Pat O'Brien

[Supply, April 24th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the Bloc members have talked about the number of votes the Liberal Party has earned in being re-elected federally. I did not hear the same kind of logic from the Bloc Quebecois members when Mr. Charest earned more votes in the province of Quebec than the péquistes. However, that is a problem they can face with their lack of consistency.

I want to ask the member the following questions. Does he not recognize the unbelievable progress that has been made in the Americas over the past few years? Does he not understand that had such a meeting been convened of the leaders of the Americas some 10 or 15 years ago, we would have had at least half or more of the leaders wearing army uniforms with jackboots? Does he not understand the great progress that has been made toward democracy in the Americas? Does he not understand the support the Canadian government and the Canadian people are giving toward encouraging those fledgling democracies? Does he not see the great value in the democracy clause that all the leaders signed onto in Quebec City?

[Supply, April 24th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the points made by my hon. colleague. She suggested that the government has not yet released the text. That was the subject of much discussion in the House of Commons before the recent break.

The Minister for International Trade showed great leadership. The Prime Minister was on record weeks ago in the House of Commons saying he would happily release the text but was not prepared to do so unilaterally. Through the leadership of the Minister for International Trade in Buenos Aires we were able to secure a full commitment of the 34 leaders to release the text shortly after the summit's conclusion. The summit concluded on Sunday. This is just Tuesday, so perhaps the member could show a little more patience. The text will be released in due course.

I do not know what polls the member has been looking at. The vast majority of polls in Canada suggest that two-thirds of Canadians support our efforts in negotiating the FTAA.

The hon. member says MPs have not been able to participate. There has in fact been very wide consultation. There have been hearings at the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade. There is a special subcommittee on trade. Three hundred thousand dollars was given to the parallel summit. There were the FIPA meetings of parliamentarians of the Americas, including Canada, right here in the Chamber.

The member says there is no mandate for the government to negotiate the FTAA. Is the member unaware that we had a federal election in November? The FTAA has been in process for several years and yet the government was overwhelmingly re-elected. It even increased its seats and support in the province of Quebec, an increase we know will continue over time.

Is the member unaware that the FTAA was not even an issue in the election? The government was re-elected with a very strong mandate even though Canadians were fully aware that the FTAA talks had been under way for years.

[Supply, April 24th, 2001]

Answer my question.

[Supply, April 24th, 2001]

Why wasn't Joe there?

[Supply, April 24th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member issued a challenge to our side that I would just love to take up. He asked the government side to respond with one thing that the government had done to show any leadership in trying to bring more transparency to this process.

It was the Minister for International Trade of Canada who led the way in convincing his counterpart ministers from the other countries, at Buenos Aires, to agree to release the text. That is leadership. That is the first answer to his challenge.

The Government of Canada provided $300,000 of taxpayers' money to help fund a parallel summit to involve civil society groups to create more transparency. There is more leadership.

There has never been a trade deal where there has been greater transparency. I issue a challenge to the hon. member. I would like him to stand in his place and tell us one international trade negotiation that Canada has been involved in that has been as transparent as the current one. We will be very interested in his specific answer.

There have been very wide consultations. There have been hearings with the standing committee on trade. There have been subcommittee hearings. There was a meeting in this Chamber, at which I did not see the hon. member, where the parliamentarians of the Americas were here to speak about this trade deal. I was here.

The hon. member talks about P.E.I. potatoes and softwood lumber. All of those issues were raised by the minister of trade and the Prime Minister.

Perhaps if the hon. member's leader had been there to support the minister and the Prime Minister, he would be aware. He is obviously very ill-informed.

[Supply, April 24th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, first I would like to address some of my colleague's comments.

He talked about the transparency of this process. He may have been present when I repeatedly put the question to expert witnesses at committee. I put the question to the NDP party, the only party in the House speaking against this, to give us just one example of any trade negotiation that was even anywhere close to as transparent to this one. Nobody replied. So there was an acknowledgement by their silence that this was certainly been the most open and transparent trade process to date. The government is working very hard to make it become more transparent.

On the hon. member's point that parliamentarians have not had an opportunity to participate, quite frankly I do not know how he draws that conclusion. As I said, this is the second motion that he has put in the House causing a full day of debate, a very important and useful debate, and I congratulate him for it. However he must realize by having this debate today he is having some of the participation which he says he was denied. I do not understand the logic there.

