Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be speaking on behalf of the Bloc Québécois about Bill C-46, particularly about the amendment proposed by an NDP member.
To begin with, I would like to say that the Bloc Québécois will support this amendment because it means that debate about the bill will be delayed, potentially killing it. We are against this bill, and we said that during the first debate.
It is important to reiterate that the Bloc Québécois opposes this bill mainly because Panama is a tax haven, a country that promotes tax evasion. It is unbelievable that the Conservative government, supported by the Liberals, wants to conclude an agreement and adopt a bill to implement that agreement with a country that promotes tax evasion, when we have seen over the past two or three weeks that rather significant capital belonging to Canadians had been transferred to the HSBC Bank in Switzerland. In essence, this constitutes a form of tax evasion. The government tells us that it has started recovering some of the money, but it is a double standard. On one hand, it says it wants to recoup this money but it is not going to great lengths to do so, and on the other hand, it wants to conclude a trade agreement with Panama, a country that openly promotes tax evasion and is on the OECD grey list of tax havens.
France, among other countries, has taken very serious measures to fight tax evasion. French parliamentarians believe that this type of tax evasion absolutely must stop. They have taken measures to impose more taxes on companies that want to set up in known tax havens. France has established a black list, which was published in February 2010. It includes a number of Latin American and Asian countries, Anguilla in the Caribbean, Belize in Central America, Brunei in Asia, Costa Rica in Central America, Dominica and Grenada in the Caribbean, Guatemala in Central America, the Cook Islands and the Marshall Islands in Oceania, Liberia in Africa, Montserrat in the Caribbean, Nauru and Niue in Oceania, Panama in Central America, the Philippines in Asia, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean. Panama is clearly on the black list of countries that promote tax evasion.
In Canada, we have a government that wants to promote trade with a country that has been blacklisted by other countries for promoting tax evasion.
We are short on money, and the government says we have a massive deficit. And yet it wants to negotiate and sign agreements with countries that promote tax evasion. These agreements will favour businesses and individuals that invest in these countries in order to pay less in taxes. That makes no sense, and is a complete contradiction.
The Bloc Québécois is not against free trade agreements. On the contrary. We have often said this. The Bloc Québécois was the first party to introduce the idea of an agreement with the European Union. We were in favour of a free trade agreement with the European Union, and these negotiations are now under way. We are absolutely not against trade agreements. Take NAFTA, for example, which Quebec fully supported.
What we are saying is that we must take advantage of the globalization of markets to try to level the playing field with trade regulations, to ensure they are fair for workers in other countries and workers here, for the different companies and for the environment. We must ensure that free trade agreements are not signed at the expense of the people of another country, of their environment or ours. We must look at the measures beforehand, instead of rushing to sign agreements, which only leads to serious repercussions in terms of the environment and labour rights. It is quite possible that these agreements would be better negotiated from a multilateral perspective.
What we are saying is that yes, we must be open to trade, but not just any old way. We believe that in order for trade to be mutually beneficial, it must first be fair. A trading system that results in exploitation in poor countries and dumping in rich countries is not viable. There is a downside, as I just mentioned. The Bloc Québécois will never tolerate a system of free trade that would result in a race to the bottom. We worry that an agreement like the free trade agreement with Panama will result in a race to the bottom.
The absence of environmental or labour standards in trade agreements puts a great deal of pressure on our industries, especially our traditional industries. It is very difficult for them to compete with products made with no regard for basic social rights. The Bloc Québécois believes that child labour, forced labour and the denial of workers' fundamental rights are a form of unfair competition, just like, or even more than, export subsidies and dumping. Prohibition of these practices is widely accepted at the international level, as reflected by the large number of countries that have signed the International Labour Organization's eight fundamental conventions. We must have a way to protect ourselves against such practices. We need an overall vision, a policy geared more to multilateral than bilateral agreements.
Trade agreements and trade laws do not protect our businesses and our workers from this social dumping. If a country wants to benefit from free trade, in return it has to accept a certain number of basic rules, with regard to social rights in particular. Environmental organizations and human rights groups have been concerned about this issue for a long time. More recently, though, it has become a major economic issue. Quebec has proportionally more industries threatened by competition from Asia than the rest of Canada. Quebec is at the forefront of this debate.
In closing, the Bloc Québécois is urging the federal government to revise its positions in trade negotiations in order to ensure that trade agreements include clauses ensuring compliance with international labour standards as well as respect for human rights and the environment. In their current form, side agreements on minimum labour standards and environmental protection lack a binding mechanism that would make them truly effective. The Bloc Québécois believes that if Canada wants to have credibility on this front, it should immediately sign on to the International Labour Organization's fundamental conventions against various forms of discrimination, forced labour and child labour, as well as those in support of the right to organize and collective bargaining.
Once again, we will support the amendment put forward by the NDP so that, ideally, this bill will eventually be withdrawn.
