Murray Rankin

[Tax Evasion, April 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to stand today and speak to Motion No. 485, prepared by my colleague from Rivière-du-Nord, in the spirit of getting the government to take tax havens seriously. The specific motion is, however, narrower than that. It fundamentally asks that the government study and measure Canadian tax losses to international tax havens and tax evasion in order to determine what is called the tax gap, the amount of money we should be collecting but are not.

It is a very timely motion as we are in front of the tax clock. In the next short while Canadians must submit their tax returns, and I am concerned that my fellow Canadians pay their fair share. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Unfortunately, many Canadians—large corporations, trusts, and wealthy Canadians—are sending their money offshore to avoid the incidence of tax in our country.

The motion simply asks the Conservatives to do what our allies in other countries of the world already do; namely, put their hands around the size of the problem. Just what is the tax gap? It has often been said that, if we do not measure something, we will not be able to effectively manage it. That is what we are asking here.

The government will ask why it should bother, since it is not going to give exact information as to how many billions of dollars it is losing every year, but in fact Sweden, Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom are all doing that and by now there are fairly good economic measures, fairly good techniques, to do exactly this, which is to measure the tax gap.

That is the first step of getting the government to take the tax havens problem seriously.

In my riding, I was talking someone who own a small coffee shop. He told me his effective tax rate is much higher than the big Starbucks down at the corner. Why is that? It is because Starbucks is able to arrange its affairs by use of international tax havens to really pay an effective very low rate of tax. Indeed it was caught on that in England, where demonstrations led it to make a voluntary tax payment in the tens of millions of pounds, because it recognized it needs a social licence to do business. That is great when they are caught, but what about the small coffee shop owner in my riding who cannot compete because his rate of tax is so much higher than that of a company that can use these tax havens?

We asked the minister to do just that, to measure the tax gap. I wrote to the former minister on March 8, 2013, asking that he please estimate the tax gap the way our allies have done. I got no response. However, apparently tens of trillions of dollars worldwide are being lost to tax havens. It is estimated that somewhere between $5 billion and $8 billion a year may be lost to tax havens in this country; and who knows, if the government will not measure it? Think of what we could do with that money if the government were to take this problem seriously. Think about what we could do with hospitals, infrastructure, and the like in our country.

That is why this is not a theoretical issue. It is an intensely practical and immediate issue and one that our allies are doing a lot better on than we are. I think of Mr. Cameron in the United Kingdom who at least appears to be taking action, and certainly in the United States there are new efforts under way as well.

The government is simply taking baby steps to address the issues we are talking about today; but the amount of money, as I said, is enormous. Also enormous is the amount of cuts that the government is making to the Canada Revenue Agency. I hear so many people say they cannot do their jobs because so many of them have been dismissed. The Conservatives have cut their budgets so dramatically and expect Canadians to take them at their word when they say they are getting tough on tax havens, tough on those who evade their taxes. It is simply not so. The number of people l have talked to from that agency, who shake their heads, bear witness to that.

The former parliamentary budget officer was asked to measure the tax gap. Essentially it went like this. Since the government will not do it, since the CRA refuses to do it, why does the parliamentary budget officer not do it? He said he would love to, no problem; all he would need is the data from the government to do the job. He asked and asked, but of course nothing happened.

He was not even given the data to do the work that our allies in other countries are beginning to do so effectively.

Therefore, the government's rhetoric on this issue is not matched by reality. It is not giving the CRA the resources to do the job. It is not hiring the experts required to go after the very sophisticated people who use these tax havens inappropriately. It will not even tell us the size of the problem, which is what this motion is all about.

It is shocking to report that in 2011, 24%—almost a quarter—of Canadian investment overseas went to tax havens, twelve tax havens, the top five of which are Barbados, Cayman Islands, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Bermuda; $130 billion, in one year alone. At the same time, the government cut the CRA so it cannot even do its job. We think Canadians deserve to know how much taxes are being evaded through the use of these tax havens. The government will not measure it. That is the point of this first step of taking this problem seriously.

The government has no trouble spending $550 million on advertising—often for programs that have not even been passed—but it has cut $250 million from the Canada Revenue Agency, obviously hindering the ability of that agency to do what is proposed. We think, instead of cutting employees from the compliance and enforcement divisions of the Canada Revenue Agency, that the Conservatives should begin investing additional resources to recover lost revenue. Maybe the way to get their attention is to use the word “invest”, because the rate of return if they did this would be enormous. We have seen that in many of the countries I have mentioned. I just wish the government would likewise wake up and smell the coffee.