The member well knows that the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade has held extensive hearings on the FTAA and on the summit process. Before the last election it held hearings it. Those hearings were resumed after the election and started to include more and more of the summit process.

There is a subcommittee on trade which is specifically tasked to deal with this issue and other trade issues.

In this very Chamber I and I believe the hon. member opposite and other members participated in FIPA, the first forum of the interparliamentarians of the Americas. It was a very useful and extensive discussion. There have been repeated opportunities for parliamentarians to be involved.

He spoke about our negotiating position. For weeks and weeks five of our nine positions were available on the website. Many Canadians visited that website to see what our position was.

I challenge the member to go back some weeks and look up the comments of the right hon. the Prime Minister in the House of Commons. He said he would be very happy to release the text but he was not going to do so unilaterally. The for Joliette knows full well, because I asked him that at committee, that he agreed it should not be done unilaterally.

In Buenos Aires the Minister for International Trade showed his outstanding leadership in convincing the other ministers to release the text, which was supported by the Prime Minister. That is the kind of leadership that has made this transparency become even greater and that will continue in the future.

On the specific question that the member asked, I was not present in Buenos Aires so I cannot speak to the specificity of what the Minister for International Trade and his colleagues decided on what text would be released. We know it is the negotiating text. The timetable of which I am aware is as soon as possible after the Quebec summit. That will be honoured.

[Supply, April 24th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, the member who just spoke had a number of comments to make, and rather loudly at that. This is the latest in several opportunities that members of parliament have had to discuss the FTAA. I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the hon. member for Scarborough East.

I would like to address the great success of the Quebec summit. I would also like to indicate how consultations with Canadians contributed to that success. I was very honoured as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for International Trade to be present, along with some other colleagues on our side as well as the other side, to meet with parliamentarians and leaders from a number of countries and to talk with some of the peaceful protesters.

During Canada's chairmanship of the FTAA negotiations from May 1998 until November 1999 it was instrumental in establishing the committee of government representatives on the participation of civil society. This committee meets regularly as a consultative body in the negotiations and serves as a forum for input from citizen based groups, the business community and NGOs. It is an unprecedented step in international negotiations.

The motion calls for transparency and I would indicate that there has never been a more transparent trade negotiation process in history. A lot of what the member calls for has already been done.

As host of the FTAA ministerial that took place in Toronto in November 1999, Canada supported a civil society forum. It was organized by hemispheric organizations to parallel the American business forum. As my colleague opposite knows, a record 22 FTAA ministers and country representatives were present to hear civil society's views and recommendations on trade investment, labour standards and the reduction of poverty.

As the House knows, at the recent trade ministerial in Buenos Aires the Minister for International Trade took the lead, as he has for months, and was able to convince his counterparts to release the draft text of the FTAA agreement. It was agreed that soon after the conclusion of the summit these texts would be released. They are in translation now. The summit only concluded on Sunday, and today is Tuesday. The texts will be released in the near future, as was agreed to through the outstanding leadership of the Minister for International Trade.

I have heard the Prime Minister state in the House that he would very happily release the texts, but he was not prepared to do so unilaterally until there was an agreement. That agreement was achieved through the efforts of the Minister for International Trade.

I saw, as Canadians saw, the Prime Minister doing an outstanding job in chairing this very important multilateral meeting in Quebec City. We can all be very proud of the efforts that were made by the government, by civil society and by the peaceful demonstrators who expressed their views in Quebec City.

At the summit of the Americas this past weekend the government provided some $300,000 in funding to help the parallel summit take place. Labour leaders in my own city have said that the government has no interest in civil society and that it will not listen to them. That is just ludicrous when the government has put forth taxpayer money to help the very people who are levelling that criticism participate in a parallel summit. It cannot be both ways.

There were some 20 countries and five international institutions that met on the weekend with more than 60 representatives of civil society networks, groups and associations. These representatives who have been closely involved in the development of the summit's action plan came from across Canada and the hemisphere.

The Quebec City summit was a resounding success. In signing the declaration, the 34 leaders committed themselves to furthering democracy and to making democracy an essential condition for participation in the FTAA process.

