Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on the Act to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the Republic of Peru, the Agreement on the Environment between Canada and the Republic of Peru and the Agreement on Labour Cooperation between Canada and the Republic of Peru.
I would like to begin by saying that the Bloc Québécois will oppose this implementation act because it fails to meet a number of objectives or reflect lessons we learned from previous free trade agreements. It is important to point out that the Bloc Québécois is open to international trade, just as the Quebec nation is. Like Canada, we too are a trading nation. Because of the limited size of the Quebec market, like that of the Canadian market, we promote open markets, but obviously not with just any conditions. This is especially true when Quebeckers' quality of life is at stake or when a free trade agreement between a developed country like Canada and a developing country like Peru could give rise to exploitation.
In the interests of national solidarity in the case of Quebec, Canadian solidarity in the case of Canada and also international solidarity, we have a responsibility to condemn agreements that violate workers' rights, environmental rights, future rights and the sovereignty of our respective countries. As you know, our goal is for Quebec to become a sovereign country and carve out a place for itself on the international scene. Every time the Bloc Québécois takes part in debates such as this one, we try to determine what Quebec's interests would be as a nation, as a country. That is what we are doing in the current debate here in the House of Commons.
It is very clear to us that, unlike other agreements, this one does not meet our objectives. It is dangerous as an international trade strategy, but also in terms of the ability of states to maintain their sovereignty, the rights of workers and the environment. That is particularly true in Peru, but it is probably also true in Quebec and Canada. Given the greater vulnerability of Peru's economy, that country is the one more likely to suffer from the absence of a number of agreements in the accord, or from the presence of certain provisions.
First, we do not support this strategy as a whole, which seeks to ensure that Canada has bilateral agreements with developing countries such as Peru. That is also true for Colombia. However, in the case of Colombia, the reasons are even more obvious. There are blatant violations of human rights and union rights in that country. If Canada were to sign such an agreement, and if the House were to pass the implementation act, we would be nothing less than accomplices in a situation involving the violation of fundamental rights. Therefore, in the case of Colombia, things are very clear.
In the case of Peru, the rights situation is obviously not quite the same, but there are some serious problems, particularly in the mining sector. A number of Canadian and foreign companies are often accused, sometimes wrongly perhaps but often rightly, of displaying an extremely authoritative attitude towards the communities in which they settle, and towards the workers that they hire. In that sense, we feel that this agreement does not at all serve the best interests of the two sides and would not have been in the best interests of a sovereign Quebec.
We should focus more on a multilateral approach. In fact, that is what we have always advocated, and that is what Canada has done for a while. After World War II, the GATT agreement was put in place, and it later became the WTO-GATT.
A number of trade initiatives were taken in the best interests of all the parties to the GATT agreement, which became the GATT-WTO in 1994. That is evidenced by the fact that the number of signatories to the agreement has always increased, and by the fact that major progress was achieved in terms of opening markets. The rules were well known.
Overall, one can say that, despite the adjustments that opening up borders of necessity brings to local, regional or national economies, the bottom line is that, until 1994, all participants in the WTO-GATT agreement were able to benefit from this opening up of markets.
A number of agreements were concluded, including the North American Free Trade Agreement; that changed things completely. It is noteworthy, moreover, that in the case of the free trade agreement with the United States certain provisions were lacking, those concerning investments in particular. I imagine that the Canadian and American governments felt that it was a matter of dealing with states where the rule of law was recognized, and so there was no need for any particularly innovative provisions, on protecting investments for example. All trade agreements, bilateral and multilateral, have included provisions on protecting investments. This is all very normal, but those agreements included a dispute resolution mechanism involving the states as representatives of the companies involved, as is the case with the WTO.
To give an example: the trade dispute between Bombardier and Embraer. Bombardier is a Quebec company that is still being defended by the Canadian government for as long as we continue to be part of this political entity. Embraer has the Brazilian government behind it. Each of these states makes representations before the WTO arbitration tribunal. Rulings are made. However, there is no way that Bombardier or Embraer could bring one or the other of the countries before a WTO tribunal because it is displeased with the ruling or the policy adopted or with certain measures taken in the aerospace sector.
That was the rule. The Canada-U.S. Free Trade agreement used the same approach. When Mexico was added in around 1994—negotiations having started after 1989—we saw a chapter 11 provision on investments added, and this allowed private enterprises which felt they had been prejudiced by a state to bring proceedings directly against the state they deemed to be at fault, before specially constituted arbitration tribunals. We have seen proceedings by American companies against the Canadian government. We have seen this in connection with the environment. We have seen this in connection with public services. We have seen U.S. multinationals institute proceedings before the courts, sometimes even successfully. This was the case in Mexico with Metalclad's challenge of regional governments.
NAFTA broke new ground and completely changed the overall economy and how agreements worked. It has to be said that these provisions were introduced by the United States, but with Canada's cooperation, because it was felt that the rule of law in Mexico was not totally solid, totally present, we would say. A specific provision was created to make sure that any company that was nationalized in Mexico would receive compensation comparable to the company's actual value. In the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, there was a rather strong tendency to nationalize companies.
When the agreement was negotiated, we should have first made sure that the rule of law in Mexico had reached a point where it was respected not only in connection with foreign investment, but in Mexican society as a whole.
However a little loophole was created, one that shelters multinational corporations from the weakness of the rule of law in Mexico. Mexico has evolved considerably since 1994, but the provision concerning chapter 11 and the protection of foreign investment remains.
