Pat Martin

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, February 28th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, let me begin with the hon. member's last point. It is true that in the classic pattern of gunboat diplomacy, the Americans are watching the Parliament of Canada with the implied threat that if we do not pass this legislation and therefore forfeit, surrender and undermine Canadians' right to privacy when travelling on airplanes that may go over even a little corner of the United States, that they will actually close American airspace to their best friend and largest trading partner in the world. This is an absurd situation. Again, we do not make good policy with a gun at our heads. This is something we should find intolerable as Canadians.

It reminds me of the gunboat diplomacy that I have personally experienced with the Devils Lake water boundary dispute where Lloyd Axworthy, Gary Doer, the premier of Manitoba and I went to Washington, urging the Americans to live up to the Boundary Waters Treaty and not talk about an inter-basin transfer of water that will contaminate the Red River and Lake Winnipeg with organisms, foreign invasive species, et cetera.

They simply looked at us and said, “You Canadians have to understand one thing. When it comes down to doing what is good for you and what is good for us, we are going to do what is good for us. Thanks for coming. Do not let the door hit you on your way out”.

That is the kind of relationship we seem to have and this government seems to negotiate on its knees. It does not negotiate from a position of strength, dignity or pride, or upholding the rights and privileges of Canadians. It negotiates on its knees, subject to threats by the American government that it will somehow close airspace--

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, February 28th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to make some comments on Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act.

I want to begin by paying tribute to our transport critic, the member for Western Arctic, for bringing to the attention of this House the slippery slope represented in this bill and the potential for the erosion of some of the most fundamental rights and freedoms by which we define ourselves as Canadians.

Let me begin my remarks with two points. Canadians have a right to know what their government is doing with their money. They have a right to know about the government's policies and programs. Every step of the way Canadians have an absolute right to know. In fact, the right to know, freedom of information, is the very oxygen that democracy breathes. However, the inverse is not true.

The government does not have a right to know everything that its citizens are doing. That is one of the cornerstones of our democracy. That is one of the fundamental freedoms we enjoy in a western society and a western democracy. It is a slippery slope and I caution members of Parliament that we must be ever vigilant to ensure that even a subtle erosion of those fundamental rights and freedoms does not take place.

Any time there is legislation put before the House of Commons that threatens to erode those fundamental freedoms or threatens to fail to augment and expand other freedoms, such as the right to know, we have to stand up and denounce it. That is what I rise to do here today.

This government bill, Bill C-42, should be defeated. It should be denounced. It should be condemned. In fact, Canadians who care about our national sovereignty should gather together and protest the very introduction of this bill because representatives of the Government of Canada are negotiating away the very fundamental rights and freedoms by which we define ourselves as Canadians.

This bill should be defeated. It is nothing more than data-mining by foreign security services, primarily those of the United States. It is an unwarranted intrusion into the privacy of Canadians. Believe me, I am not overstating things when I say that the Government of the United States has no right to know when Canadians board an aircraft in this country, which is one of the things contemplated by this bill. It is an expansion of a great affront to Canadian sovereignty, that is, the American do-not-fly list.

I have some personal experience with that atrocious do-not-fly list in the United States. For a long time, even though I am a Canadian member of Parliament, I was unable to get a boarding pass to get on an airplane in this country to travel on a domestic flight from my home city of Winnipeg to my place of work, the House of Commons in Ottawa, even though the flight does not even go through American airspace.

This list is created, maintained and housed entirely in the United States. Canadians, like myself, even an elected member of Parliament, have no right to know how they got on that list. There is no avenue of recourse for grievances. There is no methodology to get off that list.

Yet, when I go to the airport in my home city of Winnipeg and check in with Air Canada to get on a domestic flight, the women who work at the check-in counter know me by name and when they enter my name into the registry of passengers for that flight, a big red flag comes up on their computer. They say, “I am sorry”, member for the riding of Winnipeg Centre, “I cannot issue a boarding pass for you, because you are on this do-not-fly list.”

Forty-five minutes passes while we phone the Department of Foreign Affairs. The people there cannot help. Then we have to phone this magic number in the United States, and the Americans do some research to see if this individual, me, is the same individual who is on their do-not-fly list.

I cannot board a plane in my own country. Canadians should be furious at that intrusion into our Canadian sovereignty. It is absurd.

