Yvon Godin

[Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, June 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I remember that I made a speech on cluster bombs at the time that Axworthy and the Liberals were here, but they did not go far enough.

Today we have another bill in front of us, and we believe strongly that clause 11 has to be removed. We have to show that leadership. It was a start at that time, but now we have to continue. It is totally unacceptable to have those cluster bombs in some countries, when 98% of times it is civilians who are killed from them, and our own soldiers, when they go on the line. Our own soldiers are being killed by them. It is not just that, but innocent civilians are getting hurt.

It is time for the leadership of our country, our government, to do the right thing, and it has that opportunity.

[Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, June 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I and the NDP believe very strongly that it was not only proposed paragraph 11(1)(c) that had to be eliminated, but clause 11. We have to send a strong message as to the position of the Canadian government.

Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser also spoke out on this issue. He said:

It is a pity the current Canadian government, in relation to cluster munitions, does not provide any real lead to the world. Its approach is timid, inadequate and regressive.

That is how other countries see us: a timid, inadequate and regressive country. It is up to us to make the laws in Canada. Clause 11 could have been struck. We will have to go to committee to see what the government is willing to do. If amendments are proposed, the government will have to accept them if it wants us to support this bill.

[Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, June 16th, 2014]

I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-6. As we know, this is the Conservatives' bill to implement the convention on cluster munitions.

I will start by giving some background on this bill, and I will then talk about our position.

Cluster munitions are weapons that release hundreds of explosive devices over a wide area within a very short time. They have a devastating effect on civilian populations that can last for years after a conflict ends.

I am going to present some facts and figures. To properly understand this issue, it is important to note that civilians suffer 98% of all injuries caused by cluster munitions. Cluster munitions are very small. They are often the size of a D battery or a tennis ball and they have a failure rate of 30%. Unexploded cluster munitions basically become anti-personnel mines. A single cluster bomb contains hundreds of bomblets and usually disperses them over an area the size of two or three football fields. Up to 37 countries and territories could be affected by the cluster munitions that were used during armed conflicts. Nineteen countries used cluster munitions during combat operations. A total of 34 countries produce cluster munitions, although half of them have now stopped producing these types of weapons, in some cases as a result of the convention. Canada has never used or produced cluster munitions, and our country should be thanked for that.

The worldwide stock of cluster munitions represents about 4 billion bombs, and one-quarter of that stock is held by the United States.

In 2006, 22 members of the Canadian Armed Forces were killed and 112 were injured in Afghanistan because of anti-personnel mines, cluster munitions and other kinds of explosive weapons. Thousands of civilians have been injured or killed by these weapons, whose presence makes farming dangerous and impedes the reconstruction and development of vital infrastructure such as roads, railway lines and power plants.

It is often difficult and dangerous to remove unexploded cluster munitions after an armed conflict. Some countries have been dealing with this problem for decades.

Laos is the most cluster-bomb-contaminated country in the world with tens of millions of unexploded cluster munitions.

Canada actively participated in the Oslo process to produce a convention to ban the use of cluster munitions. The Oslo process came on the heels of the successes of the Ottawa treaty to ban landmines.

A total of 113 countries signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions and 84 ratified it. Despite strong opposition from the majority of participating states and non-governmental organizations, Canada succeeded in negotiating into the final text of the convention an article that explicitly allows for continued military interoperability with non-party states, article 21.

Bill C-6 does not contain just this clause on military co-operation with non-signatory countries. The main problem lies in clause 11, which proposes a very vague list of exceptions. In its original form, clause 11 allowed Canadian soldiers to use, acquire, possess or transport cluster munitions during combined operations involving a state not party to the Convention, and to request the use of a cluster munitions by another state's armed forces.

At the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, the NDP backed Canadian and foreign civil organizations that called for the bill to be amended.

We worked closely, publicly and directly with the government.

We were able to convince the government to prohibit the use of cluster munitions by Canadian soldiers. Unfortunately, this bill still has serious flaws. If they are not addressed, Canada's commitment to the fight against cluster munitions will be shallow.

