1993-05-25

[Stage Direction]
1993-94 SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES (A)
Hon. Gilles Loiselle (President of the Treasury Board and Minister of State (Finance)) presented a message, which was read by Madam Speaker, from His Excellency the Governor General transmitting Supplementary Estimates (A) of the sums required for the service of Canada for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1994 and, in accordance with section 54 of the Constitution Act, 1867, recommending these estimates to the House of Commons on May 18, 1993.

Hon. Gilles Loiselle (President of the Treasury Board and Minister of State (Finance)) moved:: That the Supplementary Estimates (A) for the fiscal year ending
March 3.1, 1994, laid upon the Table on May 25, 1993, be referred
to the several standing committees of the House as follows:
Madam Speaker, I would ask to be excused from reading the list and that it be printed in Hansard as being read.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Is that agreed?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
[Editor's Note: List referred to above is as follows:]
To the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Vote 15a.
To the Standing Committee on Agriculture Agriculture, Vote 25a.
lb the Standing Committee on Finance Finance, Vote L33a.
To the Standing Committee on Health and Welfare, Social Affairs,
Seniors and the Status of Women National Health and Welfare, Votes 15a and 25a.
To the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology,
Regional and Northern Development
Industry, Science and Technology, Vote 5a.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Mr. Peter L. McCreath (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister for International Trade):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 70 petitions.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


[Stage Direction]
89TH INTERPARLIAMENTARY CONFERENCE
Hon. Alan Redway (Don Valley East):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the report of the Canadian Group of the Interparliamentary Union which represented Canada at the 89th Interparliamentary Conference in New Delhi, India, April 12 to 17, 1993.


Ms. Barbara Greene (Don Valley North):: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Health and Welfare, Social

May 25, 1993
Routine Proceedings
Affairs, Seniors and the Status of Women relating to HIV infected blood.
The committee requests the government table a comprehensive response to the report within 30 days.


[Stage Direction]
96TH, 97TH AND 98TH REPORTS OF STANDING COMMITTEE
Mr. John E. Cole (York- Simcoe):: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present the 96th, 97th and 98th reports of the Standing Committee on House Management regarding the membership of the legislative committees on Bill C-89, Bill C-121 and Bill C-122.
Pursuant to Standing Order 113(1), these reports are deemed adopted when laid upon the table.
[.Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


PETITIONS
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Madam Speaker, it is an honour and a privilege to once again present a petition on behalf of the residents of central British Columbia who are concerned about a proposal to divert one of the major tributaries of the Fraser River system in order to sell the water in San Diego, California. They believe that the North American free trade agreement will facilitate these sales.
Therefore the petitioners ask the Government of Canada to ensure that water is made an exempt category as it has done for raw logs and unprocessed fish for Atlantic Canada.


Mr. Benno Friesen (Surrey-White Rock-South Langley):: Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition of about 500 names, many of them residents of my constituency as well as residents of other parts of British Columbia.
Their concern is that Planned Parenthood is a special interest group seeking government funding for projects known as SIRCH, sexuality information and resource clearing house. Naturally they are asking for taxpayers' money. This project would include a national depository collection and a centralized reference and resource service which is already in existence in another organization. This would be duplication and a waste of taxpayers' money.
I am in total agreement with this and would ask that members support the concern of this organization that wants to prevent this kind of duplication.


Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce a petition in this House concerning the high gasoline prices in the national capital region.
As summer approaches the refineries have decided to inflate their prices so they can benefit from the fact that many people in this region will be taking their cars to their cottages or driving on holidays.
These petitioners call on this House to urge the government to amend the Consumer and Corporate Affairs Act as it relates to competition at the pumps.


Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Madam Speaker, I would like to table a petition from employees of the House of Commons stating that parts II and III of the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act have remained unproclaimed since 1986. As a result, employees of the House of Commons, the Library of Parliament and members' staff have no legal protection with respect to occupational health and safety and do not participate in joint consultations on employer-employee relations and occupational health and safety. These employees are not covered by standards set forth in the Canada Labour Code.
Wherefore your petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to put pressure on the government to proclaim parts II and III of the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast):: Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure and honour to introduce a petition signed by about 700 residents primarily from Edmonton.
Whereas innocent men, women and children who are ill-equipped to defend themselves continue to be slaughtered in Bosnia-Hercegovina and Croatia by heavily armed aggressors, the petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to demand that the UN take immediate
May 25, 1993

military action to stop the fighting. Failing that, they request that the UN arms embargo be lifted so that the victims can be properly equipped to defend themselves.


NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT
Mr. Len Taylor (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Madam Speaker, I have three petitions to present this morning.
The first petition on this day when the North American free trade legislation will be brought back into this House is from my constituency signed by residents of the towns of Wilkie, Big River and Battleford, Saskatchewan.
The petitioners note that the North American free trade agreement will cause jobs to be lost in Canada and that Canadian interests are best protected only by the cancellation of the free trade agreement with the United States and the termination of the negotiations for the North American free trade agreement.
The petitioners call on the House to reject the proposed North American free trade agreement and to recommend that the government use its FTA termination clause to end the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.


SERIAL KILLER BOARD GAME
Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Madam Speaker, the second petition is signed by quite a number of residents of Battleford, Saskatchewan who are very much concerned about violence in our society.
The petition specifically deals with the culture of violence typified by the serial killer board game which is circulating. The petitioners request that Parliament consider amending the Criminal Code of Canada so that violent and degrading material such as the serial killer board game can be stopped from being distributed in Canada.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Madam Speaker, I have a petition signed by quite a number of residents of Canada, all of whom are asking that the government reject the goods and services tax which was brought in some time ago. It also asks that the government institute a fair tax regime which will ensure
Routine Proceedings
that those with wealth are taxed and that the consumer is not.


GASOLINE PRICES
Mr. Jim Jordan (Leeds-Grenville):: Madam Speaker, this petition deals with the cost of gasoline in eastern Ontario and is supported by everyone who drives a car in eastern Ontario.
A real rip-off occurred during the long weekend. A real pattern is shaping up. During long weekends such as the one we just had the price of gasoline in my town goes up by about 4.5 cents a litre and after the weekend is over the price drops.
This suggests to the driving public that the wholesalers are ripping off the public. I am glad to present this petition on behalf of people in eastern Ontario.


TAXATION
Mr. Ronald J. Duhamel (St. Boniface):: Madam Speaker, in the first petition I have the honour to present the petitioners point out that families who have children with special needs are discriminated against with respect to income tax deductions.
Higher costs are incurred by families who have children with learning disabilities. This is especially true for single parent families. For example, these parents can be directed or counselled to send their children to special day care centres that cater to special needs children, and these are higher cost facilities.
These petitioners want a review of the income tax legislation so that it may become fair.


SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL
Ron J. Duhamel: Madam Speaker, in the second petition I have the honour to present the petitioners recognize that the major issues facing Canada such as poverty, the unemployed, food banks and social assistance are our greatest priorities.
They point out that the government has failed to provide evidence of savings with respect to efficiency and effectiveness through the amalgamation of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council with the Canada Council.

May 25, 1993
Routine Proceedings
They ask that this be deferred. This can still be done because the bill is in the Senate right now.


Mr. Ron Fisher (Saskatoon-Dundurn):: Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to present a petition this morning signed by residents of Brandon, Snow Lake, Thompson and The Pas, all in Manitoba.
They point out that the North American free trade agreement will result in even greater trade concessions being demanded of Canada than did the free trade agreement with the United States. They point out that the North American free trade agreement will cause Canada to lose considerably more jobs.
They also point out that the NAFTA will place tremendous restrictions on the Canadian federal, provincial and territorial governments insofar as their being able to manage the resources and industries within their jurisdictions now or in the future.
They also point out that the NAFTA cannot be changed through renegotiation. They ask therefore that the House reject the proposed North American free trade agreement and use the abrogation clause of the free trade agreement to scrap that as well.


