Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on Bill C-32. As has been mentioned before, Bill C-31 and Bill C-32 are companion bills, which we will be dealing with over the course of time.
In my role as CIDA critic, I have had the opportunity to take part in a few foreign affairs committee meetings recently while our critic from Halifax was travelling on business related to the committee. It was interesting to hear my colleague from the Liberals say there was no necessity to have international trade as part of the foreign affairs committee.
I was glad to hear my colleague from the Bloc mention that in just the last week, in the only meetings I have attended, we were dealing with issues of trade, specifically Bill C-25 and RADARSAT. That certainly very much was commercialization; that was what we were talking about. It was a commercialized agreement made with the U.S. on dealing with images that come through RADARSAT.
Just as a note on that one before I get into my real discussion on Bill C-32, it was interesting to find out at the meeting that the Government of Canada had given a company $430 million to put RADARSAT in place. The company invested $92 million and said, “Here is a deal”. We thought Joey Smallwood made the best deal in Newfoundland for the sale of power from Churchill Falls, but let me tell members that the government proved it could come up with a better deal. From the Government of Canada, from the taxpayers, $430 million, and from the company, $92 million, so let us guess who owns it: the company that put in $92 million. Let us guess what else: Canada is going to pay for the images. Is that not a deal? As well, if that satellite happens to fall out of the sky and creates some problems, we cover the liability. What a deal for us.
Let me say that we do not want these people negotiating too many things on our behalf. I was shocked. I thought I had heard it all, but it actually gets better. I hope we will have a chance to discuss it more when we debate Bill C-25, but if Canadians want some real fine tuning, they should pay attention to it and ask some questions about that bill when it comes before the House.
Just to get back to Bill C-32, because this is an important issue, I think it is important that I read out exactly what Bill C-32 does.Canadians probably do not realize exactly how a bill comes before us. We get a piece of paper with the name of the bill on the front and it tells us pretty much what the bill will do. Inside the bill there is a recommendation. Here is what the recommendation on this bill states:
Her Excellency the Governor General recommends to the House of Commons the appropriation of public revenue under the circumstances, in the manner and for the purposes set out in a measure entitled “An Act to amend the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts”.
I want to specify what “the appropriation of public revenue” is, because there is no question that what we are dealing with here is an additional cost to the Canadian taxpayers. There is no question about that.
This is happening at a time when we have a situation in our country in which the government, despite having a surplus, has taken more and more dollars from numerous programs. As a result we do not have, in my view, enough money in old age security for our seniors. We have taken dollars from the EI fund, so there is not enough money for EI benefits. We have issues with child poverty. There is not enough money to address that. We do not have a national housing policy. There are huge shortages of housing around our nation. They are huge in the first nations communities in my riding, and there are absolutely appalling conditions. There are shortages all over the country, not just in first nations communities.
In this situation, our municipalities and our cities are fighting for infrastructure dollars, trying to get tax dollars back because they have to repair the infrastructure. We have a situation where water and sewer infrastructure is lacking in numerous communities throughout the country. We have shortages in our health care as far as trained professionals and other individuals are concerned. There are shortages of health care equipment.
There are huge issues around the country, but what is the government's priority? It is going to set aside money to have separate departments for foreign affairs and international trade. Some might argue that this would cost only a small amount of money. Even if it is $1 million or $2 million, that would be enough money to put more MRI machines where they are needed. It would be enough money to enable us to give more money to seniors. It would be enough money to give additional assistance in pharmacare programs. It would be additional money for post-secondary education. It is not okay to say that it is just a small amount of money. It is an additional cost, and there other costs as well.
I will go to another section of the bill. It states:
The Governor in Council may appoint two Associate Deputy Ministers of Foreign Affairs,--
And it goes on:
The Governor in Council may designate one of the Associate Deputy Ministers appointed under subsection (1) to be Deputy Minister for Political Affairs.
We are talking about a whole new bureaucracy being involved in setting up this department. In my view we do not have the exact costs here. I know it is going to be more of a cost and the question is whether we should be putting taxpayers' dollars in at this point in time, if ever.
Apart from that, Canadians need to know that it was just over a decade ago that the federal government merged foreign affairs and international trade. They were merged 10 years ago. Now we are going to spend some money and demerge them. Why are we doing this? One observer said that it was because the Prime Minister wants to. He wants to. There is no real justification for having to do this. It is, quite frankly, the opposite. There is justification for not doing this.
My colleague from the Bloc, the member for Joliette, mentioned a number of reasons. They are very valid reasons. International trade and foreign affairs are tied together. Each and every trip that I have ever gone on, when we are dealing with issues related to another country and we are meeting with the different officials from that country, there is always discussion of issues related to trade and foreign affairs.
I am pleased to say that on a recent trip we had discussions with colleagues in Viet Nam, Russia and China. We dealt with trade issues and had discussions with these colleagues. We also dealt with issues of human rights. All of this comes together and we know that it should.
As my colleague from Joliette mentioned, if we are going to deal in trade and do business with a country, then we should be able to say to that country that it has to do certain things as far as human rights, labour legislation and the protection of workers is concerned. We must talk about human rights and treating everyone fairly in that country.
We must be able to ask if there are practices in place where people do not have the right of religious expression. We must be able to say that we want people to be given that opportunity. We should be able to have those discussions.
I hope my colleagues from the Conservative Party will go a step beyond saying they will look after business and support this because it is the best thing for business and trade.
