Bill Casey

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, March 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, on November 19, 2001, I asked a question of the Minister of Foreign Affairs about an amendment he might consider which would provide information in the form of an annual report to parliament on offenders who claimed immunity under Bill C-35 which has been expanded to include a whole new category of foreigners under the immunity act.

The minister did not agree to do this. He refused the request despite the fact recent circumstances have proven we need access to the information. It is a matter of public safety, a matter of safety to Canadians, that we know who is using the immunity protection for diplomats. With this new expanded coverage for immunity it is even more important than ever.

The refusal of the request is typical of the Liberal government. It is consistent with the refusal to provide information to parliament, limiting access to information under the guise of security issues and security concerns, the refusal to provide ministers' budgets, and so on. It is very consistent that the government refuses to give parliament and Canadians the information we need simply to protect ourselves.

A Russian diplomat is on trial in Russia at this moment for a terrible offence in this country that could have been prevented had the information been made available which we are asking to have available now. This information was completely ignored by the authorities. We knew that the Russian diplomat had a bad track record of driving while under the influence and it was ignored. It was not available to us. All we are asking now is that this information be made available to parliament once a year so that we can know how to protect ourselves if there is a dangerous situation.

Once again, will the minister provide parliament with an annual report on those who file for immunity under the diplomatic immunity process?

[Softwood Lumber, March 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, last week the U.S. lumber coalition upped the ante in the softwood lumber debate when it filed an application to increase the preliminary countervail charge from 19.3% to 50.8%.

Is the minister aware of this increase to 50.8%? Does he consider this the counteroffer he was asking for?

[Aboriginal Affairs, March 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, 50 years ago the department of Indian affairs determined that Amherst, Nova Scotia was the very best location for the regional office for the Atlantic Canadian region, not by coincidence but because its location was exactly in the centre of the Atlantic region.

The office employs 140 well-trained and qualified people who serve the native community with dedication and commitment, yet a few months ago the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development hired a consultant to determine the best location for this regional office. The minister explained this in the media by saying that there were complaints from the staff because they were on the road a lot.

The staff are more than happy to stay exactly where they are, and several native organizations reminded me that just a few years ago the chiefs in the Atlantic region voted in favour of keeping the office in the Amherst area. The regional office of Indian affairs was located in Amherst because it was the very best location. Nothing has changed. It is still the very best location.

I call on the minister to call off this study and listen to the voices of the 140 people who live and work in Amherst. I call on him to respect the vote of the native chiefs and not to listen to a couple of--

[Immigration, February 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I disagree. I do not think they have done their job. The deputy minister of foreign affairs came to our committee and testified that he still did not have enough money to fund and fill the hundreds of vacancies for our foreign service. These are the people that are on the frontlines of our security efforts around the world and the first line for immigration, but they just are not there.

Now today's revelation indicates problems in another department right here at home, with a serious situation in immigration.

How long will Canadians have to wait for immigration to put their people in place to enforce our laws?

[Immigration, February 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, this morning there were serious allegations raised in La Presse about illegal use of immigration forms to run a human smuggling ring. This ring was first brought to the attention of the department last October. Maybe it takes three times for the minister to get the message because four months later there is still no action.

Has an investigation been started and who is in charge? The RCMP or immigration.

[Refugees, February 27th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know how to respond to the parliamentary secretary because she disputes the numbers I used. However, when I first posed my question to the minister, he said “I find it difficult to take issue with the points the hon. member has made”. Therefore, I have to stand by my numbers based on his concurrence.

I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary another question. She referred to the hardworking, quality staff and the fact that they were working toward a better career path. I would like her to address the following situation.

If she were a foreign service officer with the goal of becoming an ambassador and she had worked hard toward that for a small rate of pay relative to other comparable jobs, how would she feel if all of a sudden the Prime Minister appointed Mr. Gagliano as ambassador at $170,000 a year?

[Refugees, February 27th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, on November 6 I asked a question of the Minister of Foreign Affairs about concerns that came to our attention on the foreign affairs committee regarding 600 unfilled openings in the foreign service.

Foreign service officers are very important people at this time of our country's history as far as security, exports and immigration are concerned. They are our front line people.

A report has indicated that there are a large number of unfilled positions. At committee, the deputy minister of foreign affairs confirmed that there were insufficient funds to fill those positions. He also confirmed that there were insufficient funds for a reasonable increase in pay for the currently employed foreign service officers. He acknowledged that valuable employees who play such an important role were being lost.

In this time of questionable security, they are the front line people. These people know what is going in countries which may or may not have threats or people who are threats to Canada. These people decide who can immigrate to Canada. These are the people who do the screening. These are the people who help our exports which are so important to us. There are all these vacancies.

The minister stood in the House and in answer to my question he did not dispute my statements.