GASOLINE PRICES
Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to present petitions signed by numerous residents of Ottawa and Nepean.
These people, like some others who have been referred to earlier by some of my colleagues in the presentation of petitions, are objecting to the high price of gasoline in this area in relation to the price in other parts of the province.
The government seems to take a veiy carefree attitude on this issue. It has an absolute do-nothing approach. These people petition Parliament to do something about high gas prices which they feel are unfairly ripping them off in relation to the charges made to other consumers in this province.
I have the same complaints from constituents from Kingston and the Islands. They too are appalled by the government's inactivity in this regard and call upon the government to take some steps to protect them from unfair gasoline pricing.


Mr. Dan Heap (TVinity-Spadina):: Madam Speaker, it is my honour, pleasure and duty under Standing Order 36 to present several petitions all on the same subject from Canadians in Thompson, Makwapeekeeneegun, Sherridon, Flin Flon, Cranberry Portage, Kenville, Bowsman, Swan River, Ethelbert, Miniota, Oakbum, Roblin, Russell, Shoal River, Dauphin, Benito, Cowan, Rorketon, The Pas, Birch River, Creighton, Rossbum, Grandview, Samwood and Irwin River to name a few.
Their point is that the proposed North American free trade agreement will bring great trade restrictions on Canada that will cause us to lose more good jobs and that it will restrict all the governments of Canada, including those of the provinces and territories, from promoting Canadian industry, conserving natural resources for Canadian benefit, and advancing social programs. They point out that it cannot be remedied through renegotiation.
Canada's Constitution requires a federal election this year. The date on which the North American free trade agreement is scheduled to take effect is January 1, 1994. Therefore they call upon this House and all the members in it to reject the proposed North American free trade agreement and recommend to the government that it use the termination clause to scrap the U.S.-Can-ada free trade agreement.


GORE BAY-MANITOULIN AIRPORT
Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present petitions with some 250 names on them from communities throughout Manitoulin Island, including Gore Bay, Evansville, Sheshegwaning, Little Current, Silver Water, Mindemoya and Meldrum Bay.
They call on the government to maintain its manned weather station there, both in terms of the safety it provides to navigators and flight crews and the over-all economic advantage to the operation of the Gore Bay-Manitoulin airport. The people involved in the manned weather station provide many services in the operation of that airport including security, fuel sales, radio contact to air crews, information for tourism and customs service.

I hope the government will take these petitions seriously and act upon them to maintain the manned air weather station at the Gore Bay-Manitoulin airport.


Mr. David D. Stupich (Nanaimo-Cowichan):: Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure and honour to stand on behalf of a number of Canadians who are protesting the proposed North American free trade agreement.
They express concern that this will cause Canada to lose even more good jobs and that if implemented will place further restrictions on the ability of Canada's federal, provincial and territorial governments now and in the future in assisting Canadian industry, conserving Canadian natural resources for Canadian benefit and advancing needed social programs.
They argue that the North American free trade agreement cannot be remedied through renegotiation and they call upon this House to reject the proposed North American free trade agreement and recommend to the government that it use the termination clause to end the U.S.-Canada free trade agreement.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk)
Mr. Lee Richardson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of TVansport):: Madam Speaker, Question No. 512 will be answered today.


Mr. Parent: What portion of our income tax dollars is spent on correctional
services (a) Canadian penitentiaries (b) provincial penitentiaries (c)
secure facilities for young offenders (d) medium security facilities for
young offenders?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology and Minister for International Trade):: (1) Federal: Total 1991-92 federal expenditures on adult correctional services, current dollars, as a percentage of 1991 total federal expenditures.
A.	Federal expenditures on adult corrections $974,267,0001
B.	Total federal expenditures $160,955,000,0002
C.	Percentage 0.61.
Routine Proceedings
(2) Total Provincial: Total 1991-92 provincial operating expenditures, current dollars, by provincial government agencies responsible for adult correctional services as a percentage of 1991 total provincial expenditures.
A.	Provincial expenditures on adult corrections $1,008,688,0001
B.	Total provincial expenditures $153,387,000,0002
C.	Percentage 0.66
1	Source: Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
2	Source: National Accounts and Environment Division, Statistics Canada.
Note: We do not collect information on young offender correctional facilities, nor are we aware of anyone who does.
The adult correctional services survey collects data on a fiscal year basis. The data provided by National Accounts and Environment Division is by calendar year.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The question as enumerated by the hon. parliamentary secretary has been answered.


Lee Richardson: Madam Speaker, if Question No. 498 could be made an Order for Return, the return would be tabled immediately.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House that Question No. 498 be deemed to have been made an Order for Return?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Mrs. Gaffney: Regarding the goods and services tax, (a) what are the gross revenues by year (b) what are the specifics of collection costs (c) what are the specifics of government administrative costs (d) what are the specifics of private business administrative costs (e) what are the related operating resources, and their costs, incurred by the government, e.g. accommodation, hardware, personnel, (f) what is the net revenue by year (g) how and where are the revenues applied h) how much GST has been applied to reducing the national debt?
Return tabled.

May 25, 1993
Routine Proceedings


Lee Richardson: I ask, Madam Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I have received one application pursuant to Standing Order 52. I will hear the hon. member for Skeena.


Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Madam Speaker, I ask leave to move the adjournment of the House under Standing Order 52 for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter requiring urgent consideration, namely the finding by the committee for the scrutiny of regulations of this House that the 1990 decision by the federal cabinet to exempt Alcan's Kemano II project from environmental assessment was both illegal and unconstitutional.
This matter must be debated here today because all other avenues have been exhausted, including an application to take this matter to the Supreme Court of Canada.
This is not a matter suitable to Question Period, statements or other parliamentary or legal venues. Five hundred million dollars has been illegally spent on the project and before any further consideration or evaluation of the project is made this House has a duty to debate the matter pursuant to Standing Order 52. Illegal and unconstitutional behaviour by the cabinet or Alcan is not to be condoned.
The scrutiny committee, which is composed of members of both this House and the other place, was created 15 years ago with the parliamentary responsibility to review government regulations. It operates under one of the most basic principles of parliamentary democracy, which is that the executive cannot make exemptions to the law unless Parliament gives it the power to do so.
I am sure you are aware, Madam Speaker, that the 1984 cabinet guidelines order under which Alcan was exempted from environmental assessment and review has no provision whatsoever in it to allow the cabinet or any minister of the Crown to exempt any project, let alone one of this size, from environmental assessment and review.
The project will remove 86 per cent of the natural flow from the Nechako River, one of the largest tributaries of the Fraser River which is one of the largest rivers in the western part of North America.
It may well be that members of the cabinet could, should and must be charged and perhaps fined or jailed for this illegal and unconstitutional activity, not the least of whom is the present Minister of the Environment.
I therefore urge you, Madam Speaker, to give active consideration over the next couple of hours to allowing an emergency debate under Standing Order 52 to proceed so that members of this House can perform our duties as all members must. This is the only forum in which this can be heard. Applications have been made to take the case to the Supreme Court of Canada and they have been turned down.
The Federal Court under the pen of Mr. Justice Walsh ordered that an environmental assessment and review be conducted and that was subsequently quashed by the Federal Court of Appeal.
There is no other opportunity for those Canadians who are affected to be heard in the legal system within Canada. There is no committee in this House now charged with this matter in that the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations has performed its non-partisan duty in finding that this exemption is both illegal and unconstitutional. It bears directly upon members of the cabinet, including both members who are now running to replace the Prime Minister.
I think it is incumbent upon this Chamber to adjourn itself so that at eight o'clock we can hear from all sides of the House about one of the most serious constitutional and legal rulings ever made by a committee of this House. I would hope you would give it active consideration, Madam Speaker.
May 25, 1993

