Chrystia Freeland

[The Economy, February 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, why does the Minister of Finance continue to ignore this harsh reality, as documented by the IMF, at the cost of Canadian jobs and economic growth?

[The Economy, February 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I see the government is not interested in the view of IMF economists, but I think Canadians are. Let me continue to quote from that report. The IMF warns—

[The Economy, February 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, this month the IMF released a report on Canada's economic outlook. The story the IMF tells is of a lost decade. To quote from the report, “Canada’s exports have barely recovered from the Great Recession...”. The IMF warns that low productivity growth has, and I quote the IMF report, “eroded Canada’s external—”

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, January 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member very much for the welcome, but the action plan unfortunately was not published on my election day, which was November 25, not November 27, obviously a more important date personally for me than for other members of the House. Maybe only three other members find it as significant.

I look forward to working with the hon. member on the trade committee and I promise to carefully study that report and let him know what our priority countries are. I would say, however, that it is not only about priority countries; it is about a broader vision.

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, January 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's excellent point underscores my point and our general argument that while we are strongly in favour of free trade, it needs to be embedded in a much more ambitious, much more effective agenda for Canadian economic competitiveness in the 21st century.

The hon. member's point about the trade deficit is particularly telling and particularly unforgivable, given that this has come at a time when commodity prices are at all-time highs. As we all know, we are a commodity-exporting nation, so it is really startling that this has been happening.

What do we need to do better? As my hon. colleague said, we need to ensure that when we talk about the free trade agenda, when we talk about embedding Canada in the global economy, we are not just signing pieces of paper, getting the sound bite, and walking away. We need to be absolutely sure that the structure of those deals supports middle-class jobs back home in Canada, and, more broadly, that these deals support the creation of world-beating companies based in Canada but selling into the global marketplace.

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, January 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for those points. I would just like to repeat that Honduras is absolutely far from being an angelic and perfect country, and we are fully aware of that. It is our judgment that at this moment a trading relationship would help us to help the positive forces in Honduras and would help Honduras move in the right direction,

Again, this is not something we sign and walk away from. It behooves the Government of Canada and all of us here to watch it very carefully, and if we feel there is a retrograde movement in Honduras, we will need to act.

On the point about Canadian companies and their behaviour in Honduras, that falls under encouraging corporate social responsibility, which I have already cited. This is a very strong point, and we need to take great care as representatives of the Canadian people to encourage Canadian companies to behave abroad as we would demand they behave at home.

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, January 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, first, I am sorry for not addressing you. I promise to learn the rules better as the days go on.

With regard to the Ukraine parallel, obviously I have been thinking about that a lot. It is very relevant to the current situation.

I would draw the attention of my hon. colleague to the fact that the current battle in Ukraine was actually precipitated by the willingness of the European Union to sign an association agreement, which included some trade provisions, with the current Government of Ukraine, led by President Yanukovych. That current government, even before all of this, was not an angelic regime. In fact Yulia Tymoshenko, of whom we have been speaking, was imprisoned. It was a difficult, finely-balanced decision for the European Union. It was prepared at that point to sign an agreement Ukraine, and indeed was very enthusiastic about it, because the EU felt that agreement would help Ukraine, which was tentatively building a democracy, to become fully democratic.

The same applies to Honduras now. It is absolutely not perfect. That is why I raised, and we as a party raised, some significant points, and we think this agreement has to be closely monitored. This is not something that we sign and walk away from.

At this moment, we think that this deal is good for Canada and good for Honduras.

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, January 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, our central point and our central argument about economic policy for Canada is going to be that what we need is a big global vision, a vision fit for the 21st century. That is why we are supporting the agreement but saying that it is not enough and that we need to be working on bigger deals that fit in with a broader agenda.

I do, though, have to respond to the earlier comment criticizing us for supporting the member's policy. What I would say there is that the Liberal Party is moving past the rancorous major attack politics that, sadly, we have seen dominate this House for far too long. When we think a policy is a good one, we are absolutely willing to support it. That is case, absolutely, with free trade.

Since I hope you are pleased with our support for the free trade deal, I would encourage you to support our very bold and incredibly popular move on the Senate. You gentlemen could do the same thing today. You could show how broad-spirited you are and show that you too can be bipartisan.

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, January 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, Liberals support Bill C-20. The Liberal Party is strongly in support of the principle of free trade as an essential part of Canada's economic growth in the 21st century.

I would like to talk a bit about our broader vision of what we need to do with trade and how that fits into our overall economic vision, and then I would like to talk about this specific agreement and how we need to work hard in implementing it to live up to the principles of Canadian democracy and how Canada wants to conduct itself in the world.

On trade, 19.2% of Canadians work in jobs that are directly in the export sector, and up to 80% of the Canadian economy, depending on how one counts it, is dependent on exports. We are a small country in a vast globalized world economy, and without being open to that world economy, without being an active energetic participant, we have no chance of thriving and, crucially, no chance of creating middle-class jobs, which we need and which we are failing to create in sufficient number and quality right now.