The New Democratic Party made a number of recommendations in the finance committee, of which I am proud to be a member, when studying tax havens, the first of which was once again sadly not accepted by the government. This was in the supplementary report. It states:

That the federal government study and measure, to the greatest accuracy possible, Canadian tax losses to international tax havens and tax evasion, in order to the determine the Canadian federal “tax gap”.

That is exactly what this motion would do. It is once again asking that the government get its hands around this very serious problem.

We also asked, among other things, that the government go after those who enable tax evasion, including accountants, lawyers, and other professionals. We have seen egregious examples where people have come from tax havens—Switzerland comes to mind, where bank secrecy has been the rule—to the United States and Canada and demonstrated to people, advised them, how to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, how to cheat the Canadian and American tax systems. It happened in Denmark recently. It is happening in a number of countries.

It seems obvious to me that we should make it harder for those who enable that to occur. We should bring the full force of the law down on those who do not pay their fair share and on those who enable people to not pay their fair share. That is another part of the problem that definitely needs to be addressed.

We believe it is absolutely essential that this motion be passed. We hope the government will see fit to join other countries like, as I have said, the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, and Australia, all of which have taken this very first step, to get our hands around and measure the problem so we can begin to give it the resources and expertise needed to take this issue seriously.

As we fill out our taxes at this time of year, I hope all Canadians will urge their government to do the right thing and stop this tax haven abuse once and for all.

[Canada Revenue Agency, April 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, on top of the recent privacy breaches that compromised the personal information of thousands of Canadians, now at the height of tax season, Canadians are not able to access the Canada Revenue Agency website.

What is worse, they have no assurances that their personal information has not already been compromised by this security vulnerability.

Will the minister agree to extend the filing deadline to ensure Canadians will not be penalized for waiting to file until the CRA website is secure?

[Petitions, April 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition calling attention to the increasing violence against bus drivers that occurs every year. The number of assaults has gone up.

Bus drivers serve our public across this country. I have had meetings with bus drivers in my riding, who serve Victoria and Oak Bay, from Unifor Local 333.

This petitions calls for an amendment to the Criminal Code to create a distinct, specific offence to punish those who assault bus drivers and to establish more stringent penalties for those who commit those cowardly offences.

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, April 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the speech read by my hon. colleague opposite.

My question for the member, through you, Mr. Speaker, is what are his views on the appropriateness of the government introducing a motion to limit the debate after 25 minutes on another monster omnibus budget bill, a bill that is over 350 pages, with almost 500 clauses that would amend dozens of bills, some of which have nothing to do with the budget?

I would ask, through you, Mr. Speaker, to hear his views on the appropriateness of that in a democratic parliamentary system.

[Pensions, April 1st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the minister just does not get it. Not being able to afford a decent quality of life in retirement is what hurts Canadian families. Even the minister's own department contradicts his bizarre claim. Government research has shown that gradually expanding the Canada pension plan would be affordable and would be good for Canada's economy. However, the Conservatives prefer to implement ideologically driven policy rather than factually based evidence.

Why will the minister not do the right thing, the sensible thing, and work with provinces to strengthen retirement for Canadians in their retirement?

[Privilege, March 31st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a question of privilege, pursuant to section 48(1) of the Standing Orders. The matter I wish to raise is, in my view, very serious.

The Speaker and his predecessors have ruled on numerous occasions that deliberately misleading the House is a grave affront to the rights and privileges of this place. I believe that the member for Crowfoot, the Minister of State for Finance, has deliberately and repeatedly misled the House in interventions made in the House of Commons, specifically those regarding the repercussions of the NDP's plan to increase the Canada pension plan and the Quebec pension plan.

Members of the House are well aware of the rights and immunities afforded to parliamentarians so that they can carry out their duties as members of Parliament. However, for the sake of clarity, let me remind my colleagues that on page 75 of Erskine May's A Treatise on the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament, “parliamentary privilege” is defined as follows:

...the sum of the peculiar rights enjoyed by each House collectively...and by Members of each House individually, without which they could not discharge their functions...

What I believe we are looking at here is a contempt of Parliament, one that is an offence against the authority and dignity of the House, and one that chips away at the foundation of our parliamentary democracy and the requisites for healthy debate.

