Madam Speaker, today is March 25, 2010, and the negotiations between Colombia and Canada began in 2002.
On June 7, 2007, the international trade minister at the time announced that the negotiations with Colombia and with Peru had been resumed.
On November 27, 2007, a motion was introduced to study the future agreement with Colombia, and in April 2008, we started hearing testimony in committee.
There were two years of negotiations and several months of consultations between the civil societies and representatives of the Canadian and Colombian governments.
In May 2008, our committee had the opportunity to go and visit Colombia and conduct consultations there. We were in Colombia in May 2008 when we heard that the government had finalized its negotiations and would sign the free trade agreement. However, the committee had not finished its consultations. We were in Colombia consulting people. The trip was actually much appreciated by the opposition members, who were deeply moved by it.
It seemed at the time that even the Conservatives were profoundly affected. Every time witnesses told us about human rights violations, the displacement of people and killings, especially of union activists, the Conservative members seemed touched by their cause.
We also visited a small municipality where displaced people had gone. We had an opportunity there to hear the deeply moving testimony of people who had seen their fathers or husbands killed and who had been displaced by military forces, probably FARC, paramilitary forces or guerrillas. We could not help being very moved, because these people were talking about things that had happened to them.
I thought at the time that the Conservatives and the Liberals had been touched by what they heard. Lord knows how many times the Liberals have changed leaders over a short period of time. We know now that though the leaders may change, the ideas remain the same.
Returning to the Conservative government’s denial of democracy, we were in Colombia when we heard that the negotiations had ended and that the government wanted to sign the agreement. We know what ensued: prorogation, an election, prorogation and a motion to limit debate and not continue the discussions.
In actual fact, it was good that Parliament was prorogued again, because it enabled us to start the debate on Colombia all over again. We are not starting right at the beginning. Some members think seriously about these things, and their position has not changed because the situation has not really changed.
The NDP is against this free trade agreement for reasons on which the vast majority of us actually agree. The NDP tends to oppose free trade, but we do agree with the NDP about human rights, the environment and everything that could happen in Colombia.
I had the opportunity to meet President Uribe twice. Unfortunately, he failed to convince me that he was sincere. In Colombia, I found it hard to understand the high levels of public satisfaction with that government and its president. He was first elected in 2002. Thanks to changes made to the constitution, he managed to run a second time and get re-elected in 2006. He then tried once again to amend the constitution.
The French daily Le Monde wrote the following on February 27, 2010: “On Friday, February 26, Colombia's constitutional court invalidated a law passed in September and designed to organize a referendum which, if it had been approved, would have changed the constitution to allow the head of the state to run in the May 30 presidential election. This means that Alvaro Uribe, who left his mark in that country with his firm stand against FARC guerrilla forces, may not be able to run for a third mandate.”
There are some who are very pleased about that. Civil society and unions are among those of course, and also those people who have been suffering for eight years. In fact, they have been suffering for longer, that is 40 years during which they were caught in a corrupted system. However, members of the international community thought there was a real will to change things, including the Conservatives, who blindly believed this to be the case. The will to change things had little to do with improving the plight of the overall population and acting as quickly as possible. The president's goal was primarily to change the constitution and get re-elected for a third time.
Let me again quote Le Monde: “In July 2008, his government snatched from the FARC fifteen of their most valuable hostages, including Franco-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt. That year, some observers were even talking about FARC's demise. However, guerrilla forces have been gaining ground since and remain present on half of the territory.”
So, some efforts were made, but they were minimal and they only sought to project a positive image to foreign countries that, of course, President Uribe wanted to welcome to his country to engage in free trade.
Just to show the lack of seriousness of President Uribe, who said he was an angel and was doing everything he could to ensure that democracy would prevail and that violence would disappear, here is another excerpt from Le Monde: “The constitutional court decided to invalidate in its entirety the law under which a referendum was going to be held, said the president of the court. Before that, the judge had harsh words for this legislation which, in his opinion, seriously violated the basic principles of a democratic system. These violations included irregularities in the funding of the campaign to promote the adoption of this legislation, and also during the legislative process.”
We came back from Colombia in May of 2008.
We continued hearing witnesses and holding committee meetings and produced a report that does not really correspond to the position taken by the Liberal Party today. I would like to read a few of the recommendations made in that report, recommendations that the Liberal Party supported. I will not read them all, because there are a number of them, but I will read the main recommendations.
The committee recommends that the Government of Canada should not sign and implement a free trade agreement with the Government of Colombia until the Canadian government has taken into account the recommendations contained in this report, including those of the dissenting reports.
