Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to follow my colleague from Vancouver Kingsway, who quite passionately articulated why New Democrats believe this international trade bill is flawed.
One of the things I have said in the House many times before, going back to the last Parliament, is that we do not debate trade. That is not what the government puts in front of us. It brings forward implementation bills. It does not ask if we should have trade with a particular country, what it should look like, or whether we should talk about certain aspects of it. No. It just says, “We have a deal. Here it is. Take it. It will be good for Canadians and it will be good for Hondurans.” However, everything my colleague talked about and all of the statistics he quoted said the opposite.
Honduras is a place where murder is rampant and journalists are disappearing and being killed on a scale that is unprecedented around the world, yet the government says, “We can trade a few more bushels of wheat or a few more tonnes of pork. That will be a good thing, and we won't have to worry so much about the other things in the bill. It will just be one of those things that annoy us”.
This is a government that used to say that human rights mattered. It was the Prime Minister who at one time did not want to engage with China because of the Chinese government's human rights record.
The largest market in the world was China. We all know that. It is a demographic, a pure number. When the Prime Minister first took power in 2006, he said, “We don't want to talk to the Chinese about trade because its human rights record is bad. We are simply not going to do that”. He then makes a deal with Honduras.
There is a bit of a template here, and it is ironic to look at. There was Colombia, Panama, and now Honduras. It is ironic that the Liberals down at the far end actually supported all three deals. In fact, the member for Kings—Hants actually talked about being able to get President Uribe to make sure there is some sort of monitoring group so that trade unionists and journalists are not assassinated and murdered. That is when the Liberals bought in to the trade deal.
What happened with that panel? It is the same old same old. Trade unionists still get killed and murdered at a regular rate, journalists still get murdered at a regular rate, and the Conservatives say, “That is okay; they voted for it”, and move forward. My colleague from Newfoundland, for whom I have great respect, said New Democrats have never voted for one before. Truth be told, we did. Of course, that happened to be the Jordan deal. It was a recorded division, so we stood and voted yes. As much as the other side says it was not a recorded division, it was the real thing. We actually stood and voted.
This idea that we cannot enter into a comprehensive trade deal that includes the rule of law and the protection of human rights is not true. In essence, it can be true and it can actually happen, but the government does not look at that. The House leader just stood and said this has been going on since he was a trade minister.
The problem is that the things that happened in Honduras when he was the trade minister have changed; they have gotten worse. Still the government is insisting on going down the road of firming up this trade agreement, passing it into law, and having a trade agreement with an authoritarian, oligarchic, elitist group of individuals who are not even a government.
What would the government say if 36 members of the House who were candidates in elections got assassinated? I do not think we would find ourselves in a particularly stable environment. This sort of sense that we have extended hours this morning being destabilizing is, quite frankly, not destabilizing at all. What is destabilizing is the mere fact that people die in Honduras on a regular basis and not of old age. They are murdered. There are horrendous numbers of multiple murders. Human rights and NGO groups around the world are saying it is clearly a massacre. It is not a question of someone breaking into a house and shooting mom, dad, and one child; these are targeted killings of journalists, labour leaders, and members of political parties who are running for government.
The Honduras government, with impunity, simply dismissed Supreme Court justices. I almost think some days the Conservatives would like to do the same with the Supreme Court justice down the street from us. However, they would not dare do that. That did not stop Honduras from doing it. On a trumped-up charge, the government there just said it would remove them. As my colleague said earlier, when we are dealing with the fact that 85% to 90% of cases are never pursued, how does anyone trust the rule of law when no one will actually pursue a case? It is even worse for someone who actually wants to report a case and does not trust the authorities enough to actually make that report. Never mind the fact they do not believe it would get investigated; they think they may actually be the target, rather than the perpetrators of the crime that is being committed against them.
This is such a small trade piece as well. The reality is that if our government could open up provincial borders, it would actually get greater trade than it would with Honduras to a magnitude of probably a hundredfold. Of course, human rights would not be an issue in our country because there is rule of law here. There is not this need to constantly look at the abuses that are happening.
If only we had a trade deal that would lift all boats, that so-called rising tide that lifts all ships. Well, it did not lift the ship Colombia. It did not lift the ship Panama. The Panama agreement is with a regime the UN and NGOs agree more drug cartel money gets laundered through than practically anywhere else in the world, yet we signed a deal with that regime too.
Significant deals that they are, the problem with the government is it signs a deal with CETA, or did it? There is no implementation bill in front of us, so clearly it does not have a deal. If it had a deal, there would be an implementation bill here. What it has is a hope and a prayer. Therefore, what it does is go out and sign a deal with Honduras because it cannot get one anywhere else.
Ultimately, where are we heading with a trade regime that literally takes on trade agreements with human rights violators around the world? Is that what we say with the rule of law? One of the things we put in the agreements is the rule of law, so if our companies feel victimized in a place where they go to trade, they have an opportunity to access what they believe is the court system so they can actually get due process. Good luck in Honduras. I highly doubt any Canadian corporation that goes before its tribunal would get due process when its citizens cannot get due process.
Conservatives at one point in time used to really believe in human rights. They believed that perhaps what we ought to do is enact sanctions. My colleague talked about it earlier with Iran and North Korea. However, I would remind my friends on the other side it was a previous prime minister of their party, Brian Mulroney, who was the leader who enacted sanctions against South Africa and won. What we saw at that moment in time when the prime minister almost stood alone in the Commonwealth was he was able to have the civil society groups and trade union groups come together, marshall the forces, and help end apartheid in South Africa. Now Canada can trade with South Africa. Apartheid has ended.
