Nathan Cullen

[Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation Act, October 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, we understand that all of this debate is happening under a time allocation. Forcing down Parliament's throat another trade agreement is the typical tactics we saw from the previous government. When the Liberals were in opposition, they loathed time allocation, saying it was undemocratic.

Embedded in this more than 300-page trade agreement is investor-state protection. The Liberals have claimed investor-state protections are horrible and they are so grateful the U.S. trade deal does not include this. They like it in one place, but not in another. They want us to trust them; they are Liberals.

If it was so terrible in the U.S. trade deal, why are they so thrilled to have the exact same provision in a trade deal with so many more countries?

[Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation Act, October 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting time for the government with successive trade agreements in a row so that Canadians can compare one to the other. Even though they are with different regions of the world, one with Europe, one with the United States and one with the Asia-Pacific region, Canadians can compare what the Liberals celebrate about one and ignore in another.

Let us take the most recent example of the United States agreement, the “new NAFTA”, as some are calling it. In there, the Liberals are lauding the fact that a certain provision called the “investor-state dispute provision”, which allows foreign companies to sue us while protecting them in an inordinate number of ways, was taken out of the “new NAFTA”. Donald Trump actually was the one who seems to have insisted upon it, yet the Liberals are wrapping their arms around that part of the trade agreement that is now gone and congratulating themselves as it was such a terrible aspect of the trade agreement.

One would imagine that there would be some sense of consistency by the Liberals that in other trade disputes the same mechanism would also not be present, because if it is good with the United States then, clearly, it must be something good with Asia or with Europe. However, that is not the case, never mind the fact that each time they sell one of these trade agreements to Canadians, they also have to compensate dairy farmers over and over again. The promises that are made are never fulfilled, as we have seen with CETA and the TPP. Farmers come back at the end saying the promises that were made for compensation are not there. Any time the government has to compensate a sector, that usually means one probably did not argue and negotiate to that sector's benefit. Thus, the government has to take taxpayer's money to compensate them.

I want to stay on the U.S. trade deal. The penalties against Canadian metals remains in place, and yet the Liberals are popping champagne corks.

Back to the CPTPP, if investor-state protections were so bad that the Liberals celebrated their annexation and their removal from the United States agreement, why did they leave them in place with so many more countries involved in this much larger trade agreement with Asia?

[Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation Act, October 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my dear colleague for her speech.

My question is about the process. This bill is more than 300 pages long and is very complex. However, after only two and a half hours, it will be debated in Parliament for the last time. Only five or six members will have been able to discuss a huge trade deal between many countries that has a profound effect on our economy.

How can this government call itself transparent? The Liberals promised transparency, but they negotiate in complete secrecy and then say that a short speech by one or two members from each party is enough.

There are also contradictions between this deal and others, as other members have said. For example, Donald Trump wanted a horrible section included in the new deal with the U.S. It has since been removed. However, that section is included in this deal, and the Liberals are quite happy to protect a country's companies instead of its citizens. That is mind-boggling.

How can we call this a good deal if the government has to promise compensation to Canadian farmers for the third time in three deals? Our trade treaties with Europe, Asia and the U.S. are so harmful to our farmers that the government has to compensate them.

[Petitions, October 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I have an electronic petition, e-petition 1601, which is signed by some 12,082 Canadians, representing indigenous communities, indigenous leaders and residents of British Columbia, calling for the government to finally make good on its promise to put in place a moratorium on oil tanker traffic along the north coast of British Columbia. This was a bill I introduced some parliaments ago. It has been a 50-year debate. These 12,082 residents are joining the chorus of many other British Columbia residents who are calling for protections of what must be protected. We know the threats still exist. The government has long promised legislation, and we await to see its passage through the Senate.

[Natural Resources, October 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, last week I had the honour to attend the memorial for Chief Wah Tah K’eght, Henry Alfred, of northern British Columbia. He was the last living Wet’suwet’en chief who argued the Delgamuukw case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. He stood on the stand hour after hour while government lawyers tried to break down his understanding and knowledge of his territory, and he won. He won establishing rights and title and the ability of indigenous peoples to stand in the country for those sacred rights.