This went on for years. I must have been stopped 30 or 40 times from getting on domestic flights until finally we had to misspell my name deliberately, which is fraudulent. That was the big recommendation, that I should book my flights under a different name and there would be no problem. That is the solution to the problem because there is no mechanism to convince the Americans to get the heck out of our business.

This is an extension of that absurd situation, except in this case the Aeronautics Act would be amended to allow airlines to send personal information of passengers to foreign security services, primarily in the United States. That information is laid out in secret agreements with other countries. We cannot find out what the secret agreements say, but we know the details of the agreement that exists between the United States and the European Union. We can assume that the details being negotiated in agreements with other countries, including Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Panama, the Dominican Republic and the United States, are similar to the framework agreement between the United States and the European Union.

Some of the details of the agreement between the United States and the EU would make one's hair curl. For instance, the information forwarded would be the passenger name record, which would include the name of the travel agent used to book the vacation, credit card information, who the person is travelling with, the hotel the person will be staying at, other booking information such as tours or car rental and any medical conditions of the passenger. It is basic personal information up to and including a person's credit card information and personal health records.

We are not talking about people on flights landing in the United States. We are talking about domestic Canadian flights that may pass over the United States for about two minutes. There are little extensions of the Canada-U.S. border that dip down so that when flying from Montreal to Winnipeg a plane may fly over a bit of the United States en route.

Any of that information would be in the hands of the United States government, a foreign national government. Get this: It can keep that information for 40 years and, I suppose, use it against someone, possibly put the person's name on its infamous do-not-fly list. The information may be forwarded to the security services of a third nation without the consent or notification of the other signatory. The information could be traded like party favours among partner nations in the war on terrorism. A person's personal credit card information, who the person travels with and personal health records could be passed around. It is an abrogation of the duty of the Government of Canada to protect the right to privacy of its citizens.

Let me repeat the remarks I opened with. We, as Canadian citizens, have an absolute right to know what our government is doing with our money, policy, programs, et cetera. The government does not have an absolute right to know everything about Canadian citizens. We have an absolute fundamental right to privacy. It is in the Constitution. We have an officer of Parliament dedicated to protecting those rights. They cannot be negotiated away. One cannot negotiate one's way out of the Constitution and no one has a mandate to do it on our behalf.

The government enters into these arrangements and then tries to have them codified and ratified by Parliament through a bill such as this one. It has no right or mandate to trade away our constitutional rights to privacy, but this is what it has done. Why the other opposition parties cannot see this is beyond me.

We owe a debt of gratitude to my colleague, the member for Western Arctic, for blowing the whistle on this otherwise seemingly innocuous bill as it worked its way through the House of Commons and the transport committee. Fortunately, witnesses appeared before the transport committee on this bill and testified in no uncertain terms that this bill erodes and undermines the fundamental rights to privacy of Canadians.

The agreement signed between the United States and the EU, which we believe is the template model for agreements that will be signed with the other partner countries, goes on to say that no person may know what information is being held about them by the United States and may not correct that information if there are any errors. In other words, there is no avenue of recourse.

Again, it is a principle of natural justice that there should be a grievance procedure. There should be an avenue of recourse if mistakes are made about a person and where the veracity of the information being held could be challenged. However, the whole thing is done with such privacy and secrecy that individuals would have no way of knowing what their dossier says about them and what information is being handed around from nation to nation.

This is how horror stories like the Maher Arar situation came to light. This is the kind of nightmare experience that Canadians know all too well from the front pages of the national news of our country year after year as we struggled to understand how such a thing could happen to a Canadian citizen when travelling innocuously within the secure zones of those who seek to make our world safer.

Terrible mistakes are and can be made. It gets to be a runaway freight train without the restraints of reason and logic. Without the underpinning of those fundamental freedoms upon which we built our country, then the war on terrorism does infringe on basic rights.

The other point of the agreement made between the European Union and the United States that we think may find its way into the international agreements with other partner countries, if it has not already, is that the United States may unilaterally amend the agreement as long as it advises the EU of the change. There has already been one amendment whereby all documents held by the EU concerning the agreement shall not be publicly released for 10 years. In other words, there is no access to information requests. That basic fundamental freedom that I introduced in the opening of my remarks of the absolute right to know what your government is doing does not apply apparently. This is a rights-free zone.