In fact, if Bill C-6 is not amended, it could have international implications for the Convention because the opt-outs and exceptions it contains could be invoked as precedents by other countries. The bill, in its current form, is the least restrictive of all bills passed by signatory states thus far. This is an embarrassing situation for Canada, which has always boasted about its humanitarian spirit. However, I am not surprised by the government's attitude, given its general attitude towards arms control.

I would like to remind members that this Conservative government refused to sign the UN arms trade treaty, which was signed by every one of our NATO allies. It was also this government that relaxed restrictions on arms exports. That is shameful because under this government our international humanitarian reputation continues to be eroded. Instead of being a leader on the international scene, the Conservative government is only tarnishing Canada's reputation.

I would also like to explain the NDP's position on Bill C-6. To begin, the NDP fully supported a treaty banning cluster munitions. However, Bill C-6 undermines the convention instead of ensuring its implementation.

The Conservatives' bill to implement the Convention on Cluster Munitions is widely recognized as being the weakest and worst bill in the world. It undermines the very spirit in which the convention was drafted. We are opposing the bill in its current form. My NDP colleagues who are part of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development worked hard with civil society groups to improve the bill. While the amendment that the Conservatives agreed to is an improvement, it is not enough for us to support the bill. At this stage, we are proposing that clause 11 be deleted in its entirety.

A number of stakeholders share our opinion and are also opposed to the Conservative government's Bill C-6. To begin, I would like to talk about Earl Turcotte, a former senior coordinator for mines action at DFAIT who was the head of the Canadian delegation to negotiate the convention. He stepped down in protest of the Conservative government's decision to introduce this very weak implementation bill. In a written statement intended for the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, he said that the Conservative government had betrayed the trust of the other countries that signed the convention when it included the controversial clause in Bill C-6. Mr. Turcotte is fighting for more binding legislation. He said:

The proposed legislation is the worst of any country that has ratified or acceded to the convention to date. It fails to fulfill Canada's obligations under international humanitarian law; it fails to protect vulnerable civilians in war-ravaged countries around the world; it betrays the trust of sister states who negotiated this treaty in good faith, and it fails Canadians who expect far better from our nation.

Paul Hannon, the executive director of Mines Action Canada, is also opposed to the bill. He said:

Canada should have the best domestic legislation in the world. We need to make it clear that no Canadian will ever be involved with this weapon again, but from our reading this legislation falls well short of those standards.

Even the Canadian Red Cross and the International Committee of the Red Cross, which almost never issue position statements on international laws, opposed this bill.

For all of these reasons, if the government is not prepared to amend this bill, we will oppose it. Other countries want to see us show some leadership on this bill.

[Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, June 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have worked with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. When he was the government House leader, I gave him credit for being a negotiator and a respectful person. We made deals when I was the party whip for the NDP.

However the government House leader today has a closed door. He is one who has come in with more time allocations than we have ever seen. He just does not care about Parliament.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs knows that. I believe the Minister of Foreign Affairs knows that a debate is not a one-way street. It is not only the opposition that gets up, but the government gets up to present its bills. I would bet that tonight we are probably not going to see even one Conservative getting up to speak on the bill.

Normally the Minister of Foreign Affairs is a very reasonable person, and people kind of like him around here.

[Petitions, June 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition with over 60 signatures. The petitioners are requesting that the Canadian Parliament pass a resolution to establish measures to stop the crimes of the Chinese communist regime of systematically murdering Falun Gong practitioners for their organs, and maintain Canadian legislation to combat forced organ harvesting. They publicly call for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong in China.

[Petitions, June 11th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by some 100 people about Canada Post service cuts.

Canada Posts's plan to cut services would eliminate home mail delivery for five billion homes and significantly increase postal rates.

The petitioners are asking the Government of Canada to reject Canada Post's plan to cut services and explore other ways to modernize the crown corporation's business plan.

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, June 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I know I have to answer the question, but the member will not be able to answer one question that I would like to ask him. Did he see this agreement? Will it say in this agreement that the workers will be treated well or have higher pay?

In 1992 the Liberal Party said that it would get rid of the GST. I remember Sheila Copps said at that time that if her government ever accepted the GST, she would resign her seat, and she did. She then had to be re-elected. The Liberals could not deliver everything they said they would in the 1992 red book. They said that they would never cut employment insurance and they took $57 billion from the working people. After that, the Conservative Party come into the House to legalize the money stolen from the working people.