Let me take a moment to provide the House with an account of what has taken place. Following my remarks, I will ask you to find this as a prima facie case of contempt of Parliament, at which point I will be prepared to move a motion to have the matter referred to the appropriate committee for further study.

On December 9, 2013, the House was debating an NDP opposition day motion, placed in my name, asking the government to support a “phase-in of increases to basic public pension benefits under the Canada and Quebec Pension Plans” ahead of the meeting of finance ministers that took place in December 2013. This we asked in the face of a serious retirement crisis facing this country, and an apparent consensus at that time of provincial and territorial finance ministers that such a measure was necessary to ensure the income security of retired Canadians.

During the debate of this motion, the Minister of State for Finance said the following:

Departments have said that under the NDP plan, up to 70,000 jobs will be lost. That is straight from Finance Canada. They have also talked about other provincial plans, whereby between 17,000 and 50,000 jobs would be lost. Those are not figures we alone are citing; those are the figures cited by finance departments.

He then went on to state:

...Finance Canada officials estimate that the NDP plan would kill up to 70,000 jobs.

The hon. member repeated that figure today.

He also said, referring to a Prince Edward Island plan to increase the CPP:

One recent provincial proposal, according to Finance Canada, would threaten and could kill between 17,000 and 50,000 jobs.

These misleading numbers were repeated by the minister of state in the media, notably in an op-ed piece that appeared in the Financial Post on December 4, 2013. The op-ed was also put on the finance department website until the media noted its partisan nature, and it was subsequently removed.

Documents obtained through an access to information request and released late last week have now revealed that the Minister of State for Finance was deliberately drawing false conclusions about alleged job losses associated with the increase in CPP. There is not, in fact, any study of the NDP or the P.E.I. plans for CPP expansion. The minister of state suggested that the finance department had assessed the NDP and P.E.I. plans, when in fact it had done no such thing. The numbers used by the minister of state have no relation to either of these plans and, in truth, come from studies of a plan that does not exist, a plan “fully implemented in one year, without prior notification”.

To be clear, the numbers given by the Minister of State for Finance come from a study based on the assumption that the expansion of the CPP would occur within one year without notification to employers. However, the P.E.I. and NDP plans both propose phase-in periods to avoid any shock to the economy. The minister of state knew this, yet he misled the House by omitting to note that the basic assumption behind his numbers was different from the real NDP and P.E.I. plans. Thus, the minister of state was making misleading statements when he said that the job loss numbers he used referred to the NDP and P.E.I. plans. They did not.

It is important to note that this is not an issue of whether the studies in question are accurate; that is not a matter of debate. This, rather, is a question of whether the minister of state misrepresented the very studies he cited. He said that there were studies of the NDP and P.E.I. plans to expand the CPP; there were not.

For the record—and this is likely beyond the scope of your mandate, Mr. Speaker, to rule on this situation—the minister of state also completely omitted the fact that according to internal research by the federal Department of Finance, there would in fact be economic benefits from expanding the Canada pension plan. A briefing note from the Department of Finance from December 13, 2013, addressed to the then minister of finance said:

In the long run, expanding the CPP would bring economic benefits. Higher savings will lead to higher income in the future and higher consumption possibilities for seniors.

Mr. Speaker, there is an extremely disturbing trend with the Conservative government of deliberately providing misleading information to the House to justify wrong-headed policies. You will recall that it was barely a few weeks ago that you ruled that there was prima facie contempt of the House when the member for Mississauga—Streetsville falsely stated that he had witnessed cases of fraudulent voting when in fact he had not, all to justify his party's misguided unfair elections act.

Once again we have learned that the Minister of State for Finance provided misleading information to parliamentarians and the public at a crucial point in time when federal and provincial ministers were debating the expansion of the Canada and Quebec pension plans. He made up numbers to justify his government's ideological opposition to the NDP's plan. Once again we see a case of a government that invents partisan-based facts to refuse to elaborate good, evidence-based policies. It is irresponsible for the government to maintain the facts around the CPP and QPP when our country is facing a retirement crisis.

Mr. Speaker, members need to be certain that they are receiving the information they need to adequately represent voters, and they must be able to have confidence in the information provided, especially when it is provided by ministers and ministers of state. Likewise, the Canadians who follow the debates and who count on their MPs to make laws need to be able to believe in the truth of the information shared in this place.

