Paul Manly

[The Environment, December 10th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, today is Human Rights Day. A year ago this week, the UN human rights office sent a letter to the government requesting information on the steps taken to suspend the Site C dam until free, prior and informed consent was obtained from affected indigenous—

[Business of Supply, December 10th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, this is an important debate to have and having a committee to look at this issue is important. This is not something that is just related to the current government. This goes back quite a way.

When we first opened up trade with China, we did not make human rights part of that agreement, that China improve human rights or that it look at democratizing. This goes back to the 1970s and 1980s.

Of course, with both governments, we had the Canada-China FIPA that was brought forward by the Conservative government, which gives Chinese state-owned corporations extraordinary powers. It is not a reciprocal agreement. The Chinese state-owned corporations have an extraordinary amount of power in that agreement. It is probably the worst trade treaty we have signed.

Should we be making our trade and most favoured nation status contingent on human rights, on environmental standards—

[Petitions, December 9th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition today to save the wild salmon, and specifically, to act on the precautionary principle and immediately implement all 75 recommendations made by Justice Cohen to save the Pacific salmon by removing Fisheries and Oceans Canada's mandate to promote salmon farming, to remove salmon farming from migratory routes and to look at prohibiting net-pen farming in British Columbia.

[Petitions, December 6th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, on this day when we remember the lives of women who were murdered in a heinous terrorist act of misogyny, I would like to bring a petition forward to oppose gender discrimination and violence against women.

The petitioners want the House of Commons to recognize that violence against women remains a critical problem in Canada that disproportionately impacts indigenous women, as reflected in the crisis of missing and murdered aboriginal women; that striving for pay equity and equal participation of women in leadership roles must be a political priority for all members of Parliament; and that shifting cultural attitudes toward women and gender minorities in our society requires cultural changes to our processes of education and socialization.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, December 6th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, as this is my first opportunity to speak in the House of Commons, I would like to thank the good people of Nanaimo—Ladysmith for electing me not once but twice in the last six months. However, I am not excited about the idea of going back for another election. I know some members are.

There are a lot of things to deal with in my community. I have four first nations that are looking forward to the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. My community has the highest homelessness per capita in Canada. We have an affordability crisis. We have a mental health crisis. We have an opioid crisis. Our regional hospital is old and it serves the oldest population per capita in Canada. We have more people over the age of 75 in the regional district of Nanaimo—Ladysmith than anywhere else in Canada.

There are a lot of things that I want to work on across party lines to get things done in this Parliament with the government. One of those things is climate change.

I know that my hon. friend for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford has carried fish in trucks to get them up the river because of the droughts. Our forest industry is suffering because of climate change. We see our forests dying. People want action. It is affecting our economy.

If members would indulge me for a moment, my mother was born in Alberta and my father was born in Saskatoon. I have a lot of relatives in those communities. They are hard-working, salt-of-the-earth, innovative, industrious people. They are get-her done folks.

Does the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle see a future for Alberta and Saskatchewan, besides ripping and shipping raw resources out of those provinces, by using the innovation and hard work of the people of those provinces to change the future for our children and grandchildren and so we can have a future?

[Petitions, June 20th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, the final petition is from my constituents and is about DND land. The petitioners call for the Department of National Defence to clarify the safe range of the DND rifle range for safe operation; to establish a schedule for public access to the land in the buffer zone of the range; to order a feasibility study to look at relocating the range to a more suitable, less populated site; and to engage in community consultation with recreational users in the regional district of Nanaimo, the city of Nanaimo and Snuneymuxw First Nation about future use of this land.

[Petitions, June 20th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, the third petition calls upon the House of Commons to recognize that violence against women remains a critical problem in Canada and disproportionately impacts indigenous women, as reflected by the crisis of missing and murdered aboriginal women; that striving for pay equity and equal participation of women in leadership roles must be political priorities for all members of Parliament; and that a shifting cultural attitude toward women and gender minorities in our society requires structural changes in education and socialization.

