Malcolm Allen

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, June 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to explain to my friend across the way, the parliamentary secretary. No, it is about building civil society and governmental capacity first. Then perhaps we would trade with them in some form or another.

Then again, if you want to bring Hondurans here to learn about how to build capacity, I think that would be a great idea. Instead of bringing temporary foreign workers from Honduras up here all the time to exploit them, maybe you ought to bring those folks up here to learn about democracy. Let them learn about the rule of law. Let them learn the rules about human rights, and you can keep the temporary foreign workers back in Honduras.

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, June 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the member is right about its economy being small. There are few opportunities for most trading groups in this country. There is some agricultural potential for us in Honduras, but beyond that, there is not much else.

There is a greater opportunity for us to perhaps work with DFAIT and NGOs to help Hondurans build civil society capacity and government capacity that would put Honduras on a path to a democracy that respects the rule of law. Even its own Supreme Court says that 98% of the crimes committed are committed with impunity, because folks there do not believe that they are going to be caught, and if they are caught, they will never go to trial or be convicted.

There is no respect for the rule of law. How would any company here in Canada enter into a trading relationship with a country where there are rampant criminal elements and there are no convictions? Why would one go there?

One of the things the Conservative government always says is that if it is going to have a trading partner, the other side needs to have the rule of law so that both sides understand what is going on. That is not true in Honduras.

We need to help it build that capacity internally, and then perhaps there would be a trade agreement down the road.

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, June 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague from Toronto Centre who opined that we have judgments that perhaps become a value judgment, because we have to look at the circumstances of individual cases. I would not disagree with that. I would come to a different conclusion than the member came to, which is that we should just go ahead with Honduras.

It reminds me of her colleagues in the last Parliament, who decided that the Colombia deal would not be a good deal until the human rights abuses were cleared up. They finally caved at the last minute and made a deal with Uribe in Colombia and said that we would have some sort of monitoring committee. It would be Colombians monitoring to make sure that Colombians did not abuse Colombians when it came to human rights. Good luck with that one, because it did not work. If that is the Liberal value judgment, then trade trumps all, and maybe we will hope for things to get better. Then it really is time for a new chapter to be written.

When we look at values, we look at human values and human needs and how we respect human values around the world, not at whether there is a balance sheet at the bottom that actually becomes the important message. Clearly, the government sided with the Liberals in tow as an extra piece of add-along and decided that it is their value system. That is their value judgment. If it is a dollar sign, it is a great value. If it is human rights, not so much. Maybe it will get better. Let us hope it gets better. If it does not get better, we do not live there. That seems to be the attitude.

I am not quite sure how that happens. Clearly the evidence points to Honduras not being a stable regime. It has no elected government. In comes the army and takes people away. It seems that the House was seized with what happened in Crimea and unanimously said that no state should simply walk into a democratic state and decide to impose its will, even if it is somewhat internal with some external backing. We see it in Honduras. We want to have a trade deal, so maybe it is okay.

It seems slightly hypocritical. If we are standing up for the rule of law and for human rights, surely to goodness we can stand up for the rule of law and human rights for the people of Honduras, some of the poorest on the planet. The average wage is $1.25 a day. We could not buy a Big Mac for $1.25. I do not know if we can even buy a coffee for $1.25.

If that is the trading arrangement we are looking at with one of the poorest nations in the world, then free trade is a bit of a dead end, if that is how we measure success. In my view, we are taking advantage of Honduras. We are trying to extract from it, because they do not have much leverage. The government is not good about extracting a decent deal when dealing with a country that might be on par with ours, whose economy might be equal to ours, or greater, when it comes to the EU. The EU is a totally different bandwagon.

My goodness, we have a deal. We do not have a deal. We are going to sign a deal. It is coming. I used to tell my kids that when they were younger. When they asked in July when Christmas was coming, I would say it is coming. When they were three years old, counting days from July to December 25, it was a tough one. I used to say, “It is coming. Be patient”.

It seems the government has decided that we on this side should believe in the tooth fairy. The EU deal will finally get here at some point, but in the meantime, we have a better one with Honduras. What a trade-off. Never mind the 500 million people on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. They will get to that one. That is not as important as this one. They will even have time allocation on it. That is how much we need this free trade agreement. We need it so badly for Canada's economy, because as we know, it is fragile. The government always tells us that we live in a fragile economic world economy, and this deal with Honduras will probably rectify all that fragility. It might, but I highly doubt it. I am a bit of a skeptic. I am on the opposition benches, and I am supposed to be a skeptic.