To think that it is somehow acceptable for members of the government to come into the House and make up stories as justification for their wrong-headed policies is simply ludicrous and should not be allowed to simply pass by unnoticed. That is why I am raising this question today, hoping the necessary measures will be taken so that the situation does not repeat itself in the future.

In his ruling on February 1, 2002, in an analogous matter, Speaker Milliken stated:

The authorities are consistent about the need for clarity in our proceedings and about the need to ensure the integrity of the information provided by the government to the House.

The authorities to which the Speaker was referring include, but are not limited to, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, which states on page 115:

Misleading a Minister or a Member has also been considered a form of obstruction and thus a prima facie breach of privilege.

Page 63 of the 22nd edition of Erskine May states as follows:

...it is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.

Mr. Speaker, on March 3, 2014, you ruled that the member for Mississauga—Streetsville was in prima facie contempt of the House for providing misleading information. This is what you stated:

This incident highlights the primordial importance of accuracy and truthfulness in our deliberations. All members bear a responsibility, individually and collectively, to select the words they use very carefully and to be ever mindful of the serious consequences that can result when this responsibility is forgotten.

You also recalled that members:

...must be able to depend on the integrity of the information with which they are provided in order to perform their parliamentary duties.

Let me also remind the House that on that day as well, as in a handful of rulings since 2011, you had stated the following regarding the conditions that have emerged surrounding misleading statements in the House:

It has become accepted practice in this House that the following elements have to be established when it is alleged that a member is in contempt for deliberately misleading the House: one, it must be proven that the statement was misleading; two, it must be established that the member making the statement knew at the time that the statement was incorrect; and three, that in making the statement, the member intended to mislead the House.

This seems like a very straightforward case, and I am sure all members would agree. The first of these conditions has been met, since the minister of state claimed in the House that the Department of Finance had estimated that the NDP plan to increase the CPP and QPP would kill jobs across Canada, when in reality his number did not at all come from a study of the NDP plan, and the finance department actually concluded that expanding the plan would bring long-term economic benefits and higher income for seniors. This we now know, thanks to documents released through an access to information request by the Canadian Labour Congress.

I believe the second of these conditions is also met, since the minister of state had access to the entire study and thus knew that the numbers he used as projected results of the NDP plan came in fact from a completely different study of a plan that did not exist and that was significantly different from the NDP plan. However, the minister of state chose to misrepresent the facts, which brings me to say that the third condition is also present.

The minister of state deliberately chose to bring these so-called facts to the House and repeatedly stated that the numbers from the Department of Finance applied to the NDP and P.E.I. plans to expand the CPP, even if he knew that was not the case.

Why would he do this? I believe it is obvious. Just as when the member for Mississauga—Streetsville wrongfully said he had witnessed cases of voter fraud to justify his government's unfair elections act, in the present case the minister of state used these misstatements of fact to justify his government's wrong-headed opposition to a policy that many experts and provincial governments believe to be key in addressing Canada's retirement crisis.

Members of this House will remember a case in 2001-02 in which my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst, among others, argued that Senator Eggleton—who was defence minister at the time—had deliberately misled the House. It happened during question period, when he was responding to questions regarding how much he knew about when exactly prisoners captured by Canadian troops in Afghanistan were transferred to the Americans.

Speaker Milliken ruled that there was a prima facie case of privilege and referred the issue to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for further study. After hearing a former clerk of the House, Bill Corbett, testify about the issue, the committee indicated the following in its 50th report to the House:

..it is not uncommon for inaccurate statements to be made in the course of debate or Question Period in the House. The issue is whether the statements were made deliberately, with the intent of misleading the House or its Members. In the case where a Member later admits to having knowingly provided false information...the issue of intent is clear.

We have come to the point in the Conservative government's life cycle when the Conservatives are simply spinning their wheels. We saw it with the unfair elections act, when they created solutions to problems that do not exist and made up stories in the House to try to persuade members to vote a certain way on that flawed bill. Now we have one more case of the government misleading parliamentarians and Canadians. To justify his government's wrong-headed policies, the Minister of State for Finance cited what he said in the House were studies on the NDP and P.E.I. plans to increase the CPP, when in fact what he cited were not studies of these proposals but rather a dubious assessment of a plan that would be fully implemented in one year without notification to employers.