Routine Proceedings


Mr. Doug Fee (Red Deer):: Madam Speaker, I understand the interest that the hon. member has in this. As a member of the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations I am wondering if he is not bringing this up a little prematurely.
He is referring to a report that is only a draft report at this time. It has not even been discussed at committee. It has not yet been presented to this House.
Madam Speaker, for your deliberation I would like to refer you to Beauchesne's sixth edition, page 241, citation 877 on premature disclosure of a report. It says:
(1) No act done at any committee should be divulged before it has been reported to the House. Upon this principle the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, on April 21,1937, resolved "That the evidence taken by any select committee of this House and the documents presented to such committee and which have not been reported to the House, ought not to be published by any member of such committee or by any other person".
This is a topic which is before another committee and I would suggest that in your deliberations, Madam Speaker, you should reserve judgment. This should not be a topic for further debate in this House before such time as the committee has had a chance to complete its deliberations and report to the House.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, in an effort to be helpful my hon. friend from Skeena referred to the role the Minister of the Environment has played in this critical decision. We notice he is unable to be here today.
I think it would be appropriate if we are going to have a debate that it would be mandatory that the Minister of the Environment have a chance to participate in that debate.
Perhaps in your deliberations, Madam Speaker, you could take that into consideration as well as the heavy agendas of certain cabinet ministers these days.


James Ross Fulton: Madam Speaker, I am fully cognizant of the remarks just made by the member for Red Deer. I am sure you are aware this issue was printed on the front page of the business section of yesterday's The Globe and Mail. It was also referred to on the front page of The Globe and Mail and is being covered extensively by the media in this country.
The issue has been bogged down in the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations for almost a year now. The actual legal finding that it was an illegal and unconstitutional decision of the cabinet was made almost a year ago. It may be reported to this House but it may not.
I think the time clock of this House is being intentionally observed to try to keep this extremely controversial issue out of the public domain and out of public debate. The member says that it may be reported and it may be voted on. There are a whole lot of "mays".
What we do know is that the legal counsel for this House and all members of that committee have now agreed that it was illegal and unconstitutional.
I think we would be entirely remiss in our duties if we did not at least debate this issue on behalf of all Canadians. If the cabinet is allowed to commit illegal and unconstitutional acts that affect my constituents and take 86 per cent of the flow out of rivers then they had better at least be debated here or we may as well shut this place down and keep it shut down.


Mr. David Barrett (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca):: Madam Speaker, I am concerned about the information regarding the prospect of a ruling in this House brought forward by the member.
If indeed it is a violation of the rules of the House that this information be published before the House itself has received the report, I would ask the Chair to consider contempt of Parliament charges against The Globe and Mail for bringing this matter out without the committee report being filed. Furthermore, if it is indeed anticipated in the Chair's argument that we cannot proceed on what the member said, then implicit in that based on the argument raised by that member is that The Globe and Mail is in violation of the rules of this House.
I would insist, Madam Speaker, that you take all of the authority under your power in the chair, if a ruling is made against the member, to demand that The Globe and Mail come to the bar of this House and explain why it violated the rules of this House, why it published this information, why it has abused the rules of this House in attempting not to keep this secret as the government wants it to be kept secret.

May 25, 1993
Government Orders


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I have listened very carefully to the arguments put to the Chair. I will take the question under advisement for a few hours and will come back to the House after Question Period with a ruling on that.
As far as the hon. member for Red Deer is concerned if he does have a question of privilege I would advise him to put it in writing and please present it the way it should normally be done.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-115, an act to implement the North American free trade agreement, as reported, with amendments, by a legislative committee.

Madam Deputy Speaker:: There are 32 amendment motions on the Order Paper for report stage of Bill C-115, an act to implement the North American free trade agreement.

Motion No. 1, standing in the name of the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River, and Motions Nos. 7, 27, 30, 31 and 32, standing in the name of the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, all raise issues relating to environmental and social conditions, including retraining. They will be grouped for debate but voted on separately.
Motions Nos. 2, 4, 5 and 6, standing in the name of the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, all deal with interpreting the agreement. They will be grouped for debate but voted on separately.

The purpose of Motion No. 3, standing in the name of the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, is
similar to the purpose of Motion No. 2. After consultation, Motion No. 3 will not be selected.

Motions Nos. 8, 9 and 29, standing in the name of the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, and Motions Nos. 19, 20, 21, 24, 25 and 26, standing in the name of the hon. member for Cape Breton Highlands-Canso, all contemplate amendments respecting intellectual property or the holding of a national referendum. They will be grouped for debate but voted on as follows: (a) An affirmative vote on Motion No. 8 obviates the necessity for a vote on Motion No. 9; (b) A negative vote on Motion No. 8 necessitates a vote on Motion No. 9; (c) A vote on Motion No. 19 will apply to Motion No. 20; and (d) Motions Nos. 21, 24, 25, 26 and 29 will be voted upon separately.
Motion No. 10, standing in the name of the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, is out of order in accordance with citation 698(4) of Beauchesne's sixth edition. It is incomplete without subsequent amendments or schedules because the ruling panel cannot make the rulings referred to in the motion if the agreement itself is not yet in force. Therefore the motion will not be selected.
Motion No. 11, standing in the name of the hon. member for Cape Breton Highlands-Canso, concerns the presentation of an annual report to Parliament. It will be debated and voted on separately.
Motion No. 12, standing in the name of the hon. member for London East, and Motion No. 13, standing in the name of the hon. member for Essex-Kent, both concern the residence of auditors. They will be grouped for the purposes of debate and voted on separately.

Motions Nos. 14, 16 and 17, standing in the name of the hon. member for Mount Royal, all contemplate amendments respecting computer programs. They will be grouped for debate but voted on as follows: (a) Motion No. 14 will be voted on separately; and (b) A vote on Motion No. 16 will apply to Motion No. 17.
May 25, 1993



The purpose of Motion No. 15, standing in the name of the hon. member for Mount Royal, is similar to the purpose of Motion No. 14. After consultation, Motion No. 15 will not be selected.

Motions Nos. 18, 22 and 23, standing in the name of the hon. member for Lambton-Middlesex, and Motion No. 28, standing in the name of the hon. member for Esquimau-Juan de Fuca, all raise issues relating to agricultural products or meat inspection. They will be grouped for debate but voted on as follows: (a) Motion No. 18 will be voted upon separately; (b) An affirmative vote on Motion No. 22 obviates the necessity for a vote on Motion No. 23; (c) A negative vote on Motion No. 22 necessitates a vote on Motion No. 23; and (d) Motion No. 28 will be voted upon separately.

I will now submit Motions Nos. 1, 7, 27, 30, 31 and 32 to the House.


Alan Redway: On a point of order, Madam Speaker, I had submitted to the Clerk an amendment which does not appear on the Order Paper at the present time. The amendment reads as follows:
That clause 242 be amended by striking out line 30 on page 193
and substituting the following:
"factory steps to implement the agreement and that the rate of unemployment as determined by Statistics Canada for the whole of Canada does not exceed 4 per cent".
Unfortunately due to the timing of the tabling of the report of the committee and the commencement of debate there was not time to include it in the Order Paper. I was out of time.
I would ask for the unanimous consent of the House to allow that to stand as a motion at report stage.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The motion was presented but unfortunately it was too late. If there is unanimous consent it can be added.