Many of us were watching on television screens around the world when Nelson Mandela was finally free. There was rejoicing in that country, and pride, even for New Democrats, thinking about the accomplishments of Brian Mulroney, albeit a Conservative prime minister. Even New Democrats would agree that it was a principled stand taken by the prime minister of this country that was just, was right, and for which he deserved the credit.
However, the current Prime Minister thinks it is okay to have trade deals with some of the most murderous regimes in the world, such as Colombia, Panama, and now Honduras, that those are just places to have trade deals with and that somehow it is okay. As long as we can get a couple of bucks out of the trade deal, we can ignore the other side. Maybe it will get better. We can only hope.
If the Honduran oligarchs get what they want, they do not need to make things better. Why would they need to make things better if they have the trade deal? This is not about the carrot; it is about the stick. We have to make them understand that the rule of law is necessary if they want to trade with us, that human rights are essential for their population if they want to trade with us, that murdering journalists and trade unionists and their citizens because they disagree with the government is wrong, and that if they want to trade with us it must end. No. This government decided to just have a trade deal. The idea is that if they just get a better trade deal, they will stop doing all of those things. That will not happen. It has not happened yet because, as my colleague from Vancouver Kingsway said, then we would do it with North Korea. Surely to goodness we would say, “Okay, that will make it better there and we will just do it there”, but we have not, and correctly so. The government is correct to not have a free trade deal with Iran and North Korea. It is absolutely right on that, but it is wrong on this one.
We can argue free trade agreements. We can look at clauses in it we do not like, environment and trade union rights and those sorts of things. When we are dealing with a state that has the rule of law, has decent human rights protections for its population, then we are arguing about environment and trade union rights and some other things, but not about human rights.
In this case it is fundamental. It is about the human rights of the Hondurans. It is about their right to safety and liberty. It is about saying to them there are other ways to get them there, that there are other methods for us to help them build a society, build a capacity, build a sense of infrastructure within governments, and allow them a period of time to make changes to their civil justice system, to their Supreme Court system when they actually respect those judgments, and allow the capacity to build with their law enforcement agencies. There are ways for us, because of the expertise we have, to help them do that.
Therefore, it is not about isolating them in the way that happened in South Africa. That was a specific time, when a specific measure was undertaken that worked. This is not about simply saying we will let Honduras circle around the map and leave it be. We can offer the help and the hand of hope to it and say, “Here is how to build capacity and when you build that capacity there is an opportunity to get into a preferential trade agreement”. We think that would be a valid approach, rather than the approach that is being taken, which is just to have a trade deal and it will all work out. Then all of the other things will fall into place. The reality is that it has not worked before, so why would it work now?
My friend from Vancouver Kingsway recited a litany of statistics. They are true. They are just facts, not rhetoric or over-the-top hyperbole for the sake of saying it. This is what actually happens.
No member in this House thinks that is correct. We have a different viewpoint on how we would remedy it, perhaps, but surely to goodness we all understand that if a group gets what it wants, why would it change its position and way of doing things?
There is nothing in the free trade agreement that says “Thou shalt not shoot journalists”. Even for Colombia, there was a sidebar piece that the Liberals put in. It said that it would be monitored to make sure it does not do that, and if it did, perhaps there would be repercussions, even though that never materialized.
It is amazing to see the government decide that it wants a free trade deal that has no significant impact as far as trade is concerned in this country. There would be a few million dollars here or there, and a few areas in the agriculture sector that might benefit a little, but there is no one beating the door down saying that they need a trade deal in Honduras.
However, there are folks in the agricultural sector who are kicking the door down asking for the CETA deal. Of course, that is not there yet. However, there is no question that is a deal for the agricultural sector. The agricultural sector has been clear about it. The problem now is that they do not know what it is, because there is nothing that we have yet. There is no ink to paper and no deal in front of this House. Is there a deal, or has it evaporated?
It is almost flabbergasting. As Dr. Ricardo Grinspun said, “...the idea that Canadians can help the most needy people in Honduras through this FTA is a public relations message, nothing more. Moreover, the FTA would provide international legitimacy..”.
Probably one of the most egregious things is that it would provide international legitimacy for a group of individuals who think they have a right to run a country by force. We would give them international legitimacy by saying that we have a deal with them. They will go out to their other friends, if they can find any in this world, and say that Canada made a deal with them. Canada believes in the rule of law, and it has a Parliament, a mature democratic system, a Supreme Court and judicial system.
Honduras officials would use that elsewhere in the world and say that Canada thinks they are legitimate, as it gave them a deal. It only gives free trade deals to their best friends and the folks who participate in the same way that it does with the rule of law and protection of human rights. They would say to ignore what they do. They know it is ugly, but Canada thinks it is okay. Anyone who knows how to bargain for an agreement knows that is exactly what one would do. It is what other governments do.
What do we do? We worry about the CETA deal, which the Conservative government supposedly has. They say that it has to run to get the deal because the Americans are coming next.
Will Honduras seek deals elsewhere after it gets this one? Yes. Will its government officials use us as an example and say that they think we are a good place? Yes. There is no question that they will, and why would they not? Why would they not use the credibility that we give them through this deal to try to tell the world that they are a legitimate government because the Canadians think so? I think that is what we should expect, but why would we want to be the ones to give them that credibility?
The statistics that we quote to the government it already knows. Those statistics are not foreign to them. They know that.
The issue then becomes, why Honduras? Why now? Why not later, at a time when it has a rule of law that actually works, and respect for human rights and democracy in its Parliament? Why not when it enacts a democratic electoral system that does not put people under threat and does not kill them, so that they can run freely for office without feeling the repercussion of someone coming through their door and shooting them?
In this House, it is one thing to feel that during our election process we might bump a bit up against one another or we might go to a debate that could be passionate, but none of us has ever worried about going to a debate in case somebody shoots us. They do, and we will give that regime credibility and legitimacy, and that is a shame.