What we are contemplating in Bill C-42 ignores our right to know. It ignores what I argue is the very oxygen that democracy breathes. It ignores the fact that the sunlight is a disinfectant and when we shine the light of day on the behaviour and actions of government it automatically elevates its ethical standards. All those things are torn up and thrown out the window and with it Canadians' expectation of the right to privacy.

I just heard a member from the Liberal Party say that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada is not concerned with Bill C-42. He obviously was not at the transport committee meetings when it heard testimony on Bill C-42.

Jennifer Stoddart, the Privacy Commissioner, the officer of Parliament charged with the responsibility of upholding Canadians' fundamental right to privacy, in fact, said that Bill C-42 raises important questions about sovereignty. She said that the Canadian government has a duty to protect the privacy and civil rights of its citizens and it may not go to international forums and barter away those rights. The government cannot negotiate its way out of constitutional rights and privilege.

It is up to us. This House of Commons is the check and balance where we ensure that these erosions do not take place, that we do not embark down that slippery slope, that this is not the thin edge of the wedge in a wholesale abrogation of the duty of the government to uphold our constitutional rights in terms of privacy and freedoms.

It concerns us greatly that we are being asked to buy a pig in the poke to lay the framework for the implementation of this agreement without even knowing the details of the information trading regime that will be agreed to. For all we know it has already been signed off because the details have not been released.

As I did my research into this bill, I was reminded of how we are following the Americans down this dangerous road. We all know that the Americans were attacked. We all know that they have a legitimate right to make their nation more secure. Nobody is arguing that.

A government's first obligation is to ensure the safety and security of its citizens. We wish the Americans well with that and we want to co-operate with that. But we do not believe that the sharing of this information will lead to a safer world. We are also concerned when we throw those fundamental rights and freedoms over the side for the sake of expediency to implement security measures, that will become less secure in an environment without those basic freedoms.

Researching this bill reminded me of another national trend initiative. For 30 years, in their war on getting tough on crime, the Americans were deluded into thinking that longer prison sentences, tougher punishments, mandatory minimum sentences, and locking up a whole generation would make their streets safer. The reason I raise this in the context of Bill C-42 is because we now know, and the Americans have now realized, that they were wrong.

Leaders like Newt Gingrich, of the right wing Republican tough on crime movement, have published lead editorials in The Washington Post acknowledging that they were dead wrong. The Americans are spending billions of dollars on more prisons. They are stacking up prisoners like cordwood with longer prison sentences and their streets are no safer. They are bankrupting the coffers of their state legislatures and their federal government trying to house all of these prisoners.

The Americans have turned a corner. They are now saying that their money should be reinvested in crime prevention, drug rehabilitation, counselling, and services to keep people out of the criminal justice system. They are now saying that they should not be building more prisons to stack prisoners up.

At the same time, at this very same juncture, the Government of Canada is embarking down the road that has just been abandoned by its neo-conservative mentors in the United States.

The same reasoning applies to this bill. We do not have to go blithely down the road of the United States in what some believe is an over-reaction to its national security issues because it is not always right. The United States is our closest neighbour and our biggest trading partner. Sometimes friends have to tell friends when they are wrong.

In their zeal and their enthusiasm over national security the Americans are dead wrong in thinking they are making their country safer by undermining fundamental rights and freedoms of a western democracy. Democracy is a fragile and tenuous construct. It is held together by thin fabrics of rights and freedoms. As one by one those fabrics are strained and stressed, and worn, or even broken, that valuable construct of democracy is very vulnerable.

It is no surprise that there are only 20 federations in the world because democracy is such a difficult form of government to hold together. We have to be especially vigilant in a federation like Canada. We need to ensure that we never allow the fundamental freedoms of the right to know what government is doing and the right to privacy for its citizens to be taken away. If anything, those fundamental elements of our democracy should be enhanced and strengthened by this House of Commons, not eroded and undermined by a reactionary piece of legislation that we believe will have adverse and contrary effects that are the polar opposite of the spirit and the intent of this legislation, which is to combat terrorism.

This bill should be defeated for a number of fundamental reasons.