The second recommendation reads as follows:
The committee recommends that the Government of Canada maintain close ties with Colombia without signing a free trade agreement until there is confirmation that the improvements noted are maintained, including continued improvement as regards displacement, labour law and accountability for crime, and until the Colombian government shows a more constructive attitude to human rights groups in the country.
And the third recommendation states:
The committee recommends that the Government of Canada draw on the work of the organization Rights and Democracy to give an independent body the mandate to conduct studies regarding the impact on rights and the environment when it is negotiating economic agreements with countries at risk, as in the case of the agreement with Colombia.
Clearly, what the committee recommended was not signing this agreement as long as there were no policies in place and no ongoing improvements in terms of human rights, labour rights, the environment and impunity, and until there was an end to violence and murders of trade unionists.
Yesterday we learned that the Liberal Party was going to assess the situation and that it might support us, but that assessment will take place on March 31 each year. How can we accept a government's claims that everything that is happening in Colombia will automatically work itself out as soon as we begin trading with them and have a free trade agreement? That is impossible.
The government should have used that to—I would not say impose, because Colombia remains a sovereign state—ensure that Colombia improves the situation for its citizens, maintains this improvement and demonstrates it.
The Conservative government has a plan for South America. At one point, it held negotiations with groups, but there is now a plan to move step by step, country by country, without no other thought than to take advantage of the situation.
I always come back to this, and it is pretty much my pet subject when I talk about free trade and globalization. On the subject of globalization and the actions of the multinationals, which moved pretty well across the globe in a mad dash, to whose benefit or disadvantage did it all take place? This is what happens in a number of countries. They exploit the labour force and the environment and often, unfortunately, even undermine human rights. This is blatant.
Now, imagine what it would be like if we could put a human face on globalization where all these elements were included in a free trade agreement and would provide the necessary tools or even give teeth to this agreement to ensure that people respected human rights, the environment and the workers, too.
But that is not happening. Why show this great interest if for no other reason than to develop a piecemeal policy to enter into free trade agreements with South America?
The United States signed the agreement in 2006, but never ratified it. It was never passed in Congress because of the human rights aspect. Just before the election of Barack Obama, I travelled to Washington, where I met senators and people from Congress. They seemed to want to change their mind, but did not do so. One of the reasons Canada wants to move as quickly as possible is to get the edge on the United States and negotiate tariff reductions that are more favourable to Canada than to the United States.
Statistics on crime in Colombia paint a very grim picture. In 2008, while we discussed the free trade agreement in committee, crime committed by paramilitary groups rose by 41%. The Conservatives, however, told us that things were going well and the situation was improving. Crimes committed by the government security forces rose by 9%. Despite the increase in crime, impunity remains unchanged. Only 3% of crime ends in a conviction.
Since 1996, 2,690 trade unionists have been killed. While murders of trade unionists have declined somewhat since 2001, the murders have resumed since 2007. There were 39 murders of trade unionists in 2007 and 46 in 2008, while we were hearing witnesses in committee. The Conservative Party said the situation was improving, when it was worsening. They said trade unionists had made progress.
Colombia does not have a legal framework to govern collective bargaining. On that point, about 95% of the public sector workforce is not covered by legislation governing collective bargaining. The situation is similar in every field, but I am sensitive to what the Colombian community is experiencing. Blindly signing whatever free trade agreement is presented is not the way to help them. We need to have a genuine desire to help these people get out of this stagnant situation and treat them as equals. Conditions have to be comparable and the agreement has to help both parties.
At present, we have the impression that the Canadian government wants to exploit Colombia. Colombians have enough problems already. I hope Canada will not make things worse.
In the past, we could count on the Liberal Party, which had genuinely demonstrated compassion and a desire to improve the situation in Colombia before doing business with it. The Conservative government said we had to hurry up because we needed to do business, to export and import.
The figures show that no free trade agreement officially applies, but there has been an increase in trade with Colombia between individuals. The fact that no free trade agreement applies has not reduced transactions between the two countries. In the normal course, they increase.
Some members of the committee have changed because the party leaders changed, but I recall that the previous leader of the Liberal Party was very sensitive to this situation. I think this kind of agreement would not have been accepted. The environmental aspect was important to him, and it still is.
There is also the human rights aspect. It is inconceivable that we would sign a free trade agreement without making sure that effective policies have been implemented. We must not act like Uribe and blow smoke in our eyes for a brief instant. It is known now that he will not be there any longer, so it is increasing.