How exactly are the Liberals honouring Chief Wah Tah K’eght's memory and all the indigenous communities and leaders who have fought for that principle, generation after generation?

[Natural Resources, October 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to the Trans Mountain pipeline fiasco, the Liberals keep repeating the words “meaningful consultation”, but clearly have no idea what it actually means.

How can it be meaningful when the Prime Minister slams his fist on the table again and again, saying “this pipeline must be built”? How can it be meaningful when the Liberals bought the 65-year-old pipeline, essentially making themselves both judge and jury?

It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. How long is it going to be until the Liberals simply dump their failed strategy and actually begin to respect indigenous rights and title?

[Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation Act, October 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals let it slip there a bit. They thanked the Conservatives for leading the way on this. Canadians sometimes wonder what the difference between the two parties really is on trade.

We have seen trade deal after trade deal, with promises of improving labour and environmental standards. We had that great show of force from the Prime Minister, that he would go into NAFTA 2.0 and include gender into the agreement. However, when the NAFTA new deal was signed, that somehow was left out.

We have seen trade deal after trade deal where the environment and labour standards are talked about, yet they are always side agreements. We can look at the TPP, or this new version they call “comprehensive” and “progressive”, which was Canada's insistence. We can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig. Calling something “progressive” does not make it so. If we look for those labour standards in the agreement, are they baked into the deal or are they just side deals? If we look for the environmental conditions, will they lift up countries that have poor records right now? All this agreement asks them to do is confirm their commitment to the environment. What does that exactly mean in a country that does not have a strong commitment to the environment as it is right now? It is the status quo.

Trade can lift up all countries, but the promise is often not met in reality. We have not seen labour practices improve in South and Central America. We have not seen them improve in Asia through the successive rounds of trade deals.

How can my hon. friend expect people to keep buying this thing the Liberals are selling by simply putting a bit of lipstick on it and calling it progressive?

[Justice, October 4th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for her long advocacy particularly on the eradication of child poverty. She is right that it was Ed Broadbent who in 1989 stood just a few seats down from where I am standing here today and moved a motion to eradicate child poverty in Canada by the year 2000. It was adopted unanimously by the House.

In fact, the most recent report from Statistics Canada shows that from 1989 to now, child poverty has actually gone up. Rather than being eradicated, the problem has become worse. The Liberals have claimed that they are interested in this issue, yet as my friend has pointed out, they do not actually have a plan to get there. We all know how things change without plans: They simply do not.

I have a very specific question about Bill C-78. As this pertains to divorces in Canada and there are some new amendments, which we appreciate, there is not a lot of language in the legislation around common-law couples. We know that particularly in Quebec and some of the northern territories a large number of couples now live in common-law relationships. They are not seeking to go through any kind of a procedure in a faith community or a civic arrangement, but are married by every intent under the law. This legislation is not, to my reading of it, sufficiently exuberant about describing the situation for common-law couples who then seek to separate, particularly if they have children.

I wonder if my friend can tell us what needs to be done to include common-law couples in this conversation, as that is not only a large percentage but is a growing percentage of the arrangements that many families have in Canada now.

[Justice, October 4th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, all of us in the House share a common interest in protecting children, particularly children who are exposed to domestic violence, children born into families, through no fault of their own, who experience things that can have a generational impact. Succeeding generations feel those effects.

We broadly support Bill C-78. If it is able to take into account the effects of domestic violence on children during divorce proceedings, if it can more clearly define the varying degrees of domestic violence to ascertain what the ruling should be in the end in custody and other decisions the court makes, would it not be a step forward in battling what I am sure we all agree is entirely one of the most difficult and reprehensible things that still exist far too much in our society?

[Natural Resources, October 3rd, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is now promising to finally meaningfully consult indigenous peoples on the Trans Mountain pipeline proposal. No, seriously, this time he really means it. Here is his problem. He has already made up his mind about the project. Therefore, asking indigenous peoples for their opinion, but refusing to hear the word “no” is the very definition of paternalism.

How about this? Why does the Prime Minister not go and sit with indigenous leaders so they can teach him what free, prior and informed consent actually means or does he only agree with indigenous rights and title when indigenous people agree with him?