However, what we need is not just a number of piecemeal agreements with small countries like Honduras. What Canada needs to be successful is an economic and trade vision that is much more ambitious, wider reaching, and which fully and ambitiously integrates Canada into the global economy. Therefore, while Liberals support this trade deal with Honduras, we believe our country needs to be more energetically engaged with other emerging market economies that are growing strongly and where we see the rest of the world competing now for a position.

In particular, I would like to draw everyone's attention to what is happening right now in Africa. A lot of us are accustomed to seeing Africa as a development story, a poverty story. The reality of the new Africa today is that it is one of the world's hottest emerging markets. Some of the leading countries in Africa have had, for more than five years, 5% economic growth year on year. This is real; this is huge. We are seeing investors pouring in, and we are seeing a competition between the big and ambitious countries in the world, notably China and the U.S., for a strategic position in Africa. Where is Canada? Africa is a continent to which we urgently need to turn our attention when it comes to trade deals, and what a great way for us to have a positive impact on the world.

The other part of an ambitious global economic agenda and global trade agenda for Canada is thinking about where we want to position our country in the world economy. Right now we are living in a winner-take-all global economy. That applies to countries, and it applies to individuals and companies. Frankly, we are not seeing from today's government a sufficiently ambitious and forward-looking economic agenda for our country.

One of my favourite books at the moment is a book by economist Tyler Cowen called Average is Over. His central contention is that we are living in a moment when if a company is the best in a space, the top talent in a space, the top city or top country, it will succeed. However, if one is in the middle and just average, there is no future. That is a lesson that Canada desperately needs to learn and that the Canadian government needs to make as the centre of its policies.

We need to be building an overall trade agenda, an overall economic vision in which we are creating in Canada a platform for being fully engaged in the world economy, but also a platform for which we have companies headquartered in Canada doing business around the world, rather than the old branch plant economy. That is not going to work. It is not going to create enough great jobs for the 21st century. This reality of an ambitious trade agenda, an economic agenda fit for the 21st century, we believe, is going to become ever more apparent in 2014.

Already this week, the first week of our new session, we have heard a lot of assertions from the Conservative benches about Canada's economic excellence, how we are better than anyone else in the G7 and so on. That is going to be less true in 2014, as the other G7 economies, which suffered so greatly from the financial crisis and from which Canada was spared thanks to the wise bank regulation policies of the Liberal government in the 1990s, have now healed. We are going to see that in 2014. We are already seeing a very strong comeback in the U.S. and the U.K., but our relative performance is looking much worse already, and we are not even through the first month of 2014.

That says that we have coasted. We have coasted on the fact that we did not have a financial crisis and we have not put in place a powerful, forward-looking economic agenda that is going to build prosperity for the middle class in the 21st century, and that includes trade. Piecemeal agreements with small countries are a good start. However, we need to be a lot more ambitious and have a much broader vision.

When it comes to the Honduras deal in particular, my hon. colleagues in the NDP have raised the important point that this is a trade deal with a country that has a very troubled record and very troubled reality on many political labour and environmental issues. We in the Liberal Party believe that it is important for us to do this deal. Not every country in the world is perfect, and we have to trade in the global economy. We believe that having a strong trading relationship can and must be a way to be a positive force in those economies. However, it will only work if it is more than words.

In implementing this trade deal, we have to be very aware of what is going on in Honduras and to the possibility that by having a trade deal with this country and having our companies engaged with it we could be complicit in political, environmental and labour violations. We do not just sign a deal and walk away; we have to watch closely and be absolutely certain that we and Canada are behaving well.

I would like to point to the fact that rather than having a binding mechanism for labour and environmental standards in the side agreements, article 816 of the free trade agreement states:

Each Party should encourage enterprises operating within its territory or subject to its jurisdiction to voluntarily incorporate internationally recognized standards of corporate social responsibility in their internal policies....

That puts a great onus on us to be aware, to watch and to be absolutely careful that those political, environmental and labour standards are watched and observed.

As the MP for Toronto Centre, I would like to draw particular attention to the tremendous abuse and repression that the LGBT community faces in Honduras. Even as we broaden and deepen our economic relationship with Honduras, this is something that we have to be absolutely aware of and watchful about. We have to take great care that the Canadian companies that will be working and trading there, and will have a relationship with Honduras, are not party to that and are in fact acting against it through their example.

Regarding the environmental standards, we have to be watchful about this. If, as the Labour Party believes, we are to use our trade agreements with troubled countries to be a force for moving those countries in a positive direction, we have to take incredible care. We have to take incredible care about the labour and environmental standards as well. This is how we ensure that free trade is a great deal for the Canadian middle class. Without watching those labour and environmental standards, trade with a country which is poorer than Canada, like Honduras, can be dangerous for the middle class.

Again, we cannot simply sign a piece of paper and walk away. This trade deal has potential. That is why we support it, but we have to be extremely vigilant. We must also move toward a broader vision, something much more than one single deal.

[Intergovernmental Relations, January 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of Finance tabled the 2013 budget, he said that Canada's biggest economic challenge was our skills shortage. His alleged solution was the Canada job grant. A year later, the only thing the government has produced is a multi-million dollar advertising campaign for a program that still does not exist.

If a new plan is not in place by April 1, will the government extend the current labour market agreements with the provinces and territories or will the government simply cut the funding and run?