Mr. Speaker, here we go again. It is another sitting of Parliament and we are debating yet another free trade agreement. As I understand it, we will be debating two this week, with the Canada-Panama free trade agreement scheduled to be considered in a few days.
It strikes me as a case of serial bilateralism, something for which I would encourage the government to hurry up and find a cure. So far, such agreements have neither enriched Canadians nor led to a coherent or wise industrial and trade policy framework for our country's future prosperity. On the contrary, since the first Canada-U.S. trade agreement was signed, the rich have been getting richer, while the rest of us are falling farther and farther behind. The middle-class, as has been well-documented over and over again, is shrinking and the poor are getting poorer.
However, perhaps that is okay for the Conservative government as long as its friends and the wealthiest corporations are doing all right, not much else seems to matter to it. How else do we explain that the government can find over $1 billion to spend on the G8/G20 without batting an eye, while it keeps saying it simply does not have the money to spend the $700 million necessary to lift all Canadian seniors out of poverty? It simply defies logic, unless the government really does not care.
Instead of debating yet another free trade agreement in the House, we should go back to basics. Let us talk about the kind of Canada we want to leave for our children and grandchildren. When it comes to trade, let us talk about creating a comprehensive, principled trade strategy for our country. That trade policy has to be an integral part of an overall national economic strategy that delivers on the promise of good jobs at home and shared prosperity abroad.
Instead of laying out such a trade policy, the Conservative government keeps pushing its patchwork approach, where our country's global competitiveness is determined based on the profitability of Canadian multinational corporations operating abroad rather than on the ability of Canadian-based producers to compete and thrive on Canadian soil in a dynamic global economy. Surely it is the latter that ought to be our goal.
However, the Canada-Jordan free trade agreement does not meet that goal, just like the softwood sellout did not meet that goal, the shipbuilding sellout did not meet that goal and the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement did not meet that goal.
Let us take a quick look at the agreement. It is, as I said earlier, yet another one in a series of bilateral agreements that the government is busily signing around the world. However, bilateral agreements usually favour the dominant economy and ultimately facilitate a degree of predatory access to the less powerful domestic economies, which multilateral trade negotiations under the WTO would not necessarily allow.
That is why my NDP colleagues and I have consistently opposed NAFTA-style trade arrangements that put the interests of multinational corporations before workers and the environment and that have increased inequality and decreased the quality of life for the majority of working families.
It is precisely the shortsightedness of the so-called free trade model that results in the rejection of fair and sustainable trade and that generates the discontent, which ultimately leads to protectionism and increases the wealth gap between the rich and the poor. The NAFTA model has shown unparalleled efficiency in driving and entrenching the political and economic domination of large transnational corporations and it is currently at the heart of the ongoing drive for bilateral FTAs.
Let me focus the majority of my time today by talking about labour issues. As the NDP labour critic, I am sure most members in the House would expect me to do so.
Although Jordanian law recognizes some trade union rights, those remain limited. Union activity is tightly controlled and the right to collective bargaining is not recognized. There is a chapter on collective agreements in the labour code, but the right to strike is heavily curtailed as government permission must be obtained in order to call a lawful strike.
Many of the labour violations are laid out in a recent report by the UN Refugee Agency. I would commend members of the House to read the 2010 annual survey of violations of trade union rights in Jordan. What is without a doubt the most striking part of that report is the section that deals with the continuing abuse of migrant workers. Despite amendments to the labour law in 2008, which stated that domestic workers were to be treated on an equal footing with Jordanian workers in terms of medical care, timely payment of wages and subscription to the social security corporation, nothing much has changed in the day-to-day lives of migrant workers.
The 2009 official figures showed that more than 322,000 migrants were working in Jordan, but that unofficial estimates put unregistered migrant workers at 100,000 to 150,000. Many are employed without the proper permits, have their passports taken and are forced to work extremely long hours.
Let me give an example. The Israeli owner of the DK Factory in Irbid QIZ abandoned 17 Jordanian and 151 Bengali workers without any pay or benefits. According to the textile union, the problem began when a supervisor had beaten a worker on January 22 in a dispute over a vacation and a financial request. Ninety-three Bangladeshi workers staged a work stoppage that day in protest.
The next day workers returned to work to find the factory gates closed and to learn that the owner had fled the country. The government took nearly one month to respond to the union's complaint, finally beginning to provide some food and shelter for the abandoned workers. An investigation revealed that the employer had been preparing to leave the country for several months and had deliberately provoked the workers to strike.
Here is another example. Some 130 Sri Lankan female workers from the Al.Masader/Mediterranean factory in the Al Dulayl QIZ (EPZ) went on strike on March 1 in protest against being forced to live without heat, hot water or electricity. As management had refused to solve the problem, a local union set up a team of 10 representatives to resolve the dispute. However, a group of organized men beat one of the union activists, threatening to throw him from the dormitory roof unless he agreed to not meet with the female workers again. A complaint was made against the gang, but police refused to intervene. The union has finally arranged a resolution and workers returned to work on March 8.
There have been similar reports of organized gangs that threaten workers and try to destabilize relations between the union and the workers.
I could go on. Reports of forced overtime, beatings, insufficient food, the illegal withholding of passports and other abuses amounting to conditions of forced labour are rampant in Jordan. All too frequently, when workers protested, they were beaten by police, arrested and then deported to their home countries. Some remain in prison still.
The United States already has a free trade agreement with Jordan, but clearly that has not helped. A trade agreement in and of itself does nothing to stop the abuse of labour laws. On the contrary, what this throws into clear relief is that the much touted labour side agreements that are part of every trade agreement are toothless and the one before the House today is no exception.
Yes, I want this trade agreement to be studied in committee. I am not suggesting that Jordan is like Colombia, where paramilitary thugs and drug pushers are connected to the government. In fact, Jordan continues to be a relatively stable country in the Middle East, with some democratic structures. The country has been hard hit by the economic crisis and faces rising unemployment and debt. In an act reminiscent of the Conservative government's prorogation of Parliament, King Abdullah of Jordan dissolved Parliament in mid-2009 in order to push through new economic reforms.
Clearly not all of the country's problems are solved. A U.S. state department report that was referenced earlier in this debate by my colleague, the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster, gives further proof of that.
Therefore, no, I do not think it is unreasonable to expect this trade agreement to be scrutinized further. In fact, I would argue that the international trade committee has an obligation to investigate further. We must hear from women's groups, human rights organizations, business and labour groups, all of which have an interest in addressing the impacts of this agreement.
To ask for such hearings is not being obstructionist. It is simply a matter of due diligence, which ought to be at the heart of how all of us in the House do our work. It is even more important on a file where so little evidence has been presented to verify its success.
Over the years, under both Liberal and Conservative governments, we have heard a lot of cheerleading about how wonderful the various bilateral trade agreements will be for our country, but there has been no hard evidence that their promise has been fulfilled.
I remember during the first free trade agreement that Canada signed with the U.S., Stelco, which is a steel manufacturer in my home town of Hamilton, sent a letter to all steel workers in the plant, telling them that in the upcoming federal election they should vote for parties that supported free trade because their jobs were at stake. That trade agreement has been in place for decades now and I would defy the government to find a single steel worker who would say that it has been good for his or her job. On the contrary, decent family sustaining jobs are disappearing and are being replaced by precarious and part-time work.
It is time to stop celebrating trade agreements when there is not a shred of evidence that they will benefit Canada or Canadians. It is time to develop a meaningful industrial and trade policy that will ensure jobs for Canadians. It is time to focus on policies that will lead to middle-class recovery.