[First Nations Financial Transparency Act, February 28th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of my constituents in Winnipeg Centre not only to speak against this bill but to reject it. I will use my 10 minutes to condemn this bill and the very assumptions that led to the bill coming before the House of Commons today. I find the bill to be an extension of the Eurocentric, colonial, paternalistic and offensive assumptions that underlie the government's policies toward first nations people.

This bill finds its roots and origins in the racist assumptions that all first nations are either corrupt or incompetent and I reject both of those assumptions. In fact, I feel sorry for the member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar because she is a hapless dupe who has been designated to put forward a bill that the government was too cowardly to bring forward itself. If the government wanted to try to make the case that all first nations are incompetent or corrupt, the government itself should have the guts to say it to the House of Commons instead of using the back door and some new rookie hapless dupe in rural Saskatchewan. That is what I find offensive.

If the member had done a bit of research, she would know that the Auditor General of Canada said that first nations in fact are over-audited. They are handicapped by audits. They are almost crippled and paralyzed by the number of routine audits they have to do. There are 168 audits per year to five different government departments. How many is that? If we do the math, it is three or four times a week that paperwork has to be submitted.

In spite of this, 96% of all first nations in the country submit their audits on time, without comment or criticism from the auditor. Of the remainder, 27 out of 633 first nations, the auditors commented that of the 27 first nations that either failed to file 1 of their 168 returns on time, or made a mathematical error, or had a problem with their accounting, only 11 were put under third party management by the Government of Canada. Those are the statistics.

If the Government of Canada wants to do something about the appalling social conditions of our first nations people and if it wants the House of Commons to be seized with first nations issues, why are we bogged down with some nuisance little mischief bill that is pandering to a racist minority that dwells under the assumption that all first nations are either corrupt or incompetent? That is what we should be questioning today.

The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development should be renamed. He should be called the minister for managing poverty, because that is what his job entails: robbing Peter to pay Paul. He moves around the same little inadequate pool of money that is supposed to provide for the basic needs of nearly a million people, some $6 billion in total for the needs of a million people.

Our entire armed forces comprises 68,000 people and what is the budget? There is a $32 billion budget for 50,000 people versus $6 billion for a million people to provide housing, schools, education, health care and basic needs. That is the root of the problem. The problem is not about accountability or governance. The problem is not about insignificant things like the number of audits that are submitted on time. The problem is chronic long-term poverty.

I put it to the House that the problem of the social condition of the first nations people has its origins in the Indian Act, an offensive document of oppression, unworthy of any western democracy. That is the root of the problem. The problem is not the meddling of one rookie MP who thinks she is going to put forward a private member's bill with a racist assumption that all first nations are incompetent or, even worse, corrupt. The Indian Act is the root of the problem.

If the government wanted to solve the appalling third world social conditions that our first nations are forced to live under, the government would tear up the Indian Act and would provide a meaningful share of the land and resources that first nations were entitled to under their treaties. If the government took 10% of the money it spends in court fighting first nations for their legitimate rights and applied it to a share of the land and resources, then first nations could get on with some economic development.

I wonder if any member of Parliament has ever read the Indian Act. I wonder if any member knows that first nations are not even allowed to cut down a single tree on their land without the express permission of the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

I wonder if the members know that if gold or oil is discovered on a first nations reserve, the residents are not entitled to it. The only thing they are expressly entitled to in the Indian Act is gravel, sand, mud and soil. If one can carve out a living by selling gravel, mud, sand and soil on a reserve, granted, one then has a legitimate way to make a living by hauling gravel or having a quarry. That, they are allowed to do.

However, if it has to do with fisheries, it is not allowed; with forestry, it is not allowed; with mining, it is not allowed. If they discover gold and pearls and rubies on their reserve, it is not theirs. So what can be expected?

I sat in this House of Commons at the last fumbling, clumsy attempt to try to imply that aboriginal people's poverty is because of lack of governance or corruption or incompetence. It was called the first nations governance act. Again, it was a smoke screen to try to pretend that the root of the problem was not chronic long-term poverty and all of its predictable social consequences, and that it was not the complete refusal to share the wealth of the land and resources guaranteed to first nations under treaty. However, this is not an assumption on my part; the evidence is that every time an aboriginal group does finally make it to the Supreme Court after 30 years, they win. They win every time.