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I recollect the Prime Minister saying that this particular
Government Orders
bill, Bill C-115, which deals with the North American free trade agreement was probably the most important piece of economic legislation that his government will bring forward.
I have to say it has been widely publicized that this debate will begin today. The government plans the agenda and members of the House have known for at least two weeks that it was going to begin.
I suggest it would be inappropriate for us, considering the importance of this legislation and the importance of these amendments that have been put forward, to now proceed with this debate in the absence of the Minister for International Trade. After all, I do not think it is asking too much when we deal with the economic constitution of the land to have the minister responsible for this legislation to be with us to participate in the debate. I do not think that is being unrealistic.
The future is at stake. This is a major piece of legislation. I have to ask you, Madam Speaker, to consider that we set aside this debate-there are five other bills waiting to be dealt with immediately-until the Minister for International Trade has an opportunity to be part of the proceedings and part of the debate. I would like to hear his views on the concerns raised by my colleagues on the 27 different amendments which will be put forward. I have to say that surely it is inappropriate for us to consider debating this critical issue in the absence of the Minister for International Trade.


Peter L. McCreath: Madam Speaker, as my hon. friend says, this matter has been on the Order Paper for some time. All members have had an opportunity to consider it. I recall at second reading debate when the minister participated my hon. friends opposite spent the whole time banging on their desks so that it was impossible to hear the minister.
Do not worry. My hon. friends opposite should not be concerned. The minister is very actively involved in this debate. We are at report stage and I am sure they will enjoy hearing the minister when he participates.
As for my hon. friends in the NDP they could have taken an active involvement in the committee if they were seriously interested in this legislation as they said they were.

May 25, 1993
Government Orders


Mr. Mills:: Madam Speaker, it is not too often that I agree with the New Democratic Party, but in this particular case I think the member for Kamloops is absolutely correct. Just yesterday in my community I received at least three different delegations. They really could not believe that not only were we advancing with this debate so quickly but they had also heard rumours that closure was going to be brought in and that some members of Parliament were not even going to have the opportunity to speak on the debate.
I think at the very least in this essential debate the minister of trade should show courtesy not only to this House but also to the people of Canada. He should be present today.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: If we are on the same point this is really not a point of order. The government calls the business in the manner it chooses and according to our Standing Orders there is nothing that forces the minister to be here. There is nothing the Chair can do but put the different motions to the House and for debate to proceed.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, I certainly hear you clearly. Under normal circumstances what you say would obviously be accepted without any question.
As my hon. friend from Toronto has just said, I do not think there is a single Canadian who would consider this to be ordinary legislation. This is extraordinary legislation. This is an extraordinary moment in Canadian history. Today we are part of the drafting of the economic constitution that will bind future generations in terms of economic possibilities as well as a whole set of societal issues.
I plead with my friends on the government side that to proceed today with this government business without the minister responsible being here surely is inappropriate. There is only one cabinet minister in the entire House of Commons and this is the most important piece of economic legislation.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Kamloops knows our rules very well and knows that he is now getting into debate. There is nothing the Chair can do but put those motions to the House and for debate to begin.


David Barrett: Madam Speaker, on a question of privilege. It is a responsibility as a member of this House to
deal with my duties here and I take them very seriously. My point of privilege is that I think it is incumbent for the government to consider seriously the situation in which it is placing the House.
Except for an illness which prevented me from being at some of the committee hearings, I went to almost every one of them. There was the reassurance that there would be detailed discussion even under closure of the matter before us in this House and that the minister would respond to our questions. I do not see how that can be possible now.
Under the same question of privilege, I ask the government not to place members of this House in the position of being more or less rubber stamps if we go along with this ridiculous position today. The government is embarrassing itself, embarrassing this Chamber and disappointing the Canadian people.
On the basis of privilege I ask the government to reconsider this attempt to push the bill through without the minister.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: This is really not a question of privilege. I cannot see how the absence of the minister can keep the hon. member from doing his work as a member of Parliament.


David Barrett: That is up to me to decide, Madam Speaker. It is my privilege to raise that question and have the government's response.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I have no choice now but to put the motions to the House.


David Barrett: I ask for a ruling on my question of privilege.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: It is not a question of privilege at this time.


Mr. Ferguson:: I rise on a point of order, Madam Speaker. I want to speak briefly to Motion No. 18. Inadvertently this motion was grouped under agriculture.
We are all very much aware that chemicals come under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Environment. The prohibited substances list comes under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Environment. The key words in this particular clause are the use of "a residue of a chemical that is not registered for use in

May 25, 1993
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food in Canada". That comes under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Environment.
I ask the House to consider including that with Motions Nos. 2, 4, 5 and 6 relating to the environment. We confirmed in a study in our office a year ago now that 12 of the 48 chemicals used in Mexico were banned in Canada. Therefore they are indeed banned by the Department of the Environment and the Department of National Health and Welfare and should not be under the heading of agriculture.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I thank the hon. member. As the motion to which he refers is not in the first group, I will put the first group of motions to the House and will revisit the amendment to which he is referring to see if it can be changed to a different group of motions.


MEASURE TO ENACT
Mr. Robert D. Nault (Kenora-Rainy River) moved:: Motion No. 1.
That Bill C-115 be amended in the Preamble by adding immediately after line 25 at page 2 the following:
"respect the freedom of association and affirm the role that free and independent, public and private sector unions play in the conduct of democratic governance,
honour the rights of all working people to organize, to bargain collectively and to strike,
encourage an open dialogue between management and labour on all decisions affecting the future of the workforce as a result of the Agreement,
implement retraining and adjustment programs for workers displaced as a result of the Agreement, including support for those wishing to become self-employed, and".


David Barrett: Motion No. 7.
That Bill C-115 be amended by adding immediately after line 13, at page 5 the following new clause:
"7.1 Nothing in this Act or the Agreement shall be interpreted so as to prevent or limit a Party to the Agreement from establishing a tax on any good imported from the territory of another Party to the Agreement to fund any labour adjustment program or environmental program made necessary by reason of the Party's trade with that other Party or as a result of the production of that other Party."

Motion No. 27.
That Bill C-115 be amended in Clause 242 by striking out lines 20 to 24 at page 193 and substituting the following therefor:
"tion (1)
(a) unless the Governor in Council is satisfied that the Government of the United Mexican States and the Government of the United States of America have taken satisfactory steps to implement the Agreement;
(f>) unless the legislative bodies of the NAFTA countries have adopted a Charter of Fundamental Social Rights for North America modeled on the items 2 through 12 of the Charter of the European Community."
Motion No. 30.
That Bill C-115 be amended in Clause 242 by striking out lines 20 to 24 at page 193 and substituting the following therefor:
"tion (1)
(a) unless the Governor in Council is satisfied that the Government of the United Mexican States and the Government of the United States of America have taken satisfactory steps to implement the Agreement; and
(f>) until the Secretariat of the International Labour Organization states, in writing, that it is satisfied that the United Mexican States and every state in the United States of America is complying fully with the following conventions of that Organization:
(i)	Convention number eighty-seven guaranteeing the freedom of association and the protection of the right to organize;
(ii)	Convention number one hundred and five abolishing forced labour;
(iii)	Convention number one hundred guaranteeing equal remuneration for men and women workers for work of equal value;
(iv)	Convention number one hundred and eleven abolishing discrimination in employment."

Motion No. 31.
That Bill C-115 be amended in Clause 242 by striking out lines 20 to 24 at page 193 and substituting the following therefor:
"tion (1)
(a) unless the Governor in Council is satisfied that the Government of the United Mexican States and the Government of the United States of America have taken satisfactory steps to implement the Agreement; and


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The motion of the hon. member for Don Valley East has been accepted by the House and called Motion No. 33.