[Petitions, June 20th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition calls upon the Government of Canada to cease the incarceration of those who suffer from drug abuse and to begin the rehabilitation of said victims back into society through treatment programs, as is done in Portugal.

[Petitions, June 20th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to present four petitions on behalf of my constituents.

The first petition calls upon the Minister of Veterans Affairs to remove any statutory limits on back-pay eligibility for the disability allowance and to work with individual veterans to achieve just and due compensation for a disability allowance in a timely manner.

[Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation Act, June 19th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to stand here today and engage in the debate on NAFTA.

Many of my constituents in Nanaimo—Ladysmith will know that I am very passionate about trade issues and concerned about international trade and investment agreements.

First of all, I want to say that the Green Party of Canada supports trade. We think it is a vital part of our economy. However, what we want to see in trade agreements is respect for environmental regulations, labour standards, health and safety standards, and consumer protections. These things should be increased in trade agreements, the way that the European Union does. Countries that enter the European Union must increase their standards and regulations to meet the highest standards in the union. We think that those kinds of approaches to international trade are important.

About 15 years ago, I was focused on a lot of local issues and worked on films about local water. Somebody had asked me if I knew anything about the Security and Prosperity Partnership, the SPP,, and I did not. Therefore, I went off to Ottawa to go to the people summit and learn about the SPP.

I went to Montebello to document the protests that were happening there, and I happened to videotape three police officers who were dressed as radicals with masks on who were attacking their own riot squad. They were unmasked in the process, and all of their boots matched with those of the riot squad. This raised questions for me about why the police would be involved in this kind of incitement, and I have footage of them banging rocks into shields, etc. I wondered why they would be involved in this kind of incitement at a peaceful protest, and they were later proven to be police officers.

I became interested in the Security and Prosperity Partnership and started to dig in. What I found was that in this process there was a deep integration of Canada, the United States and Mexico as part of a fortress North America after 9/11. It also included integration of our regulatory standards. I looked into who was negotiating on behalf of Canada for these regulatory standards. There were 20 corporations for each of three countries, Mexico, the United States and Canada. There were some great Canadian corporations representing Canada in this negotiation process, such as Home Depot Canada, Walmart Canada, Chevron Canada and Ford Canada.

I started to study trade agreements a little more and found that there really was no involvement of civil society in these agreements. These were corporate agreements. Therefore, I really appreciate in this new version of NAFTA that the government has involved labour organizations and environmental organizations as part of the negotiating process, and I see that as progress. This is what we need to be doing in our negotiations on international trade and investment. They cannot just be secretive processes where only the corporations and the bureaucrats are involved. We need people who represent consumers, workers and environmentalists so that we have a fair process that can look at all aspects of trade and make sure that our regulations and standards are protected.

One of the others things I learned working on this film was about investor-state dispute settlements. Chapter 11 in NAFTA was the first time that a developed country had signed on to this process. It was something that the Europeans had used with their former colonial states to kind of keep corporate control over mineral extraction, etc. However, when I looked into Chapter 11, there were cases such as Ethyl Corporation, which got $5 million when Canada blocked the use of MMT, an additive that was a neurotoxin in gasoline. Ethyl Corporation said that it was an unfair trade practice to ban it. There are also things in these investment chapters such as indirect expropriation, and we all know what expropriation is; national treatment; as well as most favoured nation status. These are all things that are used by corporations to challenge our laws and policies. Therefore, I was really happy to see that the investor-state dispute settlement was taken out of the new NAFTA.

Let us look at cases like Bilcon, where a foreign corporation is challenging our environmental assessment process and getting $7 million for doing nothing. It is not a process that makes sense. We see this used as a big stick by mining companies to get developed countries to accept mining and extraction projects.

We need to do something about softwood lumber. That is an important issue in my community.

I am also concerned about the extension of patents for pharmaceuticals from eight years to 10 years for biologics and how that will affect the cost of drugs. We see many people, seniors in particular, who are having to make decisions about what they spend their money on: rent, food or pharmaceuticals.

Article 22, the state-owned chapter, has a carve-out for the Trans Mountain expansion project. That is a concern for me as well.