Serge Cardin

[The Budget, February 28th, 2008]

If the Minister of Finance had been there—

[The Budget, February 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a question about the tax-free savings account. When the government or the Conservative Party makes an announcement that seems interesting, my natural reflex is to wonder what is behind it.

The member is aware that people often do not invest the full amount they could in their registered retirement savings plan, or RRSP. In fact, most people could put more money into their RRSP. If all the people who, according to the government, are prepared to invest in a tax-free savings account were to decide overnight to make the maximum allowable contribution to an RRSP, this would have a fairly serious impact on public finances.

At first glance, I wondered whether the government was trying to create a diversion so that people would invest in tax-free savings accounts instead of their RRSP. This would not have as dramatic an impact on government revenues in a given year. If everyone made the maximum allowable contribution to their RRSP, this would have a huge impact. The Conservative government might even have a monumental deficit as early as next year.

I know that there may be advantages to this tax-free savings account, but most people who do not have much financial freedom and are unable to contribute to both their RRSP and a savings account will have to consult a financial planner. I do not know whether the Conservative members are getting ready to leave their jobs here and go into financial planning. In any event, people will have to think twice before investing in such an account.

I would like to know what the Conservative Party's real intentions are. Are they trying to create a diversion in order to convince people not to invest in their RRSP, because in the short term that deprives the government of money and flexibility?

[Certified General Accountants Association of Canada, February 14th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, certified general accountants, or CGAs, are celebrating their 100th anniversary in 2008. For 100 years, the Certified General Accountants Association, of which I have been a member for 32 years now, has had the same goal: protecting the public and maintaining high standards of multidisciplinary professional practice and training.

For more than a century, CGAs have built a solid reputation of excellence across the country. The recent passage of Bill 46 in the Quebec National Assembly, granting full practice rights to CGAs, was very important since businesses and individuals can now call on CGAs and use their professional services in all of Quebec.

I invite all CGAs to come out and celebrate the 100th anniversary of the association as it searches for 100 CGAs who have made a difference.

[Settlement of International Investment Disputes Act, January 29th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, regarding environmental regulations, indeed, all countries, all responsible governments, whether Liberal or Conservative, should enforce them. Governments must establish environmental regulations that produce results.

In the current context where environmental legislation and regulations will have serious consequences for businesses that do not or did not comply with them, chapter 11 will do just that; it will ensure that certain businesses comply with the regulations, forcing them to implement various procedures or measures to protect our environment. However, this comes at a price.

Chapter 11, which we are discussing here today, would allow foreign companies—including American companies, of course—to sue any government that enforces these regulations. This is why chapter 11 of NAFTA really must be modified. Generally speaking, with regard to the ICSID, it ultimately comes down to relationships between the governments and the multinationals.

Canada must sign agreements and accords to ensure the development and maintenance of economic relationships with other countries, of course, and also must protect them. Basically, that is the goal of bilateral agreements reached by the government. They must be good agreements. Based on current regulations, for example, concerning the environment, the government must not allow multinationals the possibility of suing it on a daily basis. Thus, our treaties ultimately need to be good treaties that not only protect our investments and our investors but also the environment and our working conditions.

The reverse must also be true. For instance, some countries—and even Canada—invest money in other countries without respecting the rights of individuals or the environment. Yet if those countries suddenly were to implement policies to protect the working conditions of these people or the environment, would our own Canadian and Quebec businesses operating internationally demand compensation?

To sum up, agreements between countries must aim for fairness and justice, for us as well as for other people.

[Settlement of International Investment Disputes Act, January 29th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, this is also the second time I have spoken on this bill. As we already know, from what my colleague from Papineau has said, the Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-9 in principle.

Passing this bill will mean that Canada can ratify the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States and join the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes.

Because I will be making frequent reference to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes and the name is a little long, I will call it simply the centre in my speech.

Bill C-9 incorporates the requirements of the convention into domestic law, two reasons being to ensure compliance with arbitral awards and grant the immunities that the centre and its staff need. The centre was created by the World Bank in 1965 under the Treaty of Washington. At present there are 156 member countries. The centre is responsible for arbitrating disputes between a state and a foreign investor.