The Liberal Party is all about that. The Liberals work the same way as the Conservatives. They all report to Bay Street in Toronto.

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, June 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, people are surely not going to buy Canadian goods. However, 18% of the Honduran people live on less than $1.25 American, not an hour but a day. It is not the people who will make good on it; it is those big businesses in the country that the government gives tax breaks to of $40 billion. After they have that money, they do not create jobs for Canadians. They create jobs in the mining industry in Australia or Mexico or any other place except our country.

The Minister of Finance even said that if the government gave big businesses a break on taxes, the government hoped they would spend the money to create jobs. The former minister of finance even recognized all the good he had given to the big corporations, and after that they just ran to the bank or another country to spend the money and create jobs there. It was not the jobs they were interested in; it was how they could make money without paying money. At $1.25 a day, they are sure to make money, but they are not paying money.

That is wrong in today's society. It is wrong that in 2014 they cannot respect human rights and ensure that the workers are well paid, have good benefits, and are working and building a country. I believe they are on the wrong path—

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, June 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, this evening, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-20 on the free trade agreement between Canada the Republic of Honduras. This debate will go on until midnight. Back home, it will be 1 a.m.

We are calling this a debate but usually in a debate there are people to debate with. As we can see, the only people who are working tonight are members of the NDP, with the exception of a few people who are asking questions. When we bug them a bit, the Conservatives will ask us a question. I would like the parliamentary secretary to talk to me about the question he asked earlier. I could answer him and tell him what I think about the issue.

Today, with regard to the free trade agreement with Honduras, the government is once again saying that the NDP is against free trade. Are you kidding me? The government is lucky to have the NDP. At least we are capable of debating and having a discussion. Is the free trade agreement a good idea or not? The Liberals have not seen it, but they support it. At least when Jean Chrétien was a member of the opposition, he did not agree with free trade. He only agreed to it once he was elected prime minister.

It is interesting to see how things develop between the Liberals and the Conservatives. It is important to remember that the Liberals and the Conservatives answer only to big business and Bay Street in Toronto. It seems to be almost a crime to talk about workers. They talk about us as if we were union bosses. In a developed country like Canada, it is normal for workers to have an organization, an association or a union to look after their interests. The Conservatives and the Liberals go out of their way to rise in the House and insult labour organizations. With all due respect, I have never seen the Conservatives rise in the House and insult representatives of chambers of commerce. I call them the employers' union. I have never seen the Conservatives rise in the House to insult chambers of commerce or make comments about them like they do with the unions.

In a country like ours, a democratic country, I think that workers have the right to be represented. It is part of Canadian law.

When we were talking about free trade with the United States, the NDP was focused on one provision of NAFTA and that was chapter 11, which deals with health and safety rights and that sort of thing. Now we are talking about a free trade agreement with Honduras, a country that does not respect human, civil or workers' rights. This Conservative government cares only about the economy. It is not thinking about Canada's economy. It is thinking about the economy of a few of its buddies and how they can make money. It is looking at how they could go to a country like Honduras and develop it. It is looking at how money could be made with workers who work at the lowest salary of $1.25 U.S. a day. It is looking at how we could exploit these workers.

The Liberals have done an about-face and now support the agreement even though they have not seen it. It was the same with the European agreement. Agreements will happen, but we must remember that this is not about free trade; it is about fair trade. We cannot say that we have not been affected by the government's free trade negotiations. A lot of small factories in Ontario have closed down and Electrolux left Quebec to set up shop in Mexico. We have lost some great companies and good jobs.

Back home, paper mills in Miramichi, Bathurst and Campbellton have shut down, as has the one in New Richmond, in the Gaspé. These four paper mills have shut down. Now they take the wood, put it on ships and send it to Finland and all over. That is some great free trade there. Free indeed. We are sending our products overseas and we are left with nothing. That is what they are doing. Just take a look at the Atlantic provinces. The job situation in those provinces is not good. We do not even have free trade among the provinces and we are negotiating with other countries.

