Madam Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-24, a bill that troubles me because of its weaknesses in addressing many issues, including tax havens, possible money laundering, lack of fairness provisions and a seeming lack of responsible policy making.
The lack of leadership of that milk toast government troubles me when I see other countries, like Australia, showing true leadership on fair trade, innovation and building an economy for the 21st century, not only for the sake of their own people but for all global citizens.
The process of this bill began in October 2008 and here we are four years later. This is a government that is interested in policy making by template, resting on its laurels. Most troubling is the blind eye that the government is willing to show toward tax havens.
I will not hide my allegiance here. The member for Outremont in our party would like to see a smarter tax system, one that eliminates illegal tax havens and ensures that our economic players play fair, in other words, that everyone who is an economic player in Canada pays his or her fair share of taxes and does not use tax havens to hide money from respective governments for personal enrichment.
Panama is a country that has refused transparent measures to ensure that money laundering by organized crime and drug traffickers does not happen. Therefore, it pains me that the government puffs its chest continually about cracking down on crime, while permitting laundering of drug funds, through tacit approval of Panama in this area, by engaging in a trade agreement with a country that permits money laundering of proceeds of drug trafficking, of illegal activity, of organized crime. The hypocrisy is pretty evident in this position.
Conservatives elsewhere in the world understand this fact of not promoting tax havens. Recently French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in a speech made at the end of a G20 conference in Cannes in November, named certain countries, such as Antigua, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, among eight others, and he included Panama in the list of countries that were troubling tax havens. Sarkozy threatened that countries that remained tax havens would be shunned by the international community. Apparently Canada does not want to participate in the international community that shuns these tax havens.
Social democrats elsewhere in the world understand. Australia's Labour government has a comprehensive policy on tax havens. That is one of the reasons why the work of that government has been recognized worldwide. Wayne Swan, its minister of finance, was named the best finance minister in the world recently, making social democrats worldwide proud of our achievements.
As the opposition, we have made propositions in the past to improve this agreement. During the clause-by-clause review, we proposed 11 amendments that would have made progressive changes to the bill. These included the addition of crucial concepts of sustainable development and sustainable investment and, most important, we proposed a requirement for taxation transparency. All of our proposed amendments were voted down by the Conservatives with the help of the third party. That shows where those two dinosaur parties stand on proper, responsible tax policy.
If we look in the past at former Prime Minister Paul Martin and Canada Steamship Lines, anybody in the know will know of the former prime minister's actions to avoid paying proper taxes. We see examples where members of both parties used loopholes for their own personal enrichment and to avoid paying their share of taxes.
Even worse is the Conservatives' protection of big-time organized criminals, the real drug traffickers, the big guys, the big players, by supporting Panama. Cocaine and heroin dealers can find a good partner in Panama to launder their money and the big profits they have made off the backs and misery of the cocaine and heroin addicts of this world. Meanwhile, the government is planning on punishing the small-time guy while letting the big-time organized criminals go. It leads to questions about our ports and the government's real willingness to prevent the importation of hard drugs.
For instance, the talks for this process began in October 2008, under the Torijjos government. Torrijos put Manuel Noriega's old team in place. Members of a certain age in this room will remember Manuel Noriega. He was apprehended by the Americans for complicit activities and drug trafficking. The Torijjos government put Noriega's old boys back into key positions.
Colonel Daniel Delgado Diamante, the minister of government and justice, is another example of people Noriega had worked with in the regime when the Conservatives started talks with the Panamanian government. Anyone sufficiently schooled in politics would know that it is never just a single actor who contributes to corruption, crime or criminal activities but always a team.
Trade agreements are an opportunity to brand Canada. Instead we see that the government does not understand this concept. Australia, our Commonwealth partner, understands. On November 8 last year, in the biennial Sir Alan Westerman lecture delivered by Australian Minister for Trade Hon. Dr. Craig Emerson, he asked whether free trade can be fair. His answer was that free trade can be fair. We in the NDP agree.
The Australian government knows its brand. Dr. Emerson said:
Australia's future is as a high-skill, high-wage country. It is in the interests of working Australians that we compete in the production of goods embodying high levels of skills and innovation, not on the basis of low skills and low wages.
Furthermore, he said:
The existence of people struggling on very low wages is not unfair to rich countries; it is unfair to them and the families they are trying to support. For them, free trade is fair and if we have any compassion for them we should agree.
One would think this would support the Conservatives' bill. Not at all.
Dr. Emerson talked about the World Trade Organization. He said:
Members are protected from unfair practices by other members, but non-members enjoy no such protection. The philosophy of the WTO is free trade conducted under fair rules; there's no inherent conflict between the two. But the world trading rules are far from perfect in ensuring fairness. Some countries have high tariffs while others have none. Some countries have tough quota restrictions while others have none. Some countries have many nasty non-tariff barriers in place behind their borders while others have few. Some countries have big subsidies on domestic production of agricultural and manufactured goods while others have none. Some countries dump their surplus products onto export markets at below-cost prices while others do not. Some countries heavily subsidise their offshore fishing industries--contributing to fishery depletion--while other countries do not.
Clearly, the WTO's rule book contains loopholes and has pages missing, such that trade is neither free nor fair, though it is freer and fairer than would be the case if there were no rules. The objectives of both free trade and fair trade are best served by applying rules to everyone and making sure the rules cover all unfair practices.
The idea is not to close our eyes and say everything is fine, but to propose improvements. Instead, we face the laziness and complacency of the government that sees no problem using a template from 1988 repeatedly. Free trade can be fair trade. In the words of our former leader, Mr. Jack Layton, “Don't let them tell you it can't be done”.
Here are the kinds of things that we proposed. The first was regarding sustainable development. The amendment would define sustainable development as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, as set out in the Brundtland report published by the World Commission on Environment and Development.
The second amendment was regarding the definition of sustainable investment. The amendment would define sustainable investment as investment that seeks to maximize social good as well as financial return, specifically in the areas of the environment, social justice and corporate governance in accordance with the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment.
The NDP has consistently opposed NAFTA-style trade templates that focus on the interests of multinational corporations and ignore workers and the environment. These trade agreements have increased inequality and decreased the quality of life for the majority of working families. That is not fair. That is not fair trade and we need to be future forward on trade. We need to look to the future.
We strongly believe in proposing an alternative and better form of trading relationship such as the one that could be established with Panama or any other country, if we are willing to make the changes to the legislation. We need an overall fair trade strategy that provides a comprehensive common sense impact assessment on all international agreements that demonstrates that Canadian negotiations are beneficial to Canadian families, workers and industries.
The government does not sign any trade agreements that would lead to a net job loss. Here we can look at what Air Canada did with Aveos and how we are bleeding jobs now because of this agreement that was made with a foreign company. Also we can look at the fundamental principle that all trade agreements must promote and protect human rights by prohibiting the import, export or sale in Canada of any product that is deemed to have been created under sweatshop conditions, forced labour or other conditions that are not in accordance with fundamental international labour standards and human rights.
We will not be supporting the bill, not because we are against trade, but because it is weak on trade. It is weak on fairness and it will only serve to legitimize the activities of organized crime groups. It will fail to help the workers of Panama. Furthermore, as long as the government continues with its lazy template, we will continue to oppose free trade deals that are not fair trade deals as well.