There are two potential kinds of conflicts: first, there are disputes relating to compliance with bilateral foreign investment protection agreements, and second, there are disputes relating to agreements between governments and foreign investors. These are agreements of the kind that the Government of Quebec and other governments regularly enter into to encourage foreign investment, with the promise, for example, to supply electricity at an agreed price.

Canada’s membership will have no impact on the provinces and Quebec, other than that they will also be able to allow for recourse to the centre when they enter into agreements with investors. The bilateral treaties signed by the federal government already provide for recourse to arbitration by the centre, but by way of the supplementary arbitration mechanism rather than a regular mechanism, which is available only to countries that have ratified the convention.

In fact, the only thing that Canada's joining the centre will change is that it will be able to participate in negotiations to amend the centre's convention or by-laws and will have the assurance that it may participate in appointing arbitration tribunals. There will therefore be direct participation in the centre. Ultimately, the centre is merely a tribunal, and the problem is not the tribunal, but the bad investment protection treaties that Canada signs.

The Bloc Québécois supports signing investment protection agreements as long as they are good agreements, obviously. It is entirely reasonable for an investor to try to ensure, before making an investment, that he or she will not end up losing his or her property, and will not be discriminated against. That is the situation that foreign investment protection agreements are intended to govern. This is not a new phenomenon. The first known agreement containing provisions relating to the protection of foreign investments was the agreement between France and the United States signed in 1788, over two centuries ago.

In May 2007 there were over 2,400 bilateral investment protection agreements in the world. If we add the tax conventions dealing with the tax treatment of foreign investments and income, there are about 5,000 bilateral treaties relating to foreign investments. The Bloc is in favour of signing agreements like this and recognizes that they promote investment and growth. These agreements are all based on more or less the same principles.

The first principle that could be mentioned is respect for property rights regardless of the owner's nationality. Second, there can be no nationalization without fair and prompt financial compensation. Third, there is a prohibition against treating property located within a country's territory differently depending on the owner's origin. Finally, there is free movement of capital resulting from the operation and the disposal of investment.

In every case, when these rights are violated, states may submit disputes over compliance with an agreement to an international arbitration tribunal. In the majority of cases, investors themselves may submit the dispute to an international tribunal, but only with the consent of the state. In many cases, the international arbitration provided in the agreement takes place before the ICSID. By belonging to it, as Bill C-9 provides, we are also agreeing to an international order in the field of investment.

In the investment protection agreements that they sign, only two countries, Canada and the United States, systematically grant investors the right to appeal directly to international tribunals. This is a deviation from the norm. By allowing a company to operate outside government control, it is being given the status of a subject of international law, a status that ordinarily belongs only to governments.

The agreements that Canada signs contain a number of similar deviations, giving multinationals rights they should not have and limiting the power of the state to legislate and take action for the common good. Take, for instance, the now infamous chapter 11 of NAFTA, which provides that a dispute can go to ICSID. There are, however, three things wrong in that chapter: the definition of expropriation, the definition of investor, and the definition of investment.

The definition of expropriation is so vague that any government measure, except for a general tax measure, can be challenged by foreign investors if it diminishes the profits generated by their investments. Indeed, a Kyoto implementation plan which would have large polluters such as oil companies pay dearly could be challenged under chapter 11 and result in government compensation.

American companies have majority interests in Alberta oil companies. Chapter 11 opens the door to the worst kind of abuse of process. The definition of investor is so broad that it includes any shareholder. Anyone could therefore take the state to court and seek compensation for a government measure that allegedly cut into a company's profits.

As for the definition of investment, it is so broad that it even includes the profits that investors hope to derive from their assets in the future. In the case of expropriation, not only does the state find itself forced to pay fair market value, but it also has to include future revenues that investors expected to draw. This would make nationalizing electricity, as Quebec did in the 1960s, impossible.