One thing is for sure: this trade deal will not enhance the civil liberties, human rights, and economic well-being of the people of Honduras. For all the impassioned speeches and bluster on the other side about how this would lift them all up and that rising tides lift all ships, we should ask the people of Colombia, a country we signed a free trade deal with a few years ago, whether that tide came and lifted all ships. They would tell us that it did not. They are as badly off as they were before it was signed. In some cases, the situation is worse. If we asked them about their human rights, they would say that it is as bad as it was before. If we asked them whether journalists are still being murdered in Colombia, even though that was supposed to end, they would tell us that it is true too. If we asked trade union members in that country whether their members are still losing their lives on a monthly basis, we would find that it is true.

All of that was meant to end. The Liberals said that they would sign on to the deal during a minority Parliament to make sure we passed a bill for an FTA with Colombia. They signed on to that deal. They bargained away the human rights of Colombians, so I do not trust them to not bargain away the human rights of the Hondurans.

There are ways to leverage beyond a balance sheet when it comes to human rights. We have seen it around the world. I would remind the current government that it was a previous government, under the prime ministership of Brian Mulroney, which they used to call the Progressive Conservatives, that said that in spite of the Commonwealth, we should embargo South Africa because of apartheid. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was absolutely correct. The trade union I belonged to at that time, as well as the broader labour movement, had called for that for years. We were right to call for it at that time. We did not enter into a free trade agreement that claimed to change apartheid in South Africa. That is the difference. We could not say that if we had an FTA, apartheid would be banished. It would not have been. However, the embargo made it go.

My friend across the way wonders if I am kidding. I am not kidding. The reality is that we did not enter into a free trade agreement. The prime minister entered into a different free trade agreement in this hemisphere with a partner in the United States, but he did not enter into one with South Africa. He led the banning of trade with South Africa. He placed an embargo on trade with South Africa, and at the end of the day, we saw an end to apartheid. That was a leveraging tool that was useful.

I say to my colleagues on the other side that if they want to make a difference in the lives of Hondurans, a free trade agreement will not do that for them. The evidence is clear. What would make a difference would be an understanding of how they need the rule of law and democracy back in their system, not a dictatorship that is basically funded by the army.

My friends across the way always talk about the rule of law and democracy and how these are essential ingredients for building economies and societies and enhancing the efforts of their citizens. Why do we not start from that premise?

Not all societies are perfect. We know that this democracy is not perfect. We have seen that in the last couple of days. Some folks have said that majority governments are the tyranny of the 50% plus one. Those are the rules we play by. That is okay. We might think there is a different style of democracy we might want in this place. Perhaps we would change it if we had the opportunity.

There are other means to ensure that Hondurans can lift themselves up. This free trade agreement will not. That is a shame, because once we do this, it will be the end of the road for us. We will simply say that we have entered into a free trade agreement, so we do not have to do anything else, and we will leave them alone, just as we have done with Colombia. There will be no more leverage with respect to that government to say that it needs to democratize itself and needs to respect human rights and work with its citizens, not oppress them. That is what we are seeing now.

Every expert who has come before the international trade committee has said that there are abuses across the entire country, and they have not stopped. Free trade agreements do not end those abuses. If we want to end those abuses, we should use other tools to make it happen. Then and only then should we look at entering into a trade agreement with Honduras.

It is not about not trading with Honduras. At the end of the day, it is about telling the Government of Honduras that it needs to clean up its act first by respecting the rule of law and the human rights of its citizens. Then perhaps at some future date we might enter into some sort of trading agreement.

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, June 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the government House leader. He suggested that all of us would have an opportunity. I guess he meant to vote, because he is certainly limiting the opportunity for us to speak to a particular bill. I guess the government House leader's view of things is that as long as we get to vote, even if it is in the negative, we have had our say.

The good folks in Welland did not send me here to stand up all the time just to vote without my telling the House what they think. That is what they send me here for. It is to tell the government what they believe and what they think.

Let me tell the House what free trade has done for the folks in Welland. We have seen one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Nearly every single manufacturing job they had in Welland is gone.

The government House leader talks about agricultural processors. Let us start with the canning factory in St. Davids , which left to go to the United States, because it could. The Bick's pickle plant left because it could. It went to the United States. The Heinz Canada plant in Leamington left. Why? It was because it could go to the United States. I could go on and on and list them.

