Libby Davies

[Points of Order, January 31st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to the government whip, an unusual situation is his opinion and he is certainly entitled to it, but an unusual situation does not negate the use of the rules in this House. Otherwise how would we ever operate?

I think my point is very valid, that just because there is a discussion between the government whip and the Speaker where an agreement is made that we can just have this vote again does not negate the Standing Orders and the rules we have in this House.

Clearly, Standing Order 56.1 cannot be used unless it is in routine proceedings. We were not in routine proceedings. So whatever the member on the government side thinks, that is his opinion, fine and dandy, but we are using the rules of this House. That is how he rose in the first place. I believe that there is an inconsistency here and a contradiction and that the vote is invalid.

[Points of Order, January 31st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, a few minutes ago we had a vote in this House where Standing Order 56.1 was used and 25 members were required to stand in order to defeat a motion by the government to continue the debate on Bill C-3. In actual fact, if you look at Standing Order 56.1(1)(a), it is quite clear and I quote:

In relation to any routine motion for the presentation of which unanimous consent is required and has been denied, a Minister of the Crown may request during Routine Proceedings that the Speaker propose the said question to the House.

At that time we were not in routine proceedings. We had passed routine proceedings in the second vote. I believe that had the government wanted to go back and have that vote taken again, it would have required a motion to return to routine proceedings, a unanimous consent decision, and then if the government so chose, we would have returned to routine proceedings and it could have moved the motion.

I believe that the vote that we took under Standing Order 56.1 should not have been allowed under Standing Order 56.1 because we were actually not in routine proceedings. I believe that this vote should not be allowed to stand. If the government chooses to return to that point, it can try to do that, but that vote was not valid in this House because we were not in routine proceedings and therefore, Standing Order 56.1 could not be used.

[Privilege, January 29th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, very briefly on the same point, we appreciate the fact that the Minister of Health has come in to talk about his department, but I think the original question of privilege raised by the member for Mississauga South raises the question about where else it might be happening. Apparently there was a form in existence. I am hoping that the minister as a member of the cabinet will look not only at his own department but at others as well, because I think we need to know and be assured that this is not happening in other departments. I would make that response to the minister.

[Settlement of International Investment Disputes Act, January 29th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, clearly when an agreement is signed and goes into effect there are people who benefit. The member gives some examples of what has happened in India, but I could also use Mexico as an example. I point out that after the free trade agreement with Mexico the average wage of workers there actually went down. We saw the factory zones. We saw the massive exploitation that took place and is still taking place.

In fact, in India, yes, there is a developing middle class that is well educated, but again I think we have to look at the whole balance sheet. If we do that, there is absolutely overwhelming evidence to show that overall the inequities not only have remained but have actually been reinforced through these agreements. They actually are producing some kind of collision course, with a divide in terms of wealth and power between the north and the south and the divide within our countries between wealth and growing poverty.

We see this in our own country. We just have to look at the massive loss of jobs in our own country. There are a lot of families who are simply being left behind. We are talking about the prosperity gap and the people who have been left behind by the government.

I think we have to look at the total picture, and when we do that there is only one conclusion that we come to, which is that these trade agreements as they are now are very bad. They are bad for the quality of life for average people. They reinforce the power of huge corporations that really could not care less about the workers who are working in their factories. It is our job to stand up for that and to challenge this.

[Settlement of International Investment Disputes Act, January 29th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the member says there are two main barriers to the progress of prosperity for developing countries and he names capacity and corruption. I would add a third: exploitation under this regime of multinational corporations marching in, using natural resources, using cheap labour with no standards whatsoever, and exploiting the environment and local workers.

I would agree with him that of course we have to work for agreements that protect those social standards, but the reality is that over the last two or three decades of this incredible advancement of a globalized agenda through organizations such as the World Bank and the WTO, the primary focus has been on trade and lifting those barriers based on the needs and capacity of the multinational corporations, not based on whatever the domestic conditions are in the receiving country.

The whole premise that he advances is something that actually has not happened under this process of globalization. I think it is something that needs to be changed. Why would we not begin first with labour standards? Why would we not begin first with environmental standards and social standards? Why would we not begin from a place of social equity and social justice and advance trade on that basis?

As governments, we can do that if we have the political will. That is what we stand for in this party.

[Settlement of International Investment Disputes Act, January 29th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, for us the question is not whether there is trade but what the rules are that govern trade. I gave the example today of Peru and what is happening in that country. We could look at other countries, such as Colombia, or any situation and see decades of terribly exploitative practices.

