Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook for sharing his time with me today.
It is an honour to rise on behalf of the Green Party to speak to the Canada-United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement, or TCA.
I want to recognize that I am speaking from the traditional unceded territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation.
I have many points that I want to make about the TCA, and I will begin by saying that it is time to demand fairness for the 150,000 U.K. pensioners living in Canada. During these trade negotiations, we must not forget about them.
U.K. pensioners in other countries, including the U.S., receive annual rate increases tied to the rate of inflation. U.K. pensioners in Canada do not. This is unacceptable. We end up providing financial support to U.K. pensioners because of this discriminatory policy. Meanwhile, Canadian pensioners living in the U.K. receive annual rate increases. We need to demand the same for U.K. pensioners, and now is the time to do it.
The Green Party supports fair and equitable international trade. We want to ensure that trade agreements have enforcement provisions to protect indigenous rights and workers' rights, as well as consumer, health and environmental standards.
We are opposed to any agreement that contains investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS, provisions. Trade agreements should not be corporate rights agreements in disguise. We oppose a regulatory race to the bottom. We want to ensure that people and the planet are put before corporate profits. That is the kind of fair trade we support.
In February 2020, during the debate on CUSMA, the government made a commitment to be transparent and provide adequate support and notice for all new trade agreements. The government did not fulfill that commitment with this agreement.
For decades, there have been demands for increased transparency on how trade agreements are negotiated. I have followed trade agreement debates for many years, and it does not matter which party is in power. The opposition always complains that there is not enough transparency in the negotiations. That is why I tabled a private member's bill: the trade and foreign investment agreements transparency act, which is modelled on the European Union's process of transparent trade negotiations. The purpose of the proposed act is to create a transparent consultation and assessment process to ensure that Canada's trade, and foreign investment agreements, reflect the values and interests of Canada as a whole; take into account the perspectives of various groups, including local communities, civil society organizations and indigenous peoples; promote sustainable development and respect for the environment, and adhere to the principles of economic fairness, social justice and internationally recognized human rights. We need this kind of legislation in Canada to ensure a transparent process.
The TCA is a transitional trade agreement that replicates the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA. The TCA has no end date or sunset clause. If negotiations for this new agreement fail, the TCA could become permanent and bring the worst parts of CETA into our new trade relationship with the U.K. This is not something we can allow to happen. The stakeholder consultations that occurred for the TCA are completely inadequate for a permanent agreement.
The international trade and investment agreements that Canada has signed affect all Canadians, all Canadian businesses and all levels of government. They affect how we govern ourselves all the way down to the local level. This is especially true of CETA, and now the Canada-U.K. TCA.
The rules of CETA have the potential to affect public procurement at all levels of government. For projects above a certain budget level, CETA prohibits favouring local bids, applying local content or hiring quotas, or setting aside contracts for small and medium-sized enterprises or minority-owned businesses. CETA could affect indigenous rights and indigenous control over traditional lands when those lands are targeted by foreign resource extraction companies. Public services supplied on a commercial basis are automatically included under CETA unless they have been expressly excluded, which limits the government's ability to regulate foreign service providers. If the government wants to provide public services or return a previously privatized service to the public sector, it will be open to challenges from foreign investors.
Canada's free trade agreements have hollowed out our manufacturing base. We focus on ripping and shipping raw resources, such as bitumen, logs and minerals, instead of prioritizing value-added domestic manufacturing and using our resources to maximize employment and diversify our economy.
We are vulnerable to fluctuations in commodity prices for raw resources. The downturn in oil prices and the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline are both perfect examples of this vulnerability.
Canada's trade deficit with the EU has increased under CETA. EU companies have an easier time exporting to Canada than Canadian companies have exporting to the EU. A 2019 study shows that the only exports to the EU that have increased are fossil fuels and raw minerals, so CETA hurts value-added industries and benefits rip-and-ship resource extraction.
Canada made major concessions on intellectual property that hurt our pharmaceutical industry. Under CETA, Canada was forced to give drug companies patent extensions for innovative drugs. The EU was not bound by the same rules.
How has CETA helped us procure vaccines for COVID-19? The EU is threatening to block exports of vaccines to Canada until it has enough supply for its own citizens. If we still had a robust pharmaceutical industry in Canada, we would not be in this position.
Canada is one of the most open countries for trade and foreign direct investment. There have been more investor-state challenges against Canada than against any other country in the OECD. This is not a record to brag about. We give far too much power to foreign investors. Foreign investment is destroying home affordability. Foreign investment in long-term care homes has resulted in seniors living in horrendous conditions. Foreign investors have ripped and shipped resources from this country and left an environmental mess for taxpayers to clean up.
The ISDS provisions in CETA have been suspended for three years with the TCA. Why were these provisions not completely removed? Do we not trust our justice systems to make fair rulings when corporations feel they are being treated unfairly? There is no justification for a private tribunal system to deal with trade disputes between our two countries. The TCA actually states that if we have not agreed to new investor-state provisions in three years, then the CETA ISDS rules apply. We need to remove ISDS permanently from this agreement and from all of our trade agreements.
The pandemic has made it clear that we need to support our local supply chains. We have seen how the hollowing out of our manufacturing base and the offshoring of jobs has left us short on personal protective equipment. The Greens are particularly concerned about protecting our food supply chain. This makes sense for food security and also makes sense for lowering the carbon footprint of the food we consume. Canada has vast areas of farmland and is a net exporter of food, but we have become too specialized and too dependent on imports of food that can be produced right here.
Since CETA, a provisional agreement, came into force, the agricultural sector has lost 10% of its exports to Europe, while imports from the EU have increased by 10%. The CETA, along with other trade agreements, has undermined our supply management system, which provides stability for farmers. We need enforceable labour and environmental standards in trade agreements. The labour provisions in CETA are not enforceable, and the compliance mechanism is non-binding. The environmental provisions are weak, with no concrete obligations.
The CETA does not protect regulations to address climate change, and leaves climate action on the part of the government subject to investor challenges through the ISDS provisions. This is unacceptable to the Green Party. We would hate to see the U.K.’s climate accountability laws attacked by Canadian corporations using ISDS provisions.
Since 2008, the U.K. has had a real climate accountability law, with five-year increments set to carbon budgets. The U.K. has currently reduced greenhouse gas emissions 40% below 1990 levels, with a target to be 69% below 1990 levels by 2030. Pathetically, Canada has increased its greenhouse gas emissions by 21% above 1990 levels. This is one area where I would love to see Canada adopt U.K. standards.
In closing, CETA was disappointing and so is the Canada-U.K. TCA. Canadian governments need to do a better job of putting the interests of Canadians ahead of large corporations.