This is a quantum leap forward from the few short years ago when a lot of the leaders of this meeting, if it had taken place, would have marched in in jackboots, epaulettes and military gear because they were dictators.

We ought not to dismiss so lightly the tremendous progress that has been made in this hemisphere toward democracy. Many experts would say that the democratic election of the Mexican president, Vicente Fox, is in no small part due to the liberalization of that society, which is also signified and enhanced by its participation in NAFTA.

In the same spirit, the leaders made a commitment to more specific support for the efforts being made by Haiti towards democracy through the good offices of the OAS and the CARICOM. There is great concern about Haiti. The Prime Minister and the other leaders have indicated that they want to do everything possible to support that society on its path to democracy.

During the summit the leaders decided, in order to ensure equitable distribution of the benefits and prosperity resulting from economic growth, to pursue discussions on the economic integration of the Americas and to continue negotiations to create a free trade area of the Americas, the world's largest free trade area, by the end of 2005.

The leaders also approved a series of measures to promote participation by citizens in the social, economic and political life of their countries in order to fully realize their human potential. This inclusive plan of action is targeted at everyone, including groups that all too often find themselves on the margins of society such as youth, seniors, women, persons with disabilities and aboriginal people, and ensures a full and fair opportunity to be properly included in the process.

The leaders went on to reach an agreement on a declaration of connectivity, which is a clear statement of their political intent to bridge the digital gap, and on the use of information and communications technology to achieve the summit's objectives.

Canada again showing its leadership also announced the establishment of an institute for connectivity in the Americas which would make it possible for us as Canadians to share our world renown expertise in this field with other poorer countries of the Americas, which simply have to be given the wherewithal to fairly participate in this FTAA. Canada is quite prepared to do everything to make that possible.

The government, supported by the multilateral development banks and other international institutions, satisfied itself that the necessary resources were available to support the objectives set by the leaders.

Those who participated in the summit in a violent way, and unfortunately some small minority did, created quite a bit of tension and damage to the beautiful city of Quebec. However they knew nothing about democracy nor did those who condoned such violent actions. It simply was not necessary for that to take place. There has never been a more transparent trade negotiation that Canada has been involved in. There has never been such a wide consultation for months and months and which will continue.

What the member's motion calls for is being done now, has been done for many months and will continue to be done as we move up to the conclusion of this treaty in 2005.

The Quebec City summit also provided an unprecedented opportunity for people right across Canada to be involved. I believe what the peaceful demonstrators helped to do was focus attention on the summit. Unfortunately, I suppose some would say that was achieved really by the violent demonstrations. I regret that that view exists because all it did was detract from the very real and important debate that was taking place in Quebec City.

I would like to just conclude by indicating that I would be remiss in not saying that the Minister for International Trade worked diligently on this file. Indeed the member from Joliette has shown consistent interest in the file. I know that. I worked with him at committee and we debated in the House. I believe this is his second motion already as a new member on a very important topic in the House. I do not know how it could be said that there was not been ample opportunity for members to be involved.

There have been a lot of opportunities. No, the texts are not yet public. However, through the leadership of the Minister for International Trade and the Prime Minister, an agreement was reached that they would be made public in the very near future. I await that with alacrity, as I know the whole House does.

[Lumber Industry, April 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and all my Liberal colleagues from Atlantic Canada who have been so vigorous on this file.

As the hon. member knows, the minister is in Buenos Aires today pursuing the matter of an envoy, which is a good way to make progress on this issue. We will continue to fight for free access for Atlantic softwood lumber, but in the context of free access for all Canadian softwood lumber because that is supposed to be the agreement.

Alan Greenspan, chair of the federal reserve, yesterday cautioned against protectionism on softwood lumber and everything else.

[Lumber Industry, April 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister for International Trade has proposed an envoy system, as the hon. member knows, with his counterpart, U.S. trade representative Zoellick. He is today pressing that case in Buenos Aires.

The fact of the matter is that Canada needs a pan-Canadian approach to this. Free trade is the answer. That is exactly what we have now. If the Americans will just live up to their claims of being free traders everything will be just fine.

[Free Trade Area Of The Americas, April 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member has some specific evidence that he would like to show me after question period, I would be very interested in seeing it and take up the matter with trade officials.

Most of the research I am hearing today from the opposition has come from the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star .