Alan Redway: That clause 242 be amended by striking out line 30 on page 193
and substituting the following:
"factory steps to implement the agreement and that the rate of unemployment as determined by Statistics Canada for the whole of Canada does not exceed 4 per cent".


Robert Daniel Nault: Mr. Speaker, today I am speaking on an issue of critical concern to all Canadians.
The bill to implement the North American free trade agreement is before us today. It is my belief and the belief of my party that the bill threatens to dimmish the labour standards and the economic security of every Canadian.
As it stands now Bill C-115 does not have the teeth necessary to provide the economic security that Canadian workers need. It does not safeguard against environmental degradation. It does not safeguard against possible abuses and labour practices. It does not protect and provide for Canadians displaced because of the government's own economic mismanagement.
As we all know, in 1988 the government rammed through the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. At that time it promised it would create jobs and increase the standard of living for all Canadians. To date neither
of these promises has been realized. In fact the results of the free trade agreement have been dismal.
The official unemployment rate has risen from 7.5 per cent in 1989, to 10.3 per cent in 1991, to 11.4 per cent in April 1993. These figures are even more distressing when they are adjusted to include the underemployed, those Canadians wanting to work full time who are unable to find anything other than part-time work.
Almost 25 per cent of Canadians fall into this category. That is one out of every four Canadians. This, I would add, is a serious indictment of the government's economic mismanagement. At last count over 400,000 Canadian workers lost their jobs since the signing of the free trade agreement. Most of those jobs were lost as a result of permanent changes or closures of companies with plants in Mexico.
Furthermore, over-all production in the manufacturing sector in Canada has decreased by 14 per cent since 1988. Added to this poor economic performance has been the government's poor record in labour relations. The government has consistently demonstrated its disrespect for workers and has not consulted. It has repeatedly circumvented the collective bargaining process. It has consistently demonstrated its inability to prepare Canadian workers for changes in the global economy by failing to provide adequate worker adjustment programs.
As a result of both Canada's poor economic performance under the free trade agreement and the government's poor record on labour relations, millions of Canadian workers fear for their economic future. They justifiably feel the government has abandoned them to global forces.
My amendment is designed to provide the government with an opportunity to mend its ways in the area of labour relations by stating its resolve to respect the role which public and private sector unions have in representing the interests of workers; to honour the rights of all working people to organize, to bargain collectively and to strike; to encourage an open dialogue between management and labour, especially for decisions affecting the future of the work force as a result of this agreement; and to implement retraining and adjustment programs for workers displaced as a result of the agreement, including support for those wishing to become self-employed.
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By accepting this amendment the government will be sending a very positive message to the Canadian people. It will be saying: "We are willing to protect the rights and standards of Canadian workers. We are committed to the meaningful negotiation of side accords with the U.S. and Mexico which will guarantee enforceable labour standards in all three countries". As a party we are not willing to pass a bill dramatically altering the economic future of Canada without adequately preparing the Canadian work force for those changes.
Before my short time concludes I want to talk a bit about the problems with this particular agreement. The reason we have an amendment such as this one in the preamble is that there has been no discussion as there has been in other countries of the importance of the work force or the importance of the protection of the standards of the people we as members of Parliament are here to serve.
It is our understanding that closure will be used at any minute in this place. We will be asked to pass NAFTA in a short three-day debate, whereas in the European Community it took 13 years. In those 13 years there has not been a fully integrated system for countries very similar to Mexico, those being Spain, Portugal and Greece. That is the concern that members on this side have about the government's attitude toward debates on fundamental change as it relates to the standards of the working people whom we are here to represent.
Let us look at what is wrong with the agreement. It is obviously a good deal for the multinationals, companies that are not interested in sovereignty, that are not interested in borders, but will flow back and forth anywhere in the world wherever they can get the best bang for their buck, wherever they can make the most money for their corporate friends and for the individuals they represent. What is bad about this deal is that it does not protect small business and it does not protect workers. It does not protect the sovereignty of Canada.
What members on this side of the House have tried to relate to their constituents and all Canadians is that we as a House of Commons, as parliamentarians who represent the people, should not be so quick to ram this agreement through the House.
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What is missing in this agreement that is causing us such great concern? The Leader of the Opposition has said on many occasions that one of the big issues causing us a large amount of concern is that there is no subsidy code. Because there is no subsidy code we will in essence continue to get the kinds of harassment that we are getting from the American companies which feel threatened by our ability to be very productive and very competitive on the open market.
In conclusion I want to urge the government to give my amendment very serious consideration. It allows the government the opportunity to learn from its mistakes under the free trade agreement.
It is time for this government to do the right thing by the workers of this country and not to just look after the multinationals and their corporate friends. It should look after the bottom line which is the ability of workers to pay their taxes. If workers do not have jobs, which is what is happening under this corporate driven agenda, then we are going to be in desperate shape with regard to being able to pay our own way as a country.
We are going to have to turn around and redo this whole agreement once we are in office so I suggest to the government that it reconsider this whole issue.


Mr. Phillip Edmonston (Chambly):: Mr. Speaker, I too support the motion to which my hon. colleague was just speaking.
I sat in on the committee and I am very disappointed in not having the minister here today in order to get the answers we have been seeking at committee. I was in committee and I was assured that he would be here.
We are dealing with a bill of such importance that it can affect every part, every element of Canada for centuries to come. The consequences of this bill are huge. The thing that concerns us is this: Why are we rushing it through?
We said previously to Madam Speaker that we felt it was important, because we have five or six other bills today, that we deal with those bills first in order to get them through and, with the consent of the House, to debate them. I see other ministers here who are concerned about those bills. We could have in a serene, competent, efficient manner dealt with those other bills

May 25, 1993
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and allowed the government to put up the competent people that it has, including the minister, to deal with Bill C-115 dealing with the application of the North American free trade agreement.
That is not what is happening. What is happening, as my colleague said earlier, is a type of treaty, a type of agreement that the European Economic Community took 13 years of compromise and discussion to negotiate. We are rolling up those 13 years into three days. That is a mockery of Parliament. That is a mockery of the parliamentary system. We were elected to represent our constituents.
I do not want to polarize the debate. I see that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has already said it is only the unions that are against Bill C-115. In my riding of Chambly I have heard very little from the unions against this bill. I have heard a lot from average nonunionized Canadians. In Quebec the workers in the cultural industries, particularly the composers, the authors and those who are writing computer programs are very concerned about what this bill does to the rights they have already acquired.
I see some of my friends on the other side. When we mention acquired rights in Quebec, we really touch a number of nerves. One of the nerves we touch is cultural rights because in Quebec authors or song writers will have less protection. After going through this bill in the next three days with this marathon legislation, if we pass it, artists will actually have less protection than they had from the 1971 Berne convention. That gave them and their estates protection so they could continue to sell their books, their songs and their screenplays.
If this bill becomes law in this marathon three day event, we are actually taking away acquired rights from Quebecers, from Ontarians, from artists all over this country. It is going to hit the artistic community right between the eyes. I think that is unpardonable.
It is not a union idea. It is not a union problem. It is a problem of basic common sense. When we talk about basic common sense and this government, it is an oxymoron. I am not calling this government a moron. I am saying essentially that when it comes to common sense and anything involving trade with the United States we seem to throw common sense out the window.
All the New Democratic Party is asking is that we behave as parliamentarians. Let us go through Bill C-115 with the minister present, with a serene debate on the issues so that we can know what is happening with this moving target with which we are dealing.
From day one the United States has had problems with the NAFTA. Right now it is teetering on the edge because it is seriously held up by the whole question of the side agreements that have to be passed. The Americans are saying that before they touch the NAFTA they want side agreements on the environment and on worker protection.
We in Canada are not saying that. We are saying: "We cover our eyes, Mr. Clinton. Give it to us and we will sign anything". That is not parliamentary. That is not even common sense. We should be dealing with this with our eyes open, with the minister here to help us, because it is a moving target. The whole question of sanctions has opened up a Pandora's box of definitions.
Speaking of definitions, we still do not know what is a subsidy. We have been hit hard by the question of subsidies. In Quebec our industries are concerned about what Americans call subsidies because we have a proud history of working hand in hand with our industries to help them out and to help our people out in order to create jobs. However, subsidies are not touched. Let us touch them. Let us define them.
Let us move ahead. Let us not just move sideways. Let us not start each side calling the other side a purveyor of actions which are only used to slow down the process. We are not doing that. We want the process to be meaningful. We want to be meaningful parliamentarians on this bill. As you yourself noted, Mr. Speaker, this bill has 27 individual motions, amendments, changes. On each one of those we have something to say but we need feedback from the other side. We do not want to talk in a vacuum. We want members on the other side who have studied this to tell us where we are wrong and also to have the presence of mind and the honesty to tell us where we are right. I will be darned if all 27 motions are wrong.
However, if we are going to do our job right and if the artists in Quebec, the artists in Kamloops, the artists in Ontario and the artists throughout the country are going to be protected then we need that free flow of informa-
May 25, 1993