Until the 1960s, a lawyer was not allowed to represent Indians in court. How were they supposed to fight their court cases? One was not allowed to take money from an Indian to pursue a land claim. It was expressly forbidden by the law society. So when these 30- and 40-year land claims finally get to court, the plaintiffs win because they are right. Whether in the Marshall case, the Sparrow case or in Delgamuukw, whatever the case, first nations plaintiffs win and the government loses.

Yet instead of acknowledging that reality, that those treaties mean something, that the treaties are two sided and that we are all treaty people and that I, for instance, am a participant of that treaty, the government denies it. Those treaties are legal and binding, and they are right. There would not be the third world social conditions here if we honoured the treaties and did not wait for 30- and 40- and 50-year court cases. However, the Department of Justice has floors of lawyers who do nothing but say “no” to aboriginal people and drag stuff through the courts. That is what the government spends its money on.

Does the government think there is any advantage to having a permanent underclass in our society? Does it think that is an economy? That is a false economy. It is an offensive economy and the social cost is prevalent and obvious in the streets of Winnipeg and in any other major centre, and certainly on first nations reserves that are denied the right.

I carry the feather. I was given the honour of a blanket ceremony and a spiritual name was given to me by the Assembly of First Nations for standing up and fighting the first nations governance act. With that honour comes an obligation that we will speak truth to power in this House of Commons. Every time there is an offensive piece of legislation that extends the paternalistic assumptions of the Indian Act, we will denounce it, we will condemn it and we will defeat it. That bill will not pass.

If the Government of Canada wants to talk about secrecy and accountability, it should look in the mirror because it is the Department of Indian Affairs and the Minister of Indian Affairs that are secretive and unaccountable.

Here I point to the Kapyong Barracks, the military base in the city of Winnipeg, as a classic example. Year after year, the treaty land entitlement of the first nations who have first option to purchase surplus government land has been systematically denied.

We just had another court case on Thursday of this week in Winnipeg, where the Government of Canada appealed another decision that it had lost, and thus guaranteed five more years in court going to the Supreme Court of Canada, where it will ultimately lose. But at least it is pandering to its base that says, “Stop giving those Indians so much stuff and let them pull themselves up by their bootstraps”. How do people pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they have no tools to use? How do people pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they cannot participate in economic development because they have no right to the land and resources under their feet, the very land and resources that were guaranteed to them under Treaties 1 through 7 in our prairie region, and all over the west coast with the Douglas treaties, et cetera?

The government is wrong: this bill is offensive and we condemn it. We should not just reject it; it should be tossed out of here with great ceremony because we will not tolerate it and will not stand for it.

[Government Accountability, February 17th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives said they would clean up the revolving door between their government and lobbying firms. Yet Alanna Heath went directly from the finance minister's office to Barrick Gold as the director of government relations. Guess what her first job was? It was to kill Bill C-300, the corporate social responsibility bill for the mining industry. Then Rodney MacDonald left the Minister of Industry's office to become the director of government relations for Visa, the very file that his former boss was directly involved in.

What happened to those promises, what happened to the cooling-off period for connected political staff and what happened to the integrity of the government?

[Government Accountability, February 17th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, a meeting between a minister and a lobbyist should never start with the words, “Here's a bag full of cash”, but that is the net effect of lobbyist Michael McSweeney holding a ritzy fundraiser for the very minister he was lobbying, “Here is a sack full of cash, minister. Now how about that clean energy fund grant I needed?” It is enough to make Karlheinz Schreiber blush, and he does not blush easily.

The Minister of Labour has been busted by the Ethics Commissioner and the Lobbying Commissioner. My question is simple. Why is she still in the front row after the shakedown stunt, trying to shake down well-connected Conservative lobbyists?

[Seeds Regulation Act, February 8th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I was only trying to point out that I wished the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food could hear the entire debate tonight. Rather than just the wild-eyed rhetoric of that ideological zealot, he could hear a necessary and important debate about the very future of agriculture not only in Canada but in third world developing countries, the European Union and right around the world.

I do not believe anybody should be able to copyright life or living organisms. It is an affront to the natural order to copyright life. The whole notion of suicide genes in terminator seeds is an affront to the natural order, and I believe a lot of people agree with me.