The reality is that it is not in the best interests for Canada to do business with certain countries. My colleague from the Conservatives has criticized the state of human rights in China. Does that party not think it is important that when we are dealing with trade and foreign affairs that we should be able to say to China that as a country it must make moves in this area? China has one of the most undemocratic and hostile regimes as far as human rights. Do the Conservatives not think that those things should come together? Is that not what doing business together and improving things for everyone throughout the world is about? It certainly is in my view.
My colleague from Joliette also mentioned Wal-Mart. We have seen the situation where the one unionized Wal-Mart in Canada will be closed. We can think that it is not a federal government issue. In itself it may not be a federal government issue. However, the issue is to recognize why Wal-Mart is doing that. We do not want to be promoting that kind of a position within our country. We do not want to be doing that. Canadians believe that the right of representation is there.
More and more I am seeing issues where this government is accepting the crawl to the bottom of the barrel. It is the basis on what the government is willing to accept as far as human rights are concerned. I know of various situations. I have heard of numerous cases in the United States where Wal-Mart pays the lowest wages possible so that all of their workers will be able to get medicaid. Then Wal-Mart does not have to be pay anything from the company.
I was in the U.S. at a time when a story broke where Wal-Mart had signed contracts with a company to do the cleaning of its stores, knowing full well that the company was using illegal workers. Therefore, the company could pay the workers less and, as a result, Wal-Mart paid less for the cleaning.
We do not want to be promoting that. We want to stand behind good, decent values in support of each other and decent wages for individuals. More and more I see this kind of action, saying we do not want to tie human rights with trade because somehow trade is the ultimate. Companies having the right to trade is the ultimate goal. It is not mine. It is not my ultimate goal. I do not see human beings as a natural resource for companies to make a buck off of them. That is not how I base my life and I would hope it is not how others do as well.
I went off on a bit of a tangent, but when one starts to realize what seems to be happening in one's own country, it is starting to look an awful lot like what is happening in some other countries. One wants to ensure that the government is made to face it once in a while and have its members realize exactly what is happening because so often they do not know exactly what is happening in each and every area.
I am going to have to tie Bill C-32 and Bill C-31 together because another issue in this whole discussion is the fact that the government is in the process, so we hear, of an international policy review. It is beyond my wildest imagination why we would be spending money and time on an international policy review when the report has not been finalized and been given to someone to review or had a whole scope of meetings with the country.
The government says it is in the process of an international policy review, but before getting the results of that international policy review it is going to divide international trade and foreign affairs. It seems absolutely ridiculous. We use the terminology that it is putting the cart before the horse. No kidding.
It would be the same as spending a whole pile of money on the Romanow report on health care, but before even getting the report the government would go ahead and implement new programs and do different things in health care. I guess I cannot say it is the same because there was no hope of anything being implemented in health care by the government, so I probably should not have used that analogy.
The reality with Bill C-31 and Bill C-32 is that it makes no sense to be carrying out an international policy review. People in my riding from the multicultural community contact me and say they want to have some discussions on the international policy review. There are people who have been actively involved in our communities since they came to Canada. They have taken a personal interest in the workings of our government and country, and want to be part of that international policy review. What is it saying to all those people who were going to do that job quite seriously and get their input in the international policy review if the government rushes to separate two departments with no justification for doing so?
My colleague from Joliette mentioned the 270 former diplomats who think this is a crazy thing to do. Certainly they must be in the know. They are the ones who have been involved in this for years. It is really a strange situation. It has us wondering why the government is doing this. What is the great benefit? I must say that I have not heard a really good reason yet.
I want to talk about an area where the government could have moved. As the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade exists now, we have the Canadian International Development Agency and there is a minister for CIDA, but there is no legislation in this country to mandate CIDA. That is a piece of legislation we should have been dealing with, a mandate for CIDA.
It spends a huge amount of money and is supported by Canadians because we are caring individuals and value our representation, and we support what our country does for the world. Is there a mandate for CIDA spending millions of dollars? There is no mandate for CIDA. The government's priority is a piece of legislation to separate the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. There is no legislation to mandate CIDA. That is unacceptable. It is absolutely unacceptable that this would be the government's priority and not CIDA.
The issue of not having a mandate for CIDA is twofold. First, we do not know for sure exactly what CIDA is supposed to be supporting and what Canadians want CIDA to do. Most Canadians want to see CIDA dealing with the alleviation of poverty. That should be the mandate. The other area that Canadians want to see, and they want to see this in all aspects of government but certainly in CIDA, is the transparency and accountability of CIDA dollars, of Canadian taxpayers' dollars. With no legislation for CIDA, how do we ensure that? How do we ensure that Canadian taxpayers' dollars given to CIDA will be followed through, and have the accountability and transparency that Canadians want?
I say to the government and to all my colleagues in the House not to accept these pieces of legislation. There is absolutely no urgency to do it. It is unconscionable to be accepting these pieces of legislation before the international policy review. I hope the people in all of our communities will come out and say to us that it is not okay to be doing this, it is not okay to be spending taxpayers' money. If the government is going to do this then it should forget the international policy review because there is no point. It is a farce. It is slap in the face. The government does not care what people have to say. It is going to go ahead and do this first. It is not acceptable.
If my colleagues want to really have a priority, they should give CIDA a mandate. Canadians have shown what kind of people they are during the tsunami disaster. They came out wholeheartedly and wanted to help out. We need people to help out on a continual basis and we need taxpayers' dollars, stable funding, and funding that we can tell year by year is going to meet the needs of our assistance in the world. We need a mandate for CIDA far more than we need Bills C-31 and C-32.