tion. We need what we in the House of Commons call debate. I know that the idea may seem foreign to my friends on the other side, particularly when we do not have the minister with us to debate, but doggone it, it is not fair to come here prepared to argue a case as parliamentarians and then find we do not have anyone to argue with.
This is not some academic exercise. This is not where we simply make a show for our friends at home. They are vitally interested in both sides of the question. I will be darned if I will accept the minister of fisheries saying it is a union question. It is a Canadian question. It has nothing to do with unionism per se. It has to do with our sovereignty. It has to do with how we are going to live in the future. I am sorry to say again to my friends on the other side who have not understood it in the past that it has to do with jobs.
We are suffering right now a recovery which is called a jobless recovery. Why is it a jobless recovery? Where did those jobs go? Well, Mr. Speaker, I can only tell you a little bit of a modification on Horace Greely: "Go south, young man". That is where the jobs are going. The problem is that when we have an opportunity which we have not had in the past, to really go through the different motions on each side and debate in a free and open encounter, we cannot do so. I think that stinks.
I think both sides of the House should get down to business, look at each one of these motions and have the members on the other side give us the latest information that they have because, as I said, we are shooting at a moving target. The Americans are not going to give in. We are talking about parallel agreements which are substantial and the Americans are not going to sign a thing until they get those substantial side agreements. We should not touch or sign anything until we get the same.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, I am thankful to have the opportunity, even though it is only for 10 minutes, to speak in support of the motion of my colleague from Kenora-Rainy River.
My colleague in his former life was the vice-general chairman for the United Transportation Union. Because of that experience he brings to our Liberal caucus a very special understanding of the awareness and needs of
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labour. I think in lieu of everything that has happened to labour in this country, especially in the last two and a half years, this motion is very appropriate.
I sometimes wonder where this government is coming from when it cannot support a motion like this. I read the words:
encourage an open dialogue between management and labour on all decisions affecting the future of the workforce as a result of this Agreement,
implement retraining and adjustment programs for workers displaced as a result of the Agreement, including support for those wishing to become self-employed;
This to me and to my colleague from Kenora-Rainy River is just basic dignity. One has to understand my experiences living in Toronto.
Our experience in the last little while in terms of plant closures in the manufacturing sector has everyone in our community scared out of their minds.
Just three weeks ago we had the funeral for the first complete assembly plant to be closed in Canadian history. It was the Scarborough van plant. It contributed over $2.5 billion to the balance sheet of General Motors Canada for 10 years. All of a sudden this plant is closed and in 18 months General Motors goes from employing 6,000 to 60,000 people in Mexico. The government wonders why we on this side of the House are objecting to this debate going on here today when we really have not had adequate discussion or the opportunity to look into every aspect of this. It is totally irresponsible.
This experience in terms of the trading relationship with Mexico has the confidence factor of every sector of the economy on its knees right now. The failure of the government to openly discuss this debate is wrong. Who is driving this debate? Who is pushing the government to move this forward in less than 12 parliamentary hours in the House of Commons? This is a bill that the Prime Minister himself said is going to change the entire the economic framework of our country.
There are members over there who stand by and say that 12 hours to 15 hours of debate is enough. It is wrong. It is wrong not just because of the time factor but because even the other principal partner in this agreement, the Americans, are not moving ahead.

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President Clinton of the United States said that he would not send NAPTA to Congress without side deals. Here they are discussing the side deals, whether they are with labour or whether they are with environment, and yet we are sitting here ramming it through. There is absolutely no logic to that.
Canadians cannot understand why in this House of Commons this is going on. They wonder if there is not some way in the parliamentary process that the opposition can take the time to force debate. Try to explain closure to them where the government with its majority can just come in and put the hammer down and push this bill through.
I think my colleague from Kenora-Rainy River has put forward a motion here today that is very clear and very understandable. It is actually something that is not very much different from what President Clinton is saying. He wants to understand the same way my colleague from Kenora-Rainy River does. What are the implications in terms of labour and every aspect of it? What are the implications in terms of the environment?
All the children in Canada are learning in school right now that Mexican environmental standards are not the same as the standards we have in this country. There are no teeth in terms of an enforcement mechanism here to make sure that the Mexicans live up to a standard related to the environment that we have here.
Yet as we tiy to discuss these aspects or these flaws in the North American free trade agreement the government says: "We will give you a few minutes but then we are bringing in closure and that is the end of it because we are just going to hammer this North American free trade agreement through".
It is absolutely wrong. With only 12 to 15 weeks left of this government's tenure, which is in its fifth year, the very least it could do is to show courage and decency to all Canadians and have a proper debate.
This is a constructive motion put forward by my colleague from Kenora-Rainy River. The concerns of labour in this country should be dealt with in a meaningful and constructive way and in a way whereby we can
start getting some confidence going in this country again. However, the government walks away from it.
Once again the government shows its indifference and lack of sensitivity. This one really baffles me because the President of the United States has the common sense to say that there is no way they will have this NAFTA deal go to Congress unless they know specifically what the side deals are in relation to labour and the environment.
I do not even want to mention the Minister for International Trade today, but here we are with this momentous piece of legislation in this country and we are not even allowed as parliamentarians the privilege of debating it in full.
I think it is wrong and I think the people of Canada will let this government and this Conservative Party know it in the next 12 to 15 weeks.


David Barrett: Mr. Speaker, I hope this is not detracting from my 10 minutes. Ten minutes is what I have and 10 minutes is what members of this House are allowed to have on these very important amendments.
We can differ with the government on policies. We can argue extensively that the policies of this government have been devastating to the economy of this country. That is legitimate, fair and a difference of opinion.
However we cannot argue successfully against the arrogance of a government that would demand that this Chamber deal with these important amendments and this important legislation without the minister being present and then ram the legislation through again on closure.
There is a great deal of cynicism in this country about politicians per se. It is the behaviour of this government today that blackens the name of every single elected official in this Chamber. The cynicism that abounds in this land allows people to throw up their hands and say: "To hell with the whole system. We do not want to participate".
The same apathy that is out there is attacked by one of the contenders for the leadership of that party by saying that they are sons of bitches for being apathetic.