It is unprincipled for us in the north to advance these trade agreements on the basis that somehow we are lifting people out of poverty, when in actual fact we have created a regime that reinforces the divide between the north and the south and reinforces the exploitation that takes place. In fact, it makes it even more systemic. We need to acknowledge that and develop trade practices that have at their foundation labour codes, rules and the right to organize. Implementing the International Labour Organization conventions would be a start. Even Canada is not a signatory to all of those conventions.

If we cannot begin at that place and recognize that we must protect people's rights in terms of their labour, then I would say these trade rules are not worth the paper they are written on. They are simply a regime for greater and greater profit margins for multinational corporations. That is why they want them. They want to go into those developing countries. They want to see minimal rules because they want to find greater markets. They want to find more cheap labour. We should recognize the impact that has in our own country.

Yesterday in question period there were questions on the manufacturing sector and the loss of jobs in the forestry sector, the auto sector, the resource sector. Everybody was talking about it. It is related to these trade agreements. There is an impact here at home. The member needs to understand that for us it is not about trade. It is about the regime and the rules that we create. We believe that this particular bill will reinforce a regime that is fundamentally anti-democratic.

[Settlement of International Investment Disputes Act, January 29th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in the House today at third reading on Bill C-9, An Act to implement the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States (ICSID Convention). The NDP is opposed to the bill and I will outline some of the reasons that we are opposed to it.

This is a bill that, on the face of it, looks fairly innocuous. It deals with a dispute mechanism. It involves the World Bank. It involves the status of multinational corporations when they are dealing with investment in foreign countries and ensuring there is a dispute resolution process.

On the face of it, it looks fairly reasonable, but when we dig a little bit deeper we find that this just skims the top in terms of what the bill represents in terms of a global regime that has seen over the last 20 years a massive transfer of power from governments to multinational corporations under the World Trade Organization under these trade agreements.

I would note that the Deputy Speaker, the member for Elmwood—Transcona himself, as a member of the House, has played a very active role. Mr. Speaker, I know you have been very involved with the NDP over the years when we fought the multilateral agreement on investment and the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas in Quebec City. Now we are dealing with the so-called security and prosperity partnership agreement that involves Canada, the United States and Mexico.

Mr. Speaker, I know you are very familiar and have a lot of credibility and a long record on dealing with these massive trade agreements that impact and undermine the democratic rights of Parliament and other states, and creates an enormous gulf in terms of the ability of citizens to organize themselves to have an impact on how these agreements come about and how they are dealt with in terms of disputes and the decisions that flow from them.

When we looked at Bill C-9 and had discussions in our caucus, we came to the conclusion that we could not support the bill.

The ICSID, as it is called, is part of an international trade and investment regime that has come under very harsh criticism from civil society because it does confer unprecedented powers to multinational corporations through bilateral investment treaties.

One of the concerns that I raised earlier today is that through this agreement there is no place for third party testimony. There is no accountability, no transparency and no openness or disclosure that would allow local organizations in an affected community or a labour union to come to the table and be part of the dispute resolution mechanism that is contemplated in this agreement unless there is consent by both parties involved in the arbitration, which is probably very unlikely. It makes it very inaccessible to local communities and third party stakeholders who would be impacted by the decisions being made. We believe that is a problem with the bill but that is just the tip of the iceberg.

A question was asked in the House yesterday by a Conservative backbencher who was congratulating the Minister of International Trade on his announcement that Canada has now concluded a free trade agreement with Peru. The Conservative member for Kelowna—Lake Country was asking the Minister of Labour whether the agreement with Peru would now provide labour rights protection in Peru. Not surprisingly, the Minister of Labour stood in the House and crowed that the trade agreement with Peru would deal with an improvement in labour rights, that everything would fine and that we should not worry about it. The Conservatives were patting themselves on the back.

I raise that issue because it is a very current example of the nature of these agreements and how they completely violate and undermine labour rights. They do nothing to be proactive in protecting very serious labour situations.

Yesterday the Minister of Labour claimed in the House that this international trade agreement with Peru will give protection to labour rights. On January 18 information came from the Peruvian workers' union denouncing the fact that over 3,000 workers have been dismissed in that country for organizing trade unions. Labour rights are virtually non-existent. Something is not right with this picture.

Ministers are trying to assure the public that people's basic human rights around labour, child labour, the environment and social standards are being protected and yet we have very concrete examples to tell us that in places such as Peru, which is just one example, there are very serious situations. Workers in that country are being undermined and their rights are being violated all the time.

In October 2007 the International Trade Union Confederation prepared a report for its general council and reviewed trade policies in Peru. This is a very current report. It is quite clear about the fact that there are very serious problems in that country. The recommendations in the report made it very clear that the government of Peru should amend its legislation to conform with the International Labour Organization's conventions 87 and 98. Convention 87 has to do with the freedom of association. Convention 98 has to do with the right to organize and the right to collective bargaining.