For a long time Canada has had the highest quality of foreign personnel. They are the people who maintain our excellent reputation around the world. If there are so many unfilled positions, we will not be able to maintain that reputation. We will not be able to be involved in human rights issues, trade issues and all the other issues that those people deal with.

The only reason given is that there is not enough money. In the middle of all this the Prime Minister appointed Mr. Gagliano to the ambassador's position in Denmark and is paying him $170,000 a year. He has no experience, no training, nothing. There is enough money to pay him $170,000 but not enough money to pay foreign officials.

Will the minister secure the funds to fill all the openings in the foreign service? Will the minister increase the earnings of our foreign service staff to a reasonable and competitive level so that we can retain our high quality staff?

[Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act, February 27th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, certainly trade barriers are a problem for Colombia. However, Colombia has so many problems it would be hard to say that is the key problem.

The farmers in Colombia also suffer from a lack of transportation. They suffer from thugs and criminals who impose themselves on them, threaten them, put fear in their lives and direct their operations in many ways, despite what I think are tremendous efforts by the Colombian government with limited resources to combat that.

Certainly in Colombia there are a lot of problems to address. One of them is trade barriers. At the moment there are much bigger problems to deal with and I hope Colombia is successful in dealing with them.

[Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act, February 27th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad that the parliamentary secretary asked me a question because I have a question for him. If he gets a chance, I would like him to give us the answer.

It is a simple question about China. I would like to know which six provinces are represented in the United States, in Washington, on the softwood lumber issue. I could not find that out.

Moving on to the question the parliamentary secretary asked me, I totally believe in rules based trade. I not only believe in it because of trade issues and because it provides consistency and usually an appeal process, but because it is just a natural way to do business. It ends up extending into human rights issues and rules based societies. I do not believe that in this day and age we can remove human rights from trade issues completely. They are affected by each other.

As far as Kofi Annan's comments are concerned, I can think of specific cases where people are asking for more opportunities and more broadly based economies which would result from free trade and trade agreements.

Going back to Colombia, many of the people in the drug trade business say “We will get out of the drug trade business if there is an option, but there is no option for us. Give us other options. Let us do anything. Give us other opportunities, other ways to make a living, so that we can feed and educate our children”. However, there are no other ways so they resort to the drug trade.

I certainly look forward to the parliamentary secretary's answer to my question.

[Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act, February 27th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-50, a bill that would allow Canada to adapt its regulations and laws to accommodate the accession of the People's Republic of China to the WTO.

I always listen to the arguments of the hon. members because they make me think and then I add a lot of comments to my notes. I always end up with a mess on my page because I have so many notes.

Certainly whenever I hear somebody say, and I have heard this often today, that this is a housekeeping bill, I wonder if it is a housekeeping bill. In this case it is not a housekeeping bill. The bill amends many acts of our Canadian legislature. It would do a lot to provide protection for Canadian industry and would eventually affect human rights in China and probably in other countries. The bill, if passed, will have a major impact on many of us.

It is rather ironic that we are talking about the accession of China to the WTO when, as we speak, the deputy minister for international trade is in Washington with six officials from six provinces to discuss softwood lumber issues which have come to an impasse.

When the negotiators wrote the NAFTA agreement and made all the arrangements that would give us free trade with the United States, I wonder if they predicted that the domestic laws in the U.S. would throw up so many hurdles to our trade in Canada.

I come back to this being a housekeeping bill. I am wondering what things we are missing and what the impact will be from this in three, four, five or even ten years and from the things we overlooked, the things we thought we had.

Certainly with the United States we thought we had free trade, but because of the domestic laws and the tools available to the U.S. industry and the reluctance of the U.S. government to take a leadership role and get a handle on this, it is now trying to rule what we in Canada do in our forestry industry.

All these trade bills and agreements have far reaching impacts and are not just housekeeping bills. When we are talking about dealing with a country that has 40 times the population of Canada, it is hard to imagine the imbalance of trade. We all know how difficult it is and all the problems we have with our trading partner, the U.S., and it only has 10 times our population. China has 40 times our population and there will probably be 40 times the problems as this trade agreement proceeds.

As the hon. member for Burnaby--Douglas said, there are human rights aspects to this agreement. I am sorry he is not here to hear this part of the discussion because he and I were on a human rights mission in Colombia last week. Colombia's huge problem is the drug trade. Part of the problem with the drug trade is that there are no options for the farmers in the jungles and fields where they have their cocaine. If it had more trade and a more advanced economy the people would have more options to get out of the drug trade, which would have a big impact on that country.

One of the big issues at that time, which was presented to the hon. member for Burnaby--Douglas, myself and other members of the committee, was that the country needed new opportunities for trade and new opportunities for the economies to grow. Trade agreements such as this are the way to do that. They are not perfect. We cannot just snap our fingers and suddenly impose human rights issues to meet our human rights approaches to change in either Colombia, China or anywhere else. The only way we influence these societies is if we do trade and communicate with them and make their citizens aware of the options to a way of life.