With all due respect, our Prime Minister turns around and says that Russia is terrible and that we will boycott it because it is not good for people in the surrounding countries.

He says we are going to team up with the Americans and the whole world to boycott Russia because of the civil rights issue. We send our troops to Afghanistan under the pretext that we want girls to attend school. Well, I would love to see Canada's aboriginal children go to school. I wish that aboriginal people in the north had schools. The Prime Minister travels all over the world to preach civil and human rights, but he is prepared to sign an agreement with a totalitarian government that does not even believe in these principles. Then they say that the New Democrats are the bad guys.

Is this not an opportunity to tell that country we are prepared to conclude a free trade agreement provided it respects human rights and pay equity, among other things? The Conservatives only want to sign this agreement to give our businesses an opportunity to exploit workers in that country, just like they have begun to exploit our own workers.

Pursuant to the changes to employment insurance, if an unemployed worker cannot find a job within six weeks, he must take one at 70% of his salary. Then, if he loses that job and cannot find another one the following year, he must again take a job that pays 70% of his last salary. This drives workers' salaries down. This is why the Conservatives support such a free trade agreement with a country that does not pay its workers.

The Prime Minister is very pleased because his friends will be able to exploit workers in countries where workers are not paid, or where people are locked up if they express their views.

It is the same with the Keystone XL pipeline that they want to build to the United States. The NDP wants that pipeline to be built in Canada, from west to east. We want to have refineries in Canada and work in the secondary and tertiary processing plants.

The Conservatives would rather send all that to the United States. They say that building the pipeline will create jobs, but once the work is completed no other jobs will be created. If the pipeline went to Montreal, Quebec City or Saint John, New Brunswick, in my region, we would expand our refineries and create jobs. However, this government is against regional economic development. It only wants to give large corporations an opportunity to make money elsewhere. This is precisely the purpose of this free trade agreement with Honduras.

Then the Liberals ask us if we are using the same criteria as we did the last time around. Of course we are. If the proposed partners do not respect human rights and workers, we must not sign any free-trade agreement with them. Otherwise, we take the side of the “big shots”. Back home, that is how we call those who earn a lot of money. The Liberals are good at that.

There is only one difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives: the Conservatives tell us in advance how they are going to hurt us, whereas the Liberals say that they will not hurt us. However, once elected, they do the same thing as the Conservatives.

Let us keep in mind the 57 billion dollars in the employment insurance fund that they dipped into and robbed from workers. Now, those workers are suffering and are being forced to work at lower wages. Then the government wants to sign deals like this one, without even providing the details to Parliament. They have to give us the real figures.

The same thing happened with the agreement between Canada and Europe. The Conservatives are not even able to show parliamentarians, the elected representatives of this country, the kind of deal that they sign with other governments.

As for the Liberals, they do not even bother rising tonight. That is not to say that they are not in the House. The Liberals and Conservatives are actually here, but they do not stand up and tell us why they want to sign that agreement. Instead of extolling the virtues of the agreement, they just sit there and watch us.

The Conservatives like to send employment insurance inspectors to visit the unemployed, with the hope that they will catch a few misbehaving ones. Well, if one of these inspectors were to come here, many people would have their pay docked because they really are not doing much. We are in the House of Commons to debate a bill, but these people have yet to take part in the debate. The House will be working until midnight, and during all that time, they will not expend the energy to actually stand up and support their own bill.

If the New Democrats were to introduce a bill, they would rise and tell Canadians why it is a positive move. We have not heard from the Conservatives tonight, although they may ask a few silly questions later. That is what they have done so far tonight, so I expect more of the same.

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, June 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Conservative House leader. Does the member find something wrong with having an amendment to a bill?

I remember the Reform Party, which is the Conservative Party today, on the Nisga'a bill for British Columbia when there were 471 amendments. We started voting in the House on a Monday and we finished on a Wednesday. As a matter of fact, maybe I should not say this, but they were falling asleep in the House. It was not because they were interested in the vote; they were just playing the game, and they did not want that bill.

Does the member remember that, or is his memory too short to remember what they used to do when they were in opposition? I would like to hear if he remembers, or if he was not born at the time.