Mr. Oberle:: No, she did not.
May 25, 1993


David Barrett: That is exactly what she said. I want to say that the reason cynicism abounds in this country is because of the hypocrisy and stupidity of this government in the way it is handling this legislation. This is aside from the principle of disagreement which is the nature of the British parliamentary system. Crass cynicism is the method by which this is being rammed through the House.
My colleague, one of the members from Ontario who just spoke said how disappointed people were. They are not disappointed. They are disgusted. They are fed up and sick and tired of politics per se. We are all smeared because of this government.
The Prime Minister is not here. I accept that. However the Minister for International Trade is not here today for this debate. That is totally unacceptable and inexplicable in terms of how important this bill is and its impact on every single Canadian.
I have seven amendments all grouped into one envelope and I have 10 minutes to speak. My good friend, the member for Chambly, touched on an important issue that impacts on the survival of this country and that is the rights won in Quebec for the maintenance of a francophone culture.
There are ministers in this House who have argued that they believe in Canadian Confederation. They joined that government to maintain that strength and are now seeing sections of this bill striking at the very heart of the opportunity of intellectual property being maintained so that the regions of this country can survive under Confederation.
Quebec will be the first victim and that is a fact. One cannot deny it because these amendments and the debate on these amendments point out that the very fabric of what keeps this nation together is under assault by this bill.
I will not get a chance to go through all the detailed amendments that I put on. I will select one for a couple of minutes. Motion No. 27 asks simply and humbly for this government to assure some minimum standard of protection for people in this country such as the elderly, women and particularly children by adopting some of the aspects of the social charter of the European Community's economic union.
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The European Community's economic union is being given by this government as the reason why we must expand these trading blocs. If that is indeed so and the government believes that, then for goodness' sake why do we not have the same safety standards and human rights standards as the European Community has put in writing?
I want to refer to one section, section 10, which concerns the protection of children and adolescents as it is written in the European Community social charter. It says that the minimum employment age must not be lower than the minimum school leaving age and in any case not lower than 15 years.
Why do I pick on this one narrow amendment? I will say why. We are going to join a low wage partner in Mexico that has no value of human rights or no health and safety standards. As a matter of fact that partner is still in the Dark Ages when it comes to the exploitation of young children on the job.
This government and that of the United States are embarked on a plan to throw employment standards back to the Dark Ages with a Dickensian threat that we had better accept this or we will have worse. Employers in this country have already threatened their workers by saying that if they do not accept changes in their contractual obligations then they will move to Mexico. The move will also imperil the kind of standards we have set in this country because there is not even a guarantee of minimum age for employment.
I challenge this government. It lied to me about going to Matamoros, Mexico and to Washington, D.C. I challenge this government to point out what protection there is from stopping the exploitation of children who are 12, 13 and 14 years of age in the Maquiladora zone. It never answered the challenge. There is no guarantee in this legislation that that kind of workshop mentality at 80 cents an hour will cease if we sign this agreement. As a matter of fact this bill is so evil that it will force us down to those standards rather than forcing them up to decent standards in Mexico.
It is the subject of a specific pastoral letter by the Mexican Council of Catholic Churches and it is one of their major concerns along with the Canadian Council of Catholic Bishops on economic statements who have looked at NAFTA and who are concerned about this.

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Is that government to be condemned not only for signing this agreement and for permitting this to happen, but for prohibiting the kind of rational and thoughtful nation-wide debate there should be on this issue? It is to be condemned for that.
I am ashamed to be a member of this Chamber because after 25 years of public service we come down to a debate that is affecting the outcome of the country I love where there is a 10-minute speech allowed to each member of the opposition. I am ashamed of and disgusted by this government. Only a government that has cynically sold out any sense of nationhood or survival of this country could possibly parent this kind of legislation and the method of dealing with it.
There will not be a major broadcast of what I have to say. It will not be in headlines across this county. I have picked one small item: the exploitation of children.
It is there. It will happen. It will be condoned by this government and its successors in leadership. Let no Canadian citizen go by without marking today as the day a deliberate decision was made by the Conservative Party of this country to abandon a sense of decency and honour to ordinary people, particularly to children. Let it be marked with sadness. By God, I cannot wait for an election to get rid of this rotten, absolutely scandalous government.


Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the amendment I have moved this morning, Motion No. 33, in connection with Bill C-115, an act to implement the North American free trade agreement.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I believe we have another colleague or two in this House who wish to speak on the motion of the hon. member for Keno-ra-Rainy River. I thought that the hon. member for Don Valley East started off saying that he was speaking on his own motion.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The motions of the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River, the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca and the hon. member for Don Valley East are grouped for debate. It is the tradition of this House to give the floor to the mover of the motion.


Alan Redway: Again, may I thank the House for giving consent to allow the introduction of my motion.
The effect of the motion I have placed before the House would be to provide that this particular act not be proclaimed into law until we have achieved a position of full employment in this country, that is 4 per cent unemployment.
This amendment flows from a letter I wrote to the Prime Minister on November 3, 1992. Copies were sent to all the Progressive Conservative members of Parliament and all Progressive Conservative senators. That letter has received wide circulation and publicity in the media. I believe it is well known to all members of the House and to many members of the Canadian public.
The concern I have and the reason I moved this particular motion is not with the principles nor with the terms of NAFTA. It is with the timing of the NAFTA legislation going into effect. My concern with respect to this is that if it were implemented at the beginning of next year as is contemplated and if at that time we still have 11 per cent unemployment or anything of that nature, this would have a very negative impact on our country.
There is no question in my mind that the NAFTA is going to create some jobs. It is certainly going to create jobs in the long run. My concern is that it will not be creating jobs in the short run. My opinion is based upon statements made by people as learned as Gordon Ritchie who was our deputy free trade negotiator in 1988. He has said that Canada may benefit from NAFTA in the long run, but clearly Mexico will benefit most in the short run.
My feelings are also reinforced by a study which was done by the Toronto office of our own Department of Employment and Immigration. It said that NAFTA will accelerate trends to close Canadian branch plants and to move labour-intensive manufacturing firms to low-cost developing countries.
That does not mean to me that NAFTA is all bad. In fact, I believe that NAFTA is going to create some jobs but I have some real concerns about what the impact of NAFTA will be in the short run. This is at a time when our economy is being impacted by a great number of economic factors. Some of these factors are the global recession, adjustments due to technological change, the declining manufacturing base that is common to all industrialized countries, the globalization of production, the globalization of markets. There is the movement of
May 25, 1993