Let me bring the debate back down to earth. It is my personal ideological belief that the minister criticized me for holding, but let me remind people what we are debating tonight. The bill put forward by my colleague from British Columbia Southern Interior is eminent common sense, grounded and realistic in the health of our agricultural industry.

Bill C-474 calls for an amendment to the Seeds Regulations Act to “require that an analysis of potential harm to export markets be conducted before the sale of any new genetically engineered seed is permitted”. What could be more common sense?

This is not wild ideology on the part of the NDP. I have strongly held views on genetically engineered products, but the bill is not about that. The bill is about protecting producers and our export markets and, ultimately, the 1.4 billion farmers around the world in developing nations, who depend on farm safe seed, from science about which we are not sure. It is using the precautionary principle for our export markets. That is common sense, that is reasonable debate and it is entirely appropriate before the House of Commons. It is a victory for democracy that we in the NDP managed to get an extra five hour debate on this subject tonight. Again, I compliment my colleague for it.

Who is driving this reckless, irresponsible drive toward GM and genetically-engineered crops? Believe me, the science is not in. The scientific community is being intimidated. Let me give an example.

The New York Times reported that 23 U.S. scientists recently signed a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency declaring that no truly independent research on GMOs could be conducted on many critical questions, partly because they were not allowed to even grow samples due to the fact that holders of the patents would not allow independent scientists to grow samples to test the impact.

Stunningly, The New York Times went on to report that the 23 scientists withheld their names because they feared being cut off from research by the companies. They are being intimidated, muzzled and silenced so even independent scientists who we should be trusting cannot really enter into this debate and conclude if one particular genetic modification is going to be harmful or not.

Who is driving things internationally? Let me point out an article from the Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom, which finds evidence that the United States embassy in Paris wants to penalize the European Union for France having the temerity to ban the Monsanto GM corn variety.

The U.S. ambassador in Paris is the business partner of George W. Bush. They used to own the Texas Rangers baseball team, by some happy coincidence. Recently leaked memos talk about intimidation and punitive sanctions being brought down on France for having the temerity, as I said, as a sovereign nation to choose to not have Monsanto's GM corn.

It is going to be slapped with all kinds of sanctions for interfering with the right of the U.S. company to tamper with the genetic makeup of the corn in that country. France has a right to determine if it will accept GM products or genetically-engineered foods, just as Canada has a right. We should not be bullied or browbeaten by American corporate interests for us to change the way we do the agriculture in this country.

The same report in the Guardian newspaper indicates that the Americans are going after the Vatican because many Catholic bishops in developing and third world countries are completely opposed to genetically engineered, genetically modified food because it completely wipes out the local agricultural economy.

It is like Wal-Mart moving into town and all the little businesses fold up. That is what happens when Monsanto blows into a third world country or a developing nation. The Catholic bishops and cardinals in those countries are speaking out against it.

Therefore, the United States goes to work on the Holy See. One by one it is trying to knock off the Council of Catholic Bishops, especially one cardinal, Cardinal Renato Martino, the head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the man who most represents the Pope at the United Nations. He had been passive about genetically modified food because he did not want to annoy the United States. He was trying to get it to see reason on Iraq. Cardinal Martino has changed his tune. He is now speaking out against genetically engineered and genetically modified foods and he has turned. Now the United States has turned on him in every way possible, trying to undermine and discredit this man who had the courage to stand up to Monsanto.

People in Canada have stood up to Monsanto and we have seen what happens when they have had the temerity to do so. I am thinking of Percy Schmeiser from the province of Saskatchewan, who blew the alarm on this many years ago.

I am ashamed that our country attends United Nations international conventions on biological diversity specifically to sabotage the international ban on terminator genes. We are one of three countries in the world that do not oppose suicide genes and terminator seeds. We are one of three countries in the world that does not believe farmers have the right to hold back some of their seed from the previous year so they can plant next year and do not become serfs to the agricultural corporate community.

It is the holders of the patents on genes that would have the temerity, the atrocity, the nerve to patent life. These people are now driving small farmers into bankruptcy because they can no longer hold back 20% of their seed to plant for next year's crop. Their seed will not sprout. It has a suicide gene implanted in it.