Worse still, in the early 1990s, around the same time that NAFTA was being negotiated, there were also talks about the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, or the MAI, at the OECD. It was an agreement to apply chapter 11 throughout the OECD. Clearly, it was a way for industrialized countries to impose this vision in the context of the WTO and GATT, in order to ensure the protection for foreign investments, similar to that in NAFTA, in the next phase of negotiations.
Unfortunately for that strategy, France foresaw the dangers involved in that approach to protecting foreign investments. The French government therefore refused to agree to that MAI. It saw the dangers involved in having the equivalent of NAFTA's chapter 11 within the OECD. So, for other European countries, as well as other countries, it was stonewalled.
The existing investment protection measures have been part of the OECD for some time. They even appear in the free trade agreement between Canada and the United States and in the agreement we discussed just a few weeks ago here in the House, the free trade agreement between Canada and the European Free Trade Association, which includes the Scandinavian countries and a few other countries from the European continent. Although it was not our preferred strategy, the Bloc Québécois believed that that agreement, which does not include chapter 11 provisions, could be beneficial for both parties, that is, good for Canada and Quebec on the one hand, and good for the European Free Trade Association on the other.
There is a special type of investment protection provisions for developed countries, where the rule of law is believed to be strong enough to ensure that disputes are settled equitably through procedures that comply with the rules of justice. But in countries like Peru, Colombia, Costa Rica, Korea or Chile, that is not so sure, hence the introduction of a special clause copied from chapter 11.
That is unacceptable. If the rule of law is good for foreign investors, it should also be good for the companies that receive these investments. We cannot accept this double standard, where multinational corporations not only enjoy privileges denied to the people who welcome them, but are also allowed to bring proceedings directly against the national government of these companies.
That is our second reason for rejecting this free trade agreement with Peru. The first one has to do with the bilateral approach in the Canada-Peru, Canada-Chile, Canada-Colombia, Canada-Costa Rica and Canada-Israel agreements. The agreement with Israel, in fact, was the second free trade agreement signed by Canada, which makes more sense politically than financially.
The point I am making is that a bilateral approach replaced the multilateral one when the Free Trade Area of the Americas initiative was stonewalled by several South American countries. That initiative was based on principles which are now described as neo- or ultra-liberal because they confer advantages on capital rather than on the receiving companies, states and people.
I clearly recall the debates held in this House at the time of the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City. At that time, the Liberals were in power, not the Conservatives. Anyway you cut it, it boils down to pretty much the same thing, and in either case, the result is unpalatable.
We have had debates in this House and the government has promoted a free trade zone with which we agreed in principle but which was also based on the principles of NAFTA and on what we had attempted to accomplish at the OECD with MAI.
I can certainly understand why Mercosur, the South American free trade zone, and a number of other countries refused the proposal put forward by North America—not just North America because Mexico is included—but basically that of the United States and Canada. Thus, it was a failure.
In view of this failure and that of the WTO, the United States and a number of industrialized countries—I am thinking of Australia, Great Britain and Canada, for example—attempted to impose this model. However, once again, there was opposition. At the Seattle summit, southern countries said they were in favour of a strategy to open up markets, but not on the basis proposed, that of ultraliberalism and neoliberalism, which has led to the financial crisis we are currently experiencing. It is a good thing that these people spoke out.
I have to acknowledge that they were not the only ones. In fact, in every industrialized society, a good part of the population also spoke out against this model for opening up markets, to the point that the term “free trade” now has a very negative connotation for many. The previous speaker provided us with an example of that. We no longer dare use this word even though, in the end, we all agree that, with a few exceptions, it is in the interest of nations to open their doors to mutual exchanges of trade and capital.
But because such a pall was cast over the concept from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s, the world has now retreated from it. Peoples throughout the world are resisting any opening up of markets. I no longer use the term “liberalization” because I am certain that it is proposed no longer part of the vocabulary acceptable to a good portion of the population.
I have one more example. The Prime Minister of Canada did not get it, but the President of the U.S. and a number of leaders of European states did. Now those countries are talking about reworking capitalism. At the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, the Prime Minister acted as if nothing had changed and there had been no financial crisis. He proposed a free trade zone. I think he did not really understand where he stood and did not understand how Brazil has developed. He did not understand that Venezuela has one resource that is the same as Canada: oil. Whether or not one likes the direction of this development, these countries, with the support of India and China, now have a say in the bases of negotiation.
Canada has therefore closed in on itself as the U.S. did under President Bush. Not in resignation, but in order to try to multiply the number of bilateral agreements, taking a page from the book of Mao Zedong's strategy of using the villages to surround and take the cities.
Once a series of free trade agreements has been concluded with small, vulnerable countries, they will try to impose this method on the southern countries that are the target markets for the developing countries. We cannot sanction this, out of both international solidarity and national interest, and by national, I mean Quebec.
As I have said, in the agreement that would suit us best, investment protection would not give any more rights to multinationals than to regular citizens and national companies. The latter protect the right of countries to work for the good of their population. To satisfy us, an agreement would contain—and this is extremely important—true agreements on respect for union rights, labour rights and environmental rights. We do not want to see parallel agreements such as we find at the moment in the agreements with Peru, Chile or Costa Rica.
For all these reasons, this agreement is unfortunately not acceptable in the eyes of the Bloc Québécois. I believe it is unacceptable for the people of Quebec and of Canada, and even less acceptable for the people of Peru. Voting against this implementation act will be doing them a service.
