights of working people, of working men and women, of human rights, the environment and other basic standards.
I too had the opportunity to participate along with the minister and my colleagues from all sides of the House in the recent WTO ministerial in Doha. I want to thank the minister for involving parliamentarians in that delegation and enabling us to play an important role in our work there. There were a number of significant bilateral meetings with delegations from a number of different countries. I certainly found it a very valuable exercise.
What was the outcome of that fourth ministerial? What did it have to say in particular in responding to the longstanding concerns of the least developed countries on this planet, the poorest countries on this planet? Those countries in the Zanzibar declaration and elsewhere have pointed out that under the existing provisions of the WTO there are deep concerns. The gap between rich and poor has grown greater, it has not closed. Serious environmental concerns remain with respect to the impact of the policies of the WTO.
There are a number of major outstanding concerns in the implementation of the existing agreements under the Uruguay round. They pointed out particular issues such as access to our markets on things like textiles and agriculture, and particularly the European protectionist policies on agriculture. Certainly both our minister of agriculture and agri-food and the trade minister were very tough in terms of trying to break down some of those barriers. We saw some movement on that in the final declaration, although once again the commitment to ending those subsidies remains to be seen.
I was frankly surprised and pleased that we saw some progress on the issue of anti-dumping with the United States.The United States of course had been virtually isolated on this issue with tremendous domestic pressure but we did see some movement by the United States. Certainly when we look at the destructive impact of those policies on Canada, particularly in the context of the softwood lumber dispute, any movement at all is to be welcomed and we encourage that.
What about some of the key issues that not just developing countries are concerned about but many of the activists in the NGO community, in civil society are concerned about? What about the environment? What about core labour standards? What about human rights and the relationship between international human rights covenants for example and trade? On those areas I have to say that the progress was very disappointing.
Yes there was some modest movement on the issue of TRIPS but there was no change whatsoever to the TRIPS agreement. It basically was a political statement. Robert Zoellick, the U.S. trade representative, was right up front about that. Canada's position with respect to TRIPS was appalling. We along with a handful of other countries, including Switzerland, Japan and the United States were rightly seen I regret to say as putting the interests of multinational pharmaceutical companies ahead of the interests of the poorest on the planet, ahead of the interests of public health. There was some interpretive movement on that but that was about it.
On the environment there was no clear statement that MEAs, multilateral environmental agreements, must take precedence over trade agreements, absolutely none whatsoever. On the issue of human rights it was similar with virtually no movement at all in that area.
In the area of core labour standards which have been recognized by the ILO, issues such as forced labour, the exploitation of child labour, the whole issue of fairness in the workplace and the right to basic collective bargaining rights, Doha was a dismal failure. The best the international community at the WTO was able to come up with was taking note. The WTO ministers and member countries took note of the work being done at the ILO on the issue of globalization and some of the consequences of globalization.
If we can put the rights of multinational pharmaceutical companies into the heart of the WTO, why can we not put the rights of working men and women into the heart of the WTO as well, basic core labour standards?
When I look at the legislation on the Canadian Commercial Corporation, I look at it from that perspective. What is the role of the CCC in ensuring that the corporations that receive financial assistance from the CCC are promoting those basic standards, are showing respect for the ILO core labour standards, are respecting the environment and are respecting fundamental human rights concerns? The short answer to that is that according to the annual report of the Canadian Commercial Corporation it is not doing anything significant on that at all.
The corporation itself was established in 1946 with a mandate to “assist in the development of trade between Canada and other nations”. I am going to suggest on behalf of my colleagues in the New Democratic Party that it should be providing that assistance while making sure that those basic standards are respected. I look forward to the opportunity when the bill gets to committee to make inquiries as to what steps the CCC is taking to reflect those important Canadian values in the work it does in financing global corporate transactions under its mandate.
I mentioned as well that an important part of its mandate is assisting in transactions under the 1956 defence production sharing agreement with the United States. Here again Canadians have many questions about just how this functions.
There is a lot of concern about the lack of transparency in the whole operation of the DPSA, the defence production sharing agreement with the United States. There are too many examples of that. Recently Canada sold something like 40 Bell helicopters to the United States military. Those Bell helicopters were sold to the U.S. military with Canada knowing full well, I suggest, that they were in turn to be used in the military component of Plan Colombia in Colombia.
Many Canadians totally reject the military component of Plan Colombia. They do not want to see Canadian helicopters being routed through the United States and then used in that military operation. This is one of the gaping loopholes in our defence sales policy so far: the fact that if the sales are to the United States there is no end use scrutiny whatsoever. There is no real opportunity whatsoever to determine whether the United States is in turn selling to other countries which may have appalling human rights records.
We know that Canada itself has sold weapons and has had significant military contracts with a number of countries which have human rights records that have been condemned by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others, and which are engaged in armed conflicts. Project Ploughshares has documented this. Other groups have documented this as well. Very clearly the concern is about the sale of military supplies to countries that are engaged in human rights abuses. Press for Conversion has published a number of very powerful indictments of Canadian policy in this area, such as selling weapons to countries like Saudi Arabia which we know has a terrible human rights record or Turkey which is engaged in a brutal repression of the Kurdish minority. Surely there should be far greater scrutiny of these operations. To the extent that this corporation is facilitating and supporting these kinds of sales we would want to ask some pretty tough questions.
The Canadian coalition on the arms trade has raised some very important questions about Canada's policy on military exports, but I do not have the time to go through them at any great length. I just want to flag, for example, that when we look at the possibility of contracts for the national missile defence scheme, the new star wars scheme, would the Canadian Commercial Corporation be financing those contracts or supporting those contracts? Is it already engaged in preliminary work in supporting those contracts? If so, certainly we have to ask some serious questions about the role of this corporation.
In closing, I want to say once again that in terms of the actual substance of this legislation and the changes that have been made we in the NDP do not have any strong objection to those changes. There is one question I would ask. I note that one of the changes proposed in the legislation would allow the Canadian Commercial Corporation to charge fees for service on its non-DPSA business. That is a good thing and certainly in terms of cost recovery that is a positive thing, but I have to ask why only on that business? Why should we not be ensuring cost recovery as well on our defence production sharing agreement business? It seems to me that there is a double standard there. I do not understand. I know there is an agreement between the United States and Canada and I suppose that would be the response I would get from a minister of the government, that we have this agreement and we cannot charge for that. However, if we can charge private corporations for facilitating their transactions outside the defence production sharing agreement, surely it is not unreasonable to suggest that we can do the same under the terms of that agreement. Again, that is one of the questions we can raise when the bill gets to committee.
I think this debate, along with the committee hearings, which will not be lengthy hearings, will give Canadians an opportunity to shed some light on what has heretofore been an agency that very few of them, and I venture to say very few members of parliament as well, have been aware of. It is in that light that we will be looking closely at the legislation when it goes to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