It is a sick notion and we should condemn it instead of going to these international forums and defending the right of Monsanto to tamper with life in this way to God know's what long-term detriment. We will never know because the scientists who could do independent research have been muzzled as well.

We go blindly forward, led by Monsanto, which tells us to trust it, that everything will be okay, as it browbeats Canadians, the Vatican, small countries, any European Union nation with the temerity to ask if this is a good idea or not.

At least we are having that debate in the House of Commons tonight. It is not a good idea. We should move cautiously before we lose our ability to export our genetically engineered foodstuffs. Other places like the European Union do not want GM foods. If we care about those markets, we should be cautious and we should follow the direction of Bill C-474 put forward by my courageous colleague the member for British Columbia Southern Interior.

[Seeds Regulation Act, February 8th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to enter into the debate on Bill C-474.

I begin by thanking and recognizing the contribution my colleague from British Columbia Southern Interior is making to not only this debate, but to democracy generally in the House of Commons. This is an historic victory for democracy.

Instead of listening to the wild-eyed rhetoric from some ideological zealot like our Minister of Agriculture, we can have an honest and fair debate on a subject of pressing interest, not only to the well-being of 1.4 billion farmers who rely on farm-safe seed, but on the matter of exports of our Canadian agricultural products around the world and our ability to be a world leader in agriculture. It is a shame the Minister of Agriculture would not stay to listen to this entire debate. It is a matter of utmost importance to the prairie region that I represent. It is a debate that is current—

[Canada-Panama Free Trade Act, February 4th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, chartered accountants call it “tax motivated expatriation”. We call it “sleazy, tax cheating loopholes” and it is appalling.

I read a five-part series by Diane Francis in the National Post, not exactly a right-wing rag, that denounced and decried the federal government for allowing tax loopholes to exist where wealthy Canadian families and wealthy Canadian CEOs of corporations can be tax fugitives and avoid the arm of the Canada Revenue Agency. They do not have to pay their fair share which means we have to pay more. Even a right-wing journalist like Diane Francis says it should not be allowed.

The Conservatives not only turn a blind eye to it, but they ratify, endorse and legitimize it by entering into a trade agreement with a country that makes its living by sheltering drug money and offering tax havens for tax fugitives like members of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives headed by John Manley, the rich guys.

[Canada-Panama Free Trade Act, February 4th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, in the province of Manitoba we have learned that if we want to get tough on crime, the profits of crime must be choked off. If we take the ill-gotten gains away from a criminal there is a fighting chance that we will stop the practice because we want to make the point that crime does not pay. That is why we put in place the proceeds of crime bill, where we could seize the assets and ill-gotten gains of a criminal more easily.

We can do the same internationally by choking off sanctuaries such as Panama that are used by international drug dealers to launder and warehouse their money. However, we do not do that by legitimizing the country and its practices.

There are 400,000 corporations registered in Panama. That is four times all the corporations in Canada. None of them produce a single thing because they are just shell companies that are being used to house and launder money, and to avoid taxes. Tax fugitives and drug dealers make up the entire chamber of commerce in Panama. Why would we sign a trade agreement with it?

[Canada-Panama Free Trade Act, February 4th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to enter into the debate on Bill C-46. If we are to use trade as an instrument to elevate the human condition and not just to exchange goods and services, then we must consider the fact that trade with Canada should be viewed as a privilege and not as any kind of right. In fact, we should be choosing trading partners who earn the privilege of trading with a great nation like Canada.

If it is our intention, even as a secondary goal, to help elevate the standard of wages and living conditions of the people with whom we are trading, if we are indeed to be global partners in the globalization of capital, then we must also consider that with the globalization of capital must also come the globalization of human rights, labour rights and environmental standards. We should use our capacity as a trading nation to achieve those secondary goals.

I would go further and argue that we should not enter into any country that will not stipulate to those lofty standards that seek to elevate the human condition. We owe it to our global partners and we owe it to the global efforts to eradicate poverty and create a planet that is sustainable for the future.

I note, not by any kind of coincidence, that the driving force behind this trade agreement is the mining industry. It is the greatest lobbyist that came forward to try to justify and defend a bilateral free trade agreement with a country like Panama that does not meet any of the standards I just pointed out. Panama does not meet any of the tests of a country that has taken active steps to recognize and protect human rights. Also, it is a country that has actively taken steps to undermine the health and well-being of the global economy by proactively creating itself to be one of the largest tax havens in the world.