I find it contradictory that on the one hand a minister of the Conservative government is trying to assure us that everything is okay and that he has negotiated something that is going to protect those workers and yet the representatives of workers in that country are portraying a completely different reality. That is something of concern to the NDP.

We in the NDP believe that as parliamentarians we have a responsibility to not only uphold these international conventions that protect labour, human rights and the environment in our own country, but we also have a responsibility to speak out in the international community to make sure that those rights are upheld. We expect the Government of Canada to do the same. We expect the Government of Canada to show leadership on those questions.

To come back to the bill that is before us today, that is the very reason we find it to be very contentious. It is the very reason we find this bill to be completely missing the point about what is taking place on a global scale.

The members in our caucus have participated in many forums, discussions and educational workshops. It is quite incredible, given this global situation of opening up the floodgates to the transfer of capital with virtually no rules, that citizens have taken it upon themselves to become informed and educated as to what it is that is going on. These are not easy matters to get a handle on. These are very complicated agreements set up under the WTO. We learned that from the MAI. We are learning that now from the security and prosperity partnership.

We know that agreements are put together in secret. They are done at places like Montebello where leaders meet behind closed doors. The connection to the public, the ability of civil society to have any input or to be able to say anything is limited. In fact, security forces go to great lengths to ensure that kind of dialogue does not take place.

Our caucus has a lot of experience in dealing with these agreements. We understand the implications they have for a democratic society. Fundamentally, we express our concern in the House as well as in the community that we see it as a shift from making decisions in a democratic process in Parliament to a secretive process where we have no access. We do not even have access to that as members of Parliament.

If Canadians were asked what is the purpose of government, what are we here for, our constituents and members in our community would say that the purpose of government is to protect them. The purpose of government is to ensure that they have health care, education, income security and that the country is safe.

Over the years under these neo-liberal and neo-conservative policies, we have seen a massive shift in the role of government. That power has been transferred from government into the hands of undemocratic, unelected, unaccountable, non-transparent multinational corporations. These trade agreements have facilitated that process.

We should be standing up very strongly against these kinds of agreements. What we are most concerned about right now is the security and prosperity partnership that is taking place between the countries on the American continent: Canada, United States and Mexico.

We have been very outspoken. The member for Burnaby—New Westminster, our trade critic, has done an amazing job. He has travelled across this country. He has already gone to 12 communities. He is travelling to another 12 communities where we are holding public hearings on the SPP.

There is so much deep concern in the community about what that agreement will do and the fact that the government, as the previous government did, is signing on to this agreement with virtually no public disclosure. It will impact every aspect of domestic life in Canada. It will impact on the ability of Parliament to do its job. It will impact on the delivery of services. It will exacerbate the privatization of services. It will exacerbate the deregulation that is taking place in our society. At the end of the day these are things that begin to affect the quality of life. It becomes a race to the bottom.

We recognize the connection that this bill has in dealing with the dispute mechanism and its attachment to the World Bank, how it is completely complicit and tied into this move to globalization that is shutting down the democratic process. We strongly object to that. We intend to do everything we can not only in Parliament but in the broader civil society to see that these agreements are opened up, changed, that they are refuted.

We understand that trade is obviously going to happen. Trade is an important part of our economic activity in life, but we want to see fair trade. We want to see trade that is based on agreed to and implemented around core standards that set out labour rights, that set out environmental rights, that set out a social contract and social conditions so that the workers in the south are not being exploited and that Canadian workers are not losing their jobs as a result of these trade agreements.

We have seen a loss of over 300,000 manufacturing jobs. The Canada-South Korea trade agreement is under development. All of these things are taking place with virtually no debate or understanding. All this takes place behind closed doors.

The bill before us today is at third reading, but we believe it is not a good bill. It does not deal with realities that are before us in terms of what is happening with these trade agreements. We have to be incredibly skeptical about what the Conservative government is doing and what its agenda is.

I will use another example. Yesterday in the House we heard a minister of the government say that international treaties will be brought before the House which will be tabled, discussed and debated. On the face of it, it sounds reasonable, but if we go back a couple of years to September 2004, the then leader of the official opposition, who is now the Prime Minister, actually made a commitment with the other opposition leaders, including the leader of the Bloc and the leader of the NDP, that international treaties should be voted on in this House.

That was an actual commitment. It was part of a package that was brought forward in that first minority Parliament. We agreed that there should be a vote in the House of Commons on international treaties. Already we have seen the Conservative government break its promise just by its announcement yesterday that there will not be a vote, that there may be some debate or notice. That is a clear violation of the commitment made in September 2004.