Take the example of SunBelt, a corporation with one Canadian shareholder and one Californian shareholder. This corporation closed its doors when the Government of British Columbia removed the right to export water in bulk that it had been granted. Under Canadian law, the Canadian shareholder received compensation equivalent to the value of his investment: $300,000. Under chapter 11 of NAFTA, the American shareholder included in his claim all potential future revenue from the sale of water, for a total of $100 million. For better or for worse, the case was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount that is not likely to ever be disclosed.

Given the amounts of money at issue, chapter 11 acts as a deterrent to any government action, particularly with respect to the environment, whose effect would be to reduce the profits of a foreign-owned corporation. The dispute settlement mechanism allows corporations to apply directly to the international tribunals to seek compensation, without even having to obtain the consent of the state.

Is it conceivable that a multinational corporation would be able, on its own initiative, to instigate a trade dispute between two countries? And yet that is the absurd situation that the chapter of NAFTA on investments allows. Given these flaws, chapter 11 of NAFTA reduces a state’s ability to take action for the common good and to enact environmental legislation, and amounts to a sword of Damocles that can come down at any moment on any legislation or regulations that might have the effect of cutting into corporate profits.

In 2005, the United States changed some of the provisions of their standard investment protection agreement. In 2006, Canada did the same. Because the two countries have now recognized the harmful and extreme nature of chapter 11 of NAFTA, the time is right for the government to act quickly to initiate talks with its American and Mexican partners to amend chapter 11 of NAFTA. We have to say no to bad investment protection agreements.

In addition to chapter 11 of NAFTA, and despite universal criticism of how extreme it is, the government has signed 16 other bilateral foreign investment protection agreements that are carbon copies of it. All of those foreign investment protection agreements are bad and should be renegotiated.

In 2006, the government gave some indication that it recognized that these agreements were bad. The Conservative government copied the changes made by the Bush administration the previous year, and in fact made changes to Canada’s FIPA program to fix some of the most glaring problems. It clarified the concept of expropriation by specifying that a non-discriminatory government measure designed to protect health and the environment and to promote a legitimate government objective should not be considered to be expropriation and should not automatically result in compensation.

It is too soon to assess the actual impact of that clarification, but at first blush it seems to be an improvement. It has narrowed the concept of investment by specifying that the value of property is equal to its fair market value. This puts an end to the madness of adding in all of the potential profits the investor hoped to earn from his or her investment. For the rest, the standard investment protection agreement continues to be modelled on chapter 11 of NAFTA.

The government must continue to improve this standard agreement, particularly as it relates to the dispute resolution mechanism. Multinational corporations must be brought back under public authority, as any individual is.

As well, the government should submit international treaties and agreements to the House before ratifying them. That is what we are being promised and it is what I referred to earlier, but is the purpose really to have a substantive discussion? Is it really a discussion to learn the benefits, the opportunities, perhaps, or the harm that might be caused to certain industries in Canada and Quebec?

Yesterday, the government seemed to be saying that the question of ratification was up for discussion and study, but is it going to ratify without the House having really come down for or against a specific agreement?

Early last year, the government issued a press release announcing that it had just ratified a new foreign investment protection agreement with Peru. Parliamentarians and the public learned about the agreement when they read the release. Parliament was never informed about it. It never approved it. That is completely anti-democratic.

In the last election, however, the Conservative election platform was clear: the Conservatives committed to submitting all international treaties and agreements for approval before ratifying them. That is not what we heard yesterday in this House: what was said was that they would be presented to the House and the House would be made aware of them, but the Conservative members, including the minister, never said that the House was to ratify them.

Since the Conservatives came to power, Canada has ratified about 26 or 27 international treaties. Except for the amendment to the NORAD treaty, which was the subject of a brief last-minute mini-debate and a vote, none of these international treaties were brought before the House.

These days, international agreements can have as great an impact on our lives as laws. Nothing can possibly justify the secretive, unilateral ratification of these agreements by this government without the participation of the representatives of the people.

In the past, the Bloc Québécois introduced bills to restore democracy and ensure respect for the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces in the ratification of international treaties. Given that this is something the government promised to do, we did not bring it up again. However, today we see that a Conservative promise is not worth much.

