Mr. Speaker, I am not necessarily pleased to have to speak about this bill today. In fact, it should not be here at the moment. The committee that studied it last summer recommended a study of its effects on human rights, as my colleague mentioned.
Therefore, I am going to talk about the environmental impact this agreement could have on the beautiful country of Colombia. The primary aim of the agreement is to promote Canadian extractive companies, in other words, the people who operate mines. This sort of work is not well regulated in Colombia. The agreement could at least have defined the types of extraction allowed and the manner in which Canadians could operate there. This could devastate a country where poor people are in poor health and live in insecurity because their environment will be destroyed by this type of mining.
Have my colleagues seen pictures of the type of extractive mining carried out in certain countries in South America and in Colombia at the moment? It is disastrous. Huge amounts of material are extracted and then used to obtain precious metals or lithium, in short, things that are quite rare. The quantity of waste generated is enormous. There is no thought of recycling or returning the land to its original state. They clearcut the trees, opening the way to landslides when there are heavy rains. It is a country of sudden and fairly heavy rains producing landslides that can sweep away entire villages. These people live right next to their place of work. They live in shacks because they cannot afford proper houses. Very often, these shacks are only built for temporary use.
A mine opens and operates for three years. It closes for a year, because the price of the metal has dropped. It then reopens for another two years. So the people are always living on the edge. They do not invest in the construction of good houses.
The material exposed to the air is collected by the floodwaters, which often carry dangerous and toxic raw materials into waterways. As we know, these mines are often in the mountains and the waterways go on for unbelievable distances.
The residue of heavy metals in river water is the hardest to remove because it is so fine, and the usual filters cannot readily detect it. In this country, mine operators—I could call them exploiters—can do as they see fit. They do not have enough money to install water filters powerful enough to remove the toxic waste from river water. People drink that water. Then they say that people die early because they are in poor health, but it is because they have been deprived of the chance to lead a healthy life in their own country.
Why are we imposing that on people?
It is because there are private interests that can extract this material, export it from Colombia and import it into our country. For a treaty such as this, and before finalizing this bill, someone should have studied the environmental impacts to see how changes could be made. That has not been done. In any case, if it has been done, we do not know about it. The government may have kept it hidden, because we were not told of any study of that kind, as had been requested by the committee.
In addition to the trees being cut down, the soil and water are also being polluted. It affects not just humans, but also the animal chain. The whole biological system will be left in a debilitated condition for decades before renewal begins, because there is no effort even to restore the land. Once the mining is finished, they will simply leave the machinery where it is; they will dump out the barrels of petroleum fuels and walk away. What goes on in those mines has to be seen. It is unbelievable.
They dump a barrel of gasoline. Yet, we know that one drop of gasoline will contaminate a thousand drops of water. Imagine how much water will be contaminated with each barrel. Often, the water table emerges further along because in the mountains a water table can extend for many kilometres; but it will empty unfiltered into a stream or water course. The toxic matter is not filtered by the soil because the water currents are quite strong and the water does not pass through sand and therefore is not filtered. Even if it did pass through sand, the material passing through would leave the sand saturated with dangerous matter.
In such a deal, consideration of the environment should have been fundamental. They say that we want to respect the countries that we trade with. We are not living in 1500 or 1800 when there was no concern for the environment. In a week or so, we will be into the year 2010. In this century, it is normal to consider the consequences of our actions on the environment. That has not been done in the bill. We find that is unacceptable. Why was it not done? It is because they wanted to protect private interests. Those interests are here in Canada, and when they tell us that this will make Colombia prosperous, it is only a smokescreen over the sea of free trade.
We are not against free trade, and I want to emphasize that. We are against free trade that does not consider the actual conditions in a country like Colombia. It could have been another country, but in that country we do not consider those conditions. On the pretext that these are poor people, that no one has the will to develop the enormous mines in that country, we negotiate an agreement with that government by telling them that we will trade goods. We know what things are exported from Colombia and that our trade with that country is minimal. That will not increase as a result of this agreement because the people there will not have any more money. The people will not be made richer because mining operators tear their country apart, destroy the natural systems and ecological balance, and then leave their mess behind after paying minimum wages.
In short, we are opposed to this agreement because, in the end, it is a bad agreement; it was made too quickly and to protect interests that are too limited.