Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the constituents of Calgary East to speak on today's motion, which would require the government to subject any project or accord on a free trade agreement with the Americas to a debate and vote before it is ratified by the government. It is a very simple question and a very simple motion.
I have been listening to the government's position all day and what I have heard is an attempt by the government to bring in the ministers and other players to tell us what is happening with free trade in the Americas and how good free trade will be in the Americas. It has been attempting to point out the issues that it is trying to bring to the table of free trade with the Americas.
It is quite interesting that the government is telling us all these things now that the Bloc has brought forward this motion. If the Bloc had not brought forward the motion, in all probability we would not have known all these details that are now coming out point by point.
The government has said, and the minister and the parliamentary secretary have kept repeating it, that it has a website, that it is an open consultation process and that everyone is invited to come to the committees and talk. That is not the question. It is a matter of principle.
I agree that in the last parliament the foreign affairs committee did a study on FTAA. I was part of that committee and we listened. However, I have to say that the study was done prior to going into consultation. I thought it was a good idea. We, the official opposition, put in a minority report on that study.
The minority report that we submitted asked exactly for the same thing that is being asked for by the Bloc. We recommended that treaties be brought into parliament to be ratified by elected officials. If the government looks up the Canadian Alliance's minority report it will see that is exactly what we were recommending.
The government could go ahead and do the consultation. When negotiations are done and a final draft is available, the draft should be brought to the elected officials who could discuss the issues in committee.
In all probability, most of us, who believe in free trade, in human rights and in democracy, would probably agree with the government's position.
However, there could be some areas in which it needs attention. We could hear from our own constituents, but where and how will our constituents talk? They can only talk through elected representatives. That is what we have been telling them. We have been telling them for years and years that we are their elected representatives, that we are their voice in Ottawa, their voice in government affairs.
Now what is happening? The minister and everyone said that we go through the committees. We have sat in committees. This is my second term. I have sat in committees and committees are not the voice of debate. Committees will hear witnesses, but they are not a point of debate. Debate should be done by members of parliament in the House.
Let me give an example: NAFTA. The NAFTA agreement was done by the bureaucrats, by the mandarins behind the scenes, was brought in and of course it was signed. One area that turned out to be of concern after NAFTA was signed was the issue of bulk water exports. That became an issue when Canadians got concerned about the bulk water export issue.
The Liberal Party said in one of its red book promises that it would open up the negotiations on NAFTA so it could exclude water. Of course NAFTA had already been signed and of course could not be opened up. The Liberals have not opened it up so far, and so far we still have this problem of water. That is why the government has been running to the provincial governments asking them not to give licences for the sale of water. The government knows what will happen under NAFTA.
As a matter of principle it is necessary to bring treaties that affect the lives of Canadians into the Chamber that is supposed to be their voice. We cannot exclude that. This business of saying that there are committees and websites and all these things is all a minor attempt to open up things. At the end of the day, it is important for elected officials, not only for NGOs. NGOs are accountable to nobody. They have their own agendas, and sure, they will write their own agendas. It is the elected officials who are responsible to their constituents, and constituents should be having their voices heard over there, not just a couple of those other things.
I have a good example. When my colleague was talking about France and the U.S.A., the parliamentary secretary said that model should not apply to Canada because the U.S.A. and France are republics. I want to tell him that in Australia, which is a federation like Canada, the Australian parliament changed its system to ensure that treaties over there would be debated. Treaties would come into parliament and would have the approval of provincial legislatures before they would come into effect.
What I have found out is that the federal government signs all these international treaties that fall under the jurisdiction of the provinces and then forces the provinces to do something in which they are not interested. The Kyoto protocol is an example.
At the end of the day the Australians said that was not the way a pure democracy should be working, so they changed it and now their parliament and their provinces have input into international treaties before they are ratified.
What is the problem in Canada? We have heard from the parliamentary secretary, who said that this is how we have been doing business in the past year, that this is how we have been signing treaties and so on. Fine. That is how they have been doing it in the past. Now Canadians are demanding accountability. Canadians are asking for change. They are asking that their voices be heard.
The parliamentary reform that everybody is talking about is another example of where Canadians want change, so I do not understand why the government is afraid to bring it forward for debate. Why do they not want to change so that Canadians' elected representatives can talk about it?
If the treaty is good, which I think it will be at the end of the day, nobody will oppose it. We may have somebody opposing it, but if it is good for the country, why should we oppose it? We believe in free trade.
At the end of the day my appeal to the government is this. Yes, we do have certain systems like committees and all these things, but they are not sufficient to bring transparency to international agreements. The FTAA agreement in the motion is just one example. As a principle, treaties and agreements should be coming in front of parliament to be ratified by elected officials.