We have to ask ourselves as parliamentarians why we would want to participate in a trade agreement with a country whose actions and actual practice we abhor, or claim to abhor. The members in this chamber often raise the fact that we criticize and chastise those tax fugitives who would avoid paying their fair share of taxes by harbouring their activities and funnelling their profits in dummy shell companies around the world even though the corporate taxes in this country are going down to 15%, one of the lowest in the developed world. It is estimated that we lose $7 billion a year in lost tax revenue by allowing situations to exist where countries can move their taxable profits and income into these dummy companies.

Are we not acquiescing to, or even encouraging this international behaviour by recognizing these countries with a free trade agreement? Canada, I am proud to say, does not tolerate this kind of thing lightly. It seems a contradiction to me.

In recent years we have had this debate over and over again. Even though the parliamentary secretary said we are engaged in negotiations of free trade agreements with countries such as India and Morocco, those are not the ones that come forward in the list of priorities for the government or before this chamber. We end up debating free trade agreements with Colombia and narco-states overrun by criminals, gangsters and people who murder trade unionists in the streets. Panama is not much better. It is a sanctuary and refuge for some of the worst actors in the world.

What business do we have welcoming them into our family of trade when we try to pretend that we operate at a higher standard of behaviour? Why should we stoop to that level of behaviour? Why would we be sullied? Why would we let them darken our towels until they clean up their own act?

If we are to elevate the human condition of our trading partners, it should be a prerequisite that they come up to our standards, not that we lower our standards to theirs. With globalization comes the risk of harmonizing to the lowest common denominator, not the highest common denominator. We must be ever vigilant, as parliamentarians, to ensure that the latter does not happen.

It is difficult to put the brakes on something that sounds as innocuous as free trade. I think the words were chosen very carefully. But, our negotiating history in free trade agreements has been poor. They are not fair trade agreements. The NDP is always being accused of not being in favour of free trade. Nothing could be further from the truth. If it truly were free trade, if it truly were fair trade, it would have our enthusiastic support and endorsement, but we never see that.

We always send Department of Justice lawyers and globe-trotting representatives to negotiate these free trade agreements. I do not know who gives them their mandate, but they keep coming back with pretty bad packages. Our history has been appalling in negotiating to ensure that the best interests of Canadians are paramount before these trade agreements are signed. It seems we will sign anything with anyone. We are too easy. Our bargaining stance is on our knees. We beg them to leave us with a bit of dignity when they are finished with us. That has been our experience. We wind up with deals that cost us a fortune, that do not protect and defend our standards on an issue such as supply management regime, for instance. All these things are at risk when we enter into these deals and arrangements.

I notice in this deal, again, we have made a classic mistake regarding most favoured nation treatment and national treatment. Again, foreign investment from the partner country should receive the same treatment as domestic investment or investment from any third country. The same language keeps popping up in all these trade agreements. Even after the NDP reminds the government of the day not to do that, it keeps doing it again. It does not listen to us. Sometimes I am concerned that Conservatives are not listening at all.

It boggles the mind, really. I lived through the great free trade agreement debates in 1988. I watched as we allowed section 11 in NAFTA. We leave ourselves vulnerable time and time again with our eagerness to appease and please our trading partners. We seem willing to sacrifice the best interests of Canadians.

It is like Margaret Atwood said about the Canadian beaver. It seems as soon as there is any stress at all, we get backed into a corner and we bite off our own testicles. I agree with Margaret Atwood. It is not an image that we like to dwell on, but we do not show the kind of strength in our bargaining position that we should when we are at international bargaining tables.

Now we are faced with yet another free trade agreement to debate. We debated ones on Peru and Colombia. Now we have Panama. Where are these big trade agreements with the big actors that the Conservative government says it is negotiating? I would argue it is at the negotiating table, but probably kneeling at the negotiating table, begging to please, please sign a deal with us. It will give away whatever other countries want, never mind the best interests of Canadians, never mind the best interests of the people who sent us here. The government will sign anything with anyone anytime, if it can get it through the House of Commons.

It is a good thing this is a minority Parliament. We are going to keep fighting this bill as long as we can.