Time and time again the Conservatives' lack of judgment has been exposed, but despite all of this, instead of changing their behaviour to fit the rules of the game, they are changing the rules of the game to fit their behaviour.

In conclusion, I would like to leave the final word not to me but to another hon. member of this place, who said the following:

I would suggest in the strongest possible terms that members of the House of Commons must be able to rely on the information they receive in response to questions placed to ministers. This goes to the very cut and thrust of the responsibilities of members of the House of Commons. A high standard has to be met....

These are the words that were said on January 31 and February 1, 2002, by the hon. member for Central Nova, who incidentally is now the Conservative Minister of Justice. These are wise words, in my submission, and I hope that the minister and all other hon. members will begin to follow them.

[Pensions, March 31st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, for months the Conservatives have refused to hear any demands from the provinces on expanding the Canada pension plan, saying it would cost us tens of thousands of jobs. The thing is, Finance Canada's own report on the CPP says:

In the long run, expanding the CPP would bring economic benefits. Higher savings will lead to higher incomes in the future and higher consumption possibilities for seniors”

Why did the Conservatives mislead Canadians about the positive impacts of expanding the CPP?

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, March 31st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians have a lot to teach other countries. We used to be able to talk about fair democracy. I am not so sure, in light of what is going on in our country, that we have much to brag about these days. However, generally speaking we have been experts in sending people to other countries to talk about good governance arrangements. We have a lot of NGOs that are involved in that field.

Before it was transformed, to use a neutral word from our Conservative government, we were very proud of CIDA and its work in trying to assist countries in development such as Honduras.

Professor Mark Ruhl has written about Honduras that opinion surveys over the last decade have shown that ordinary Hondurans are much less committed to democratic institutions than most other Latin Americans and are more willing to see their political leaders employ undemocratic means.

Understandably, the country itself, with almost half of its population in extreme poverty, may not be putting its attention on democratic institutions at this time, which is why the corruption is so high, why it is among the most violent areas in the world according to The Economist magazine, and maybe why, as my colleague suggests, Canada could make some contributions to improving that economy and that civil society. However, I fear that this trade agreement before Parliament is not that answer.

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, March 31st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member opposite that trade agreements can often do that. However, in terms of the statistics she raised and the number of dollars involved, I should point out that Honduras, as a trading partner, is 120th out of 186 countries on the human development index. It is a country that is very poor. According to the World Bank, it is a lower-middle income country. In 2012, two-thirds of the population lived in poverty and 46%, almost half, in what they call extreme poverty.

It does not seem like the kind of country with which we can get into robust trade arrangements that would benefit Canadians in this country. The issue is how it would enhance our value-added export economy, which is where the jobs of the future will be.

Is it a rip and ship kind of economy with which we are doing business? Would we be dealing with companies in that country that exploit the workers, as has been pointed out? Those are the issues that Canadians also have a right to be concerned about.

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, March 31st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in the strongest possible terms in opposition to Bill C-20, an act that would implement a free trade agreement between Canada and the Republic of Honduras.

I will be sharing my time with my colleague for Edmonton—Strathcona.

At the second reading stage of a debate, we are looking at the principles of a bill, and it is those principles that I want to address today.

Bill C-20 is a government bill that would bring Canada in closer economic terms with Honduras. I am ashamed and embarrassed that our country is considering such a bill. This agreement is about providing preferential trade terms to Honduras, and I cannot believe, for reasons I hope to outline, that Canadians would accept our doing so.

I will start by saluting the excellent work of our trade critic, my colleague for Vancouver Kingsway. He has reminded us that the NDP is fully aware of the importance of trade to our country. We want expanded trade deals that support Canada's exporters, which are important to our economy. However, the process and content of Bill C-20 are so wanting that I am embarrassed the bill is before Parliament today.

Canadians want a trade policy that will strengthen our economic relationships with significant economies. They want things that would assist our exporters. They want to encourage value-added production to many resources of our economy. They want a balanced trade policy. They want a process whereby we enter sectoral preferential trade agreements in a way that takes into account the views of Canadians and agreements that are not negotiated in absolute secrecy, as appears to have been the case here.

The Conservatives took office in 2006, and by all objective measures, their trade performance has been wanting. They came into office with a current account surplus of $18 billion. Now, after their performance, we have a current account deficit of $62 billion. So we have gone down about $10 billion a year since the Conservatives came to power.