I will close by saying that members of our caucus have reviewed the bill very thoroughly. We have debated and discussed it with our partners in the labour movement, in the Canadian Labour Congress and other places with members of civil society. There is no question that the approval of the bill would reinforce a regime of trade and international practice that gives massive powers to multinational corporations at the expense of the democratic process in places like the House of Commons.

On that basis we cannot support the bill. We urge other members of the House to also show the strength of representing the public interest, because that is what we are here to do, to represent the public interest, and to vote down the bill.

[Settlement of International Investment Disputes Act, January 29th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, as the member is probably aware, members of the NDP oppose the bill because of our concerns about it. The bill in and of itself, in terms of the process that it outlines for the settlement of investment disputes, is not so bad as far as it goes. However, we are very concerned about the larger context of the bill, its relationship to the World Bank and the involvement of multinational corporations.

One of the things we have raised in the debate on Bill C-9 is that the ICSID process does not allow for third party testimony except where there is consent from both parties in the arbitration, which is not necessarily easy to get. This has been held up as one of the serious concerns about this process. It makes the whole dispute mechanism, which is meant to be transparent, accountable and open, very inaccessible to local communities and third party stakeholders that may have a lot to say about representing a public interest in this process.

Could the member comment on that? Does she and members of her party also have concerns about that?

From our point of view, we think it will affect southern developing states most of all and will further marginalize developing countries in these transborder processes. It really eliminates the genuine and meaningful input of third party testimony of stakeholders and local communities, so the whole process becomes meaningless because they are in effect cut out.

Would the member comment on that?

[Privilege, January 29th, 2008]

First, Mr. Speaker, I would like to rise in support of the member for Mississauga South on his question of privilege. He is a very experienced and longstanding member of Parliament and I do not think that he raises this matter lightly today. He raises it with a very deep concern about the implications of that particular case and what it means not only for him and his constituents but for all opposition members in this House.

I am glad he referenced the situation that took place in Skeena—Bulkley Valley, which was held by the NDP and where there was a conscious and deliberate attempt and effort by the Conservative government to undermine the elected member in that riding and to sort of superimpose an unelected person who would become the spokesperson for the government on whatever the issues were. It was very offensive. I can tell members that the local community reacted immediately and very strongly.

Here we have another incident where clearly the principle that all members of the House are equal, which is a founding principle of our democracy in the House of Commons, is being undermined by what has taken place.

I do want to say that I believe very strongly that public servants in the civil service act in a very honourable way. When our office deals with various departments, whether it is Service Canada or whatever it might be, we find a level of professionalism and we find that individual public servants want to do their jobs in the best way possible and to carry out their role and recognize our role.

I want to be very clear that this is not any sort of negativity in terms of the public service. This is a political direction that has come through from the government and it is trying to make a differentiation between those who are government members and those who are opposition members.

Members of the NDP, who are very hard-working in serving the needs of our constituents, actually take that part of our job very seriously. A lot of people think that politics is just what they see in question period, but in actual fact most of us work in our ridings and deal with these individual issues, so our relationships with departments and individual staff members in those departments are very important to the work we do in providing service.

Therefore, it is most disturbing to hear that this took place and that there is a level of discrimination where there are two tiers of members, those who are government members and those who are not government members, and that we will get a different kind of service or a different level of information.

I do think that the member for Mississauga South has a serious complaint in terms of his privilege and the privilege of all of us as opposition members being violated, so I would support him in his submission today.

Mr. Speaker, I hope you would recognize that all members are equal and that this principle needs to be maintained, sustained and in no way undermined. We look to you, Mr. Speaker, to uphold that principle for all of us.

[Canada Elections Act, December 13th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Timmins—James Bay for the incredible work that he did at the committee in trying to correct the serious flaws in the bill.

Bill C-18 has a bad history. It started with Bill C-31 when the government moved on legislation that was supposedly based on incidents of voter fraud. I was at some of those committee meetings where we asked questions on whether there was voter fraud going on across the country. Elections Canada told us that there were only isolated incidents and yet that original bill was brought in to a crushing effect. Hundreds of thousands of people, including in my own community of East Vancouver, are now disenfranchised as a result of the original bill and would still be disenfranchised as a result of Bill C-18 that is before us today.

I want to thank the hon. member for the valiant efforts that he made in committee to ensure that some witnesses were allowed to point out the serious flaws in this process and in this bill. However, it seems that this has fallen on deaf ears. Not only has the government been in denial about the impact of this bill, but so has the official opposition and the BQ.

It is quite stunning to see that other parties in this House have refused to acknowledge the disastrous impact of this bill and the impact it will have on people in urban areas, as well as rural areas, but because the issue in urban areas was never addressed we are now disenfranchising people.

I would like to ask the hon. member to comment from the point of view of what he heard from the witnesses and what he will see as the impact of this bill on people in urban areas.