I often think of the Middle East and the fact that the people in some of the countries that have a repressed society are now seeing the optional standards of living that are offered by other countries around the world. That is creating stresses and strains in those countries which has resulted in a lot of the conflicts and differences we have unfortunately experienced.

Bill C-50 would change our rules to accommodate the accession of China to the WTO. It is an interesting process that has been going on since 1986. An agreement has been reached for China to enter the WTO. The agreement will help our agricultural industries and manufacturers to access this market, which is a closed market, to a great extent. These rules will help us to enter their markets, which again is 40 times larger than our market, while at the same time provides some protection for our own industries which feel threatened by this trade arrangement, as evidenced by many of the presentations made to our committee.

The textile industry is concerned that China could actually have 100% market share, whereas now the market share is divided among perhaps 20 countries. However certain specific items that were brought to the committee's attention could eventually be totally supplied by China.

It is interesting to see how these agreements evolve and the things that are involved with them. For instance, China had to change a lot of things to become a member of the WTO. One of the things required of China was transparency. All its trade related laws and regulations had to be published and available to the other WTO partners prior to their implementation so that the other countries and other members of the WTO could influence those changes. I am sure this is a whole new ball game for China and a healthy and positive step.

Domestic and foreign companies that are affected by trade related, judicial and administrative decisions can now request formal reviews. This is a new opening for China and will create public awareness by the business communities in China and Canada about the different cultures and standards.

Product standards and related procedures are to be imported and brought into line with international practice. That makes sense. It will bring costs down for consumers, make products more competitive and allow us to enter China's market and China to enter ours. Canadian companies that are competitive will be able to compete.

The requirements previously imposed on foreign investors will be eliminated. Canadian investors, for the very first time, will be able to invest in a more open market and in different aspects of the Chinese economy. That will establish lines of communications and connections between our two societies, two philosophies and two cultures. It also has to be a positive move with respect to human rights and standards of society.

China will be required to meet these requirements and abide by them, although in some cases I note that the American congressional study identified certain areas where China has not been very consistent and that its track record for following through on agreements has not been very good. We will have to follow up on that to ensure that they do, as will, I am sure, the WTO.

As Canada's fourth largest trading partner and having 40 times our population, having access to China's market has to be a positive move for the Canadian economy . Canada's duties and tariffs have not changed for China. The committee was comfortable with some of the witnesses' concerns. Some of the increases in imports that are expected by some of the industries will not occur because of the lack of change in imports and duties. However, we will be following up on the red flags that have been raised.

Growth sectors for Canada include cultural industries, environmental technologies, financial services, specialized machinery, auto parts and plastic goods. That is a wide array of products and opportunities for Canada to a market with a population 40 times larger than Canada's population.

Safeguards have been put in place. I hope the government has done a satisfactory job in making sure the regulations and safeguards are bulletproof because we are finding out that where we thought we were safe and protected in other trade agreements, we were not. The best example right now is with the United States which is trying to impose its forestry practices on Canada. As a result, thousands of Canadians in the forestry industry are out of work. Once again, we thought we had free trade with the United States but we do not.

Another positive aspect is that China will be forced to upgrade its economy to international standards and eliminate unaccepted practices that have gone on for many years, which would not be acceptable in most other societies or cultures.

We are optimistic that by creating public awareness and opening lines of communication, we will be able to influence the standards of human rights and democracy as a part of the trade issue. Human rights and democracy cannot be separated. They are tied together. Perhaps some would rather not have them tied together, but they are.

I noted earlier that the Chinese track record for abiding by agreements and trade negotiations is not stable. A U.S. congressional committee recently stated that China has broken every agreement made with the U.S. in the last 10 years.

The process for invoking safeguards provided by the bill is convoluted and lengthy. Again in context with the softwood lumber, the Canadian softwood lumber industry has no protection. The safeguards we thought were there are not because the domestic laws and avenues available to the U.S. industry have created havoc in Canada over the softwood lumber issue.

It has been suggested that privatization in China has already driven up unemployment. When this happens there can be a backlash. It could end up in civil demonstrations or even worse. Any time an economy changes dramatically, as we learned from the Russian experience, it must be done slowly and incrementally. Countries like Canada, the United States and other major economies must help these countries adjust from their current processes to a market based economy.

We support the bill in principle. We certainly support having China join the WTO. We are skeptical about some the aspects of the bill simply because we have been surprised before and are paying a huge price for it. We hope it will induce further communication between our two societies and raise awareness in the citizens of China of optional lifestyles. Hopefully it will lead to improvements in both of our economies and in democracy and human rights in China.