The issue is not whether we should enter into trade. That was abundantly clear long before I came to this place. This country is a trading nation. I do not think that is the issue. The bottom line is that there are many impacts associated with these free trade agreements. That is why they are so important to debate, because the impact can be staggering.

In my riding is the St. Catharines GM plant, where I used to be employed. When I was there, not that long ago, 9,200 people worked in that plant. Now there are 1,500. If we look at the GM chain across Ontario, we see there used to be 35,000 employed. Now there are fewer than 8000. Where did they go? They went to Mexico. How did they get there? NAFTA gave them the right to go there.

There are winners and losers. That is why we need the time to debate who the winners and losers are, because fundamentally, that is what drives this debate. I do not disagree with the House leader that we need a trading agenda, but when there are winners and losers, we need the opportunity to tell the House and the government side the potential impact on us in certain parts of this country. Then it can try to balance those impacts, because ultimately, it is Canadians who are injured by free trade.

There is no question that there are winners. However, to force it in such a manner and make it sound as if our economy will come crashing down tomorrow if we do not have a free trade deal with Honduras is truly beyond words. Surely we do not need to use time allocation on a free trade deal with Honduras. That just seems beyond the pale in this particular case.

I look to the hon. House leader to find a way to negotiate with the other side. I recognize that we might be tough to negotiate with, but we are not supposed to be easy to negotiate with. We are the opposition. No one said we were supposed to be patsies.

If the government would come to the table in an honest and sincere way, maybe we could strike some deals. One never knows, but one should keep trying.

[Petitions, May 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the final petition is about a fair electoral voting system so that folks would have the right to have their vote count with a sense of proportional representation.

[Petitions, May 29th, 2014]

The second petition is on farmers' right to save seeds. Farmers are calling upon the government, when it comes to Bill C-18, to ensure that they have the right to save seeds, such as they have done in the past.

[Petitions, May 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions to present today.

The first petition is on Lyme disease, which has affected a number of folks in my riding. They ask that the government find a way to make sure that it can be diagnosed properly. Many of these folks who suffer from this disease find that the testing that is done here does not suggest that they have Lyme disease, and then they do not know what has happened to them. They end up being diagnosed in the United States, which usually costs thousands of dollars.

The petitioners call upon the government to investigate and find a way to make sure that this disease can be detected in a more expeditious fashion.

[Dairy Producers, May 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is always great to rise in this place, but it is even better when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture is fully supportive of the motion my colleague has introduced. This is a good day. I am not sure about the chair of the agriculture committee, because we still have to hear from him. A little bird whispered in my ear that perhaps he may say complimentary things as well. We await his remarks and anticipate that he also will endorse the motion, because it is a good one.

There are multiple reasons for the motion, but one of the most important is to let cheese producers and dairy farmers across this country know that we understand what the impact of CETA would mean for them. Mr. Wally Smith, the president of Dairy Farmers of Canada, said that for dairy farmers, the impact would be about 2.25% of quota. Those of us who understand the supply system know what quota means. For folks who are listening to us today who are not dairy farmers, that translates to $60,000 in lost potential income for each dairy farmer across this country. That is a significant amount of money, and it is troubling to them. That is what today's motion is meant to address. It is to get the government to recognize that it needs a timeline that would allow for the adjustment.

The motion proposes a couple of other things.

My colleagues have pointed to investments in cheese production across this country. Some of that investment has happened in the Niagara region. A new cheese producer opened up in the Niagara region a number of years ago. All members would say that cheese producers in their regions are the best, and of course they are. Why would they not be? If people want to find fine cheese, they should come to Niagara. They could also enjoy the finest wine this country has to offer. Not only that, but the finest ice wine in the world can also be found in the Niagara region, and some great cheese could be purchased to go along with that. I would highly recommend that all of my colleagues come to Niagara, sample the cheese, and have a bottle of wine while they are at it. If they come in September, they would be there when we have the Niagara Wine Festival. There would be cheese, of course. This would support local dairy producers, because cheese producers buy milk from local producers.

As my friends across the way on the agriculture committee know, that is why the system works as well as it does. It is not just the three pillars. It is about those producers knowing they have a source of income and spending it within their regions. They buy all the inputs they need for their farms locally, whether that be insurance products or a number of different services, which holds that economy together.