So the Bloc Québécois will once again take this matter up and will make proposals to bring democracy back into the ratification of international treaties. The government must have an obligation to submit to the House all international treaties and agreements it has signed before ratifying them. The government must be required to publish all international agreements in which it is involved. The government must also allow the House to vote on and approve all major treaties, following study by a special committee responsible for reviewing international agreements, before ratifying them. The government must also respect the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces throughout the treaty-making process at the negotiation, signature and ratification stages.

In conclusion, the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes is needed to ensure that States are treated fairly in their dealings with multinational corporations. We must also ensure that the agreements Canada signs are good ones that respect all stakeholders.

[Settlement of International Investment Disputes Act, January 29th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, first I would like to congratulate my colleague on her speech. I wanted quickly to remind her that in question period yesterday in the House, a Conservative asked a question of the foreign affairs minister about international treaties, claiming that the Conservative Party was more open and transparent. He said: “—we committed to bringing international treaties before the House of Commons to give Parliament a role in reviewing them”. Note the use of the word “review”.

The foreign affairs minister, boasting about fulfilling another election promise, said: “Effective immediately, any international treaty we sign will be tabled in the House of Commons”.

I want to ask my colleague, therefore, where she sees any transparency in this and any ability of the House to really discuss treaties that have been signed by the government but are not brought before the House to be ratified but just to be presented and reviewed. We are still very far from parliamentary democracy.

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, November 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to this debate for a few minutes, and it feels as though I am at a Conservative caucus. There is a lot of buck-passing by both the Liberals and the Conservatives.

What are the Liberals trying to do today, with their talk of planning five years ahead for investments and the protection of jobs in the manufacturing and forestry sectors? If they had put that theory into practice, we would not be in this situation right now. Conservatives and Liberals are one and the same.

If they had listened to the public in the first place, to their hopes and needs, and to the main voice of the people, the Bloc Québécois, we would be in a different situation. Not to mention that a number of members would be in better shape since they would be wasting less energy debating things of the past.

Could the hon. member explain why, a year and 10 months ago—not that far back—the Liberals did not do what they are asking the Conservatives to do today?

[Colombia, November 28th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the government is negotiating behind closed doors with Colombia to obtain a bilateral economic agreement. The Colombian government has one of the worst human rights records. This future agreement is being roundly criticized by human rights organizations because it would imply Canada's support for the Colombian government's abuses.

Will the government promise to not sign any free trade agreement with Colombia until this country provides guarantees that human rights will be respected?

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, November 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, first allow me to congratulate my colleague on his speech concerning this bill.

He made reference to sovereignty and sovereignty-association. I remember how in recent months, and even in recent years, there have often been discussions in which people found us a little laughable when we talked about the Quebec model.

I have the impression that in this case it is actually essential to demonstrate that there is a Quebec model, on which the government and the people in this House could base a policy that would be much better for youth and for young people who have committed petty thefts—some of them more serious than others. Under such a policy, young people would have an opportunity to be rehabilitated. We must not try to do things that will place young people in either a too permissive or a too restrictive situation.

We know that some people want to improve society. If they want the social system to perform like an Olympic athlete, they have to become acquainted with the best models. It would therefore ask my colleague why the government would not now want to adopt a model like the one in Quebec, which would mean that our young people would be better protected in future.

[Canada Elections Act, November 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Conservative member for her question.

In asking that question, she is opening a door, because it takes me back several elections. Although no one has ever really wanted to admit it, it was a time when people had become experts at identity theft in an attempt to win additional votes.

When people can vote with their faces covered and their identity cannot be proven, obviously all sorts of things can happen. In a democracy, these sorts of things must be avoided as much as possible. Every effort must be made to prevent people who do not qualify to vote from voting. These people might have been able to cover their faces in order to vote for someone else.

This is the principle that is driving me. At no time have I thought of religious considerations. I am thinking only of democratic considerations. Voters must uncover their faces, and election officials must be able to correctly identify voters, who are not only exercising their right to vote, but also doing their duty as responsible individuals and, in so doing, are participating appropriately in the political process, with their faces uncovered.