What about the kinds of things we are exporting? Well, the rip-and-ship approach to trade seems to be paramount for the Conservative government. Just we in British Columbia deplore the export of raw logs, the Conservative government seems to think that exporting raw bitumen is an acceptable trade policy.

Compared to other countries that had to weather the recession like us, we are about dead last when it comes to current account performance. Seventeen other countries around the world between 2006 to 2012 came into the same global recession. How did we do by comparison? Terribly.

The criteria that we need to use, in our judgment, to assess trade agreements of this sort are threefold.

First, is the country that Canada is proposing to enter into an agreement with a country that respects democracy, human rights, fair labour practices, and the environment? I will argue that is definitively not the case with Honduras.

Second, would this economy be of significant strategic value to Canada? That is hardly the case with Honduras.

Third, are the terms of the particular agreement satisfactory? I will argue that they are not.

Do not take my word for it. I will not repeat all of the human rights atrocities that my colleagues have brought to our attention, nor I will not talk about the recent military coups. All of that is well known. However, I will cite from the CIA's World Factbook, hardly a left-wing document, to talk about the country that our government wants to do business with in this preferential fashion:

Honduras, the second poorest country in Central America, suffers from extraordinarily unequal distribution of income, as well as high underemployment.

The US-Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement...came into force in 2006 and has helped foster foreign direct investment, but physical and political insecurity, as well as crime and perceptions of corruption, may deter potential investors; about 70% of FDI is from US firms.

It goes on to say that:

An 18-month IMF Standby Arrangement expired in March 2012 and was not renewed, due to the country's growing budget deficit and weak current account performance. Public sector workers complained of not receiving their salaries in November and December 2012, and government suppliers are owed at least several hundred million dollars in unpaid contracts. The government announced in January 2013 that loss-making public enterprises will be forced to submit financial rescue plans before receiving their budget allotments for 2013.

Honduras is hardly an economic marvel for Canada to be associated with. It is our 104th export market in terms of export value, and thus is hardly an important economic trading partner.

How did we get here? We arrived here because of a complete lack of transparency in the negotiations and a failure to listen to civil society representatives, many of whom have been there, such as human rights activists, environmental organizations, and labour organizations. None of these people have been listened to at all. I just cannot understand the principled argument for entering this agreement.

For example, in 2012 the AFL-CIO in the United States and 12 Honduran labour organizations filed a formal petition with the U.S. Department of Labour alleging labour violations by companies in the apparel, textile, and other industries, accusing the Government of Honduras, and this is key, of “...failing to enforce its labour laws under the Central America Free Trade Agreement by not upholding laws that enable workers to unionize, organize and bargain collectively or promoting acceptable working conditions”.

That is the kind of record this country has, and yet our government thinks we should have an agreement with it.

We believe in moving forward with trade. However, this is a very corrupt country, which Transparency International has talked about in such critical terms. Honduras is a country where attacks on journalists are rife; a country where rural violence is such that over 90 people have been killed in recent years in land disputes in one area, most since 2009; a country where more than 90 LGBT people were killed between 2009 and 2012; and a country where prison conditions are inhumane, including overcrowding, inadequate nutrition, and poor sanitation. All of this is from Human Rights Watch.

According to the Conservative government, this is the kind of country we should be doing business with and giving preferential trade agreements to. I disagree and my constituents disagree as well. The Council of Canadians has spoken powerfully in opposition to it. Experts from the Department of Foreign Affairs have also testified in negative terms about the kind of activities going on in this particular country.

In our judgment, if it is good for Canada, then let us do it. If it is good for the people on the other side of the table with whom we would be proposing to do business, let us do it, but this is not that kind of agreement. When we take into account the basic facts about Honduras, which I have brought to the House's attention today, this is not a country with which we want an agreement.

Again I have to go back to the process. Why does the government want to do this in secrecy? Why has it failed to make the text of the agreement available to those organizations that could comment intelligently on it? Rather, it wants us to have a yes or no vote on something.

The failure of the government in Honduras to enforce the rules on the environment and labour issues is telling. The kind of corruption that the government has experienced and its lack of concern for democracy is telling. The Conservative government, in our judgment, ought not to be entering into an agreement of this kind. It is easy for the Conservatives to say that our party is opposed to trade, but we are not. We believe in trade. We understand it is important, but a trade agreement with a country like this is abominable.