As many of us in the agricultural field know, lenders love dairy farmers. Why is that? It is because they know that dairy farmers have a steady stream of income. They do not worry about whether the commodity market is up one day for soy beans, or this way for canola, and that way for wheat. They understand that in the supply managed system for dairy, dairy farmers have a predictable income stream. Lenders lend money to them because they know they are going to be repaid. They are not taking the same sort of risks they do with others. Perhaps there are other alternatives for farmers in riskier areas. Lenders tell me and my colleagues when we tour this country that it is great for them, because they have a solid foundation in their financial institutions when they provide commercial loans to dairy farmers.

Dairy farmers have the sense that this is a one-way street. We are waiting for details on CETA. We are constantly asking the government to share more information than what it has to date. We continue to ask for that, because one can only make a reasonable decision when one has the details.

We heard today during question period the Minister of International Trade say, “Stay tuned”. We have heard that a couple of times. It reminds me of an old advert, but that would give away how old I am.

The government is saying that dairy farmers and cheese producers could enter that market. There are cheeses from Canada in the market now in the EU. We cannot sell them for less than we sell them here under the supply system, so that makes them, at a certain price, not necessarily competitive. However, one of the biggest impediments for our cheese makers over there are geographical indications, or what is known as GI.

The Europeans have a fondness for geographical indications, which we do not have to the same degree. We do not express ourselves, when it comes to food, with geographical indications. We may know that those are Quebec cheeses, but we do not trademark them or label them the way Europeans do. Foods like feta can only come from feta. Therefore, if that becomes one of the geographical indications, we cannot actually make feta here. We would have to call it something else.

That is exactly what happened to champagne in Niagara. We made champagne in Niagara for decades, and by all accounts, internationally we did extremely well and it was a great product, but the geographical indication for Champagne from France won at the end of the day in a trade ruling. We no longer have champagne in Niagara. We have champagne, but is now called Brut. If it is Brut, we know we are buying champagne from Niagara.

I give full marks to the winemakers in Niagara for making sure that it is marketed in such a way that they did not actually lose any of the domestic market, but people have to hunt to know that it is champagne, and that is the danger of geographical indications to the cheese industry in Canada. We do not have that. That perhaps rules us out of entering some of those markets in the EU where there may be a GI that will be an impediment to us. It is a trade impediment by another name.

I will refer to my notes from Mr. Wally Smith when he was testifying before the agricultural committee a little while ago. He said that there has been a huge investment over the last 10 years, to the tune of about $30 million, by the dairy industry and the cheese producers, which have been expanding and building the market. Canadians have come to know that Canadian homemade cheese is a great product and they are looking to get hold of that product, and they have been able to expand over a period of time. There are many artisanal cheese makers. They tend to be small. We obviously have some big ones as well, but the vast majority are smaller ones.

However, they are taking a fairly substantial risk, because they make a large investment to actually start this up. How do they plan now as we go forward? How do they reinvest in what they want to do if they are not sure what the timelines are, because if the timeline is too short, perhaps they will not get off the ground and market their product in time to go forward.

That would be a real shame, because this is an industry that reminds me of the wine industry in my home area. When I was a bit younger, a few decades ago, the wine industry in Canada was seen as not really a wine industry. It was not regarded as being very good. Now it is regarded throughout the world as being on par with the best in the world and exceeds the best in the world by winning gold medals.

Our cheese industry is at the point where it is ready to make that breakthrough. I hope the Conservatives will support the motion. They say they wish to help. It would ensure that for the cheese producers who are now maturing into world-class cheese producers, that actually happens.

[Petitions, May 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is signed by literally hundreds and hundreds of members of my riding and from across the Niagara Peninsula.

The petitioners are calling on the government to keep home mail delivery. Canada Post is an essential service for many across this country, specifically folks in my riding who either have mobility issues, may be seniors, or may simply be folks who need to get that mail and are not able to get to those so-called community mailboxes that are going to be who knows where across this country, especially in downtown areas.

The petitioners are calling on the government to make sure that Canada Post continues home mail delivery into the future and actually enhances that service.

[Petitions, May 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today. The first petition is with regard to the need for a national strategy on dementia. As we know, across this country, a great many folks, specifically seniors, suffer from dementia. The petitioners are calling on the government, saying that a strategy is indeed needed on a national scale, not just at a provincial level. Although some provinces are tackling the issue, we need a national strategy.