many head offices such as the Canadian head office of IBM in my own riding which has recently moved to the United States as have the head offices of many other companies. There is also the restructuring that has taken place inevitably due to the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.
All of those things are impacting on our economy. It is inevitable if we implement NAFTA in such an economic climate that some restructuring will take place and we are going to exacerbate a disturbing situation we presently have with respect to employment in this country.
Faced with all of those different factors going on in the economy, it is no wonder that many Canadians have enormous concerns about the future and their jobs. Many of them have lost their jobs already and are still unemployed; others fear they may very well lose their jobs. They are all concerned. Granted I believe the vast majority of Canadians realize the inevitability and that the benefits down the road from NAFTA are going to be substantial. Even with all of that however, it is understandable why it is so difficult for them to support implementing NAFTA at a time when unemployment is in excess of 11 per cent.
It seems to me if there were some alternative jobs to go to there would not be this problem. Flowever at this time we cannot offer hope of substantial change in the unemployment situation in the short run. If we could, I would be prepared to support implementation of this bill and the agreement immediately. Before it is implemented however, it seems to me that one way or another we are going to have to deal with the employment situation that has been brought on by the global recession, by the adjustments as a result of technology, by our declining manufacturing base, by the globalization of production and markets, by the movement of head offices elsewhere and by restructuring due to the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.
The only way we can do that is to refrain from adding another circumstance, another economic factor that is going to cause some problems until we have full employment in the traditional sense of a 4 per cent unemployment rate.
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Many people have told me it is impossible to ever achieve a 4 per cent unemployment rate. As you know, Mr. Speaker, following the Second World War for some 25 years between 1946 and 1970 this country in effect had full employment. We had an unemployment rate that was less than 4 per cent. At the same time we had an inflation rate that was averaging some 3 per cent and we had interest rates lower than they are now, even though they are very low at the present time.
With that in mind, while I do support the principles of NAFTA and I do support the terms of the agreement, I cannot support the implementation of the NAFTA agreement at this time. I cannot support it until we have reached full employment in this country, an unemployment rate of 4 per cent or less. I hope the House is prepared to support my motion to ensure that although NAFTA is passed that it will not be implemented until we have full employment.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond to these amendments. Indeed, I cannot help but comment on some of the remarks that have been made. I remind my hon. friend from Don Valley that this is enabling legislation. Implementation of the NAFTA will not take place until some time later, after it is prepared for implementation as well in the other two countries involved. What we are dealing with here is the putting into place of the equipment that will allow the Government of Canada to put into effect the NAFTA when the other two partners have done the same.
I want to give my hon. friends opposite a little lesson in parliamentary procedure. There seems to have been a lot of huffing and puffing on the lack of opportunity to substantively debate the issues here. They have chosen to debate whether or not it is appropriate that the minister be in the House right now. I remind them that the process of legislation in this place has been for some time that it is the responsibility of the parliamentary secretary to the minister to shepherd legislation through the House. That is why I am here and will be here while this debate is proceeding.

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The minister has a variety of responsibilities, one of which is encouraging trade for Canada. That is what he is doing right now. He will be here to speak in these debates. I hope that my hon. friends, unlike when the minister spoke at second reading, will avail themselves of the opportunity to listen to what he has to say when he speaks in this debate as he will.
I cannot help but notice that my hon. friends from the New Democratic Party do not seem to want to debate NAFTA. They want to debate the procedure for debating NAFTA. Every time there is an opportunity to deal with the substance of the issues that are before this House, they prefer to discuss parliamentary procedure and whether we should be debating five minutes here or ten minutes there or twelve hours here or twenty-four hours there.
If the bottom line is that the New Democratic Party cannot stand in this place and debate the issues then my question is why have the-


Nelson Andrew Riis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I think my hon. friend is going to blow up in a minute if he keeps that up. He will explode or implode, or do both at the same time.
It is important for my hon. friend to know that we in the New Democratic Party oppose this legislation 100 per cent. We do not think we should go ahead with it at all. That is why whether we should tinker around and have a two-hour or a five-hour debate or-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It is not a point of order. It is a matter of debate. I give the floor to the hon. parliamentary secretary.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, it seems that every time somebody on this side gets on a roll the members of the New Democratic Party feel they have to interrupt because somebody out there just might be listening.
In my usual rational and calm way, I would like to address myself to the amendments before the House right now. I would like to comment on each of them. In doing so I advise the House that there are no amendments in this particular cluster which the government can support and I would like to briefly say why.
Motion No. 1 tries to make the preamble specific. In fact the function and purpose of the preamble is to underline the general objectives of the government in implementing the agreement. That is why it is as it is.
The amendment proposed by my hon. friend in seeking to be more specific with respect to how it impacts on particular sectors or groups is not really appropriate in our judgment and therefore is unacceptable.
Motion No. 7 is unnecessary. The rules of NAFTA being based on article XI of GATT permit duties, taxes or other charges in appropriate circumstances and therefore the motion is unnecessary under the legislation.
Motions Nos. 27, 30, 31, 32 and indeed Motion No. 33, the one in the name of my hon. friend from Don Valley East, if accepted would take NAFTA far beyond where it is supposed to go. This is a trade agreement. I must say I have some difficulty listening to my hon. friends from time to time raise issues for example of sovereignty and concern themselves on whether or not other countries are going to be able to impact on what our standards and so on are here in Canada. This is simply a trade agreement.
If my hon. friends are concerned about the notion of a trade agreement with the United States and Mexico, I cannot imagine them wanting to give the right to the Mexicans and the Americans to legislate for us in a great variety of ways in the areas of social rights, the environment, human rights, and so on and so forth. I would remind my hon. friends that when we introduced this legislation it was to implement the NAFTA which is a trade agreement and a trade agreement only. That is what the legislation is before the House.
There is some suggestion that Motion No. 30 makes reference to labour and Motion No. 31 makes a reference to labour and the environment. I would remind all members that as we are dealing with this legislation, discussions are going on among Canada, the United States and Mexico to negotiate further agreements relating to topics including the environment and labour. As my hon. friends know they will be appropriate agreements if those parties can reach agreements with respect to those subjects.
I am sure if legislation is required by any of the agreements it will be brought in at a future date. This is a trade agreement and the government has made a commitment that this legislation will deal only with implementing that trade agreement. That is what it does and that is why those proposals are unacceptable. The same
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thing would apply to the proposal relating to human rights in Motion No. 32.
Some of my hon. friends speak eloquently about the quality of life that is enjoyed or suffered by some people living in undesirable circumstances or conditions in Mexico. The best way to deal with those kinds of problems is to provide the economic development opportunities for the Mexican people to allow their economy to grow. Then they will see the kind of growth and development take place in their country as we have seen for example in Spain since it joined the common market. There has been tremendous growth and opportunity for increase in quality of lifestyle in that country. I think we have to look upon this as an opportunity for the Mexicans and to suggest that we should try to condemn the Mexicans to live in unacceptable circumstances forever is simply a proposition this government cannot accept.
We hear talk about the employment conditions in the Maquiladora region. If my hon. friends opposite will carefully read the NAFTA they will come to realize that the Maquiladora will cease to exist once the NAFTA is implemented because the reason for its existence will be removed.


Mr. Bob Wood (Nipissing):: Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a small miracle that we stand in the House today to support this motion which was proposed by my colleague from Kenora-Rainy River because of the extremely short duration of debate imposed upon us by the government regarding this legislation.
My colleague from Kenora-Rainy River has proposed an amendment which really would compel future governments to make retraining and adjustment programs for workers who are displaced as a result of the NAFTA readily available and accessible.
This is perhaps one of the most important and relevant motions in regard to this legislation for it directly affects the tens of thousands of Canadians who have lost their jobs since the free trade agreement was initiated. It will also allow those Canadians who will be displaced from their current employment by the NAFTA, if implemented, to receive some retraining and other forms of adjustment from the federally funded programs.
Retraining and adjustment programs have been the focal point of much discussion not only during this
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debate on NAFTA but also during the free trade debate in 1988. Prior to the federal election the Prime Minister repeatedly asserted that his government would provide more than adequate adjustment and retraining programs for all displaced Canadian workers.
I quote from Hansard of December 13, 1988 when the Prime Minister said: "A responsible government must therefore provide the affected workers with the most generous programs possible". That is what we have done and will continue to do.
Either the government is very irresponsible or the Prime Minister was once again saying one thing while obviously meaning another: no new programs, no adjustment policies and no retraining for workers who have been inflicted with the pain of being unemployed as a direct result of the economic policies of the present government.
We recognize that in the global economy there will be job losses. However we also recognize the need for the federal government to assist those Canadians who are adversely affected. The federal government must play a leading role in initiating programs which will not act as a social safety net but as a trampoline for workers to launch themselves in a more positive direction.
The Advisory Council on Adjustment which was chaired by Jean de Grandpre presented its report to the House. In it were precise recommendations for the government to adopt in order to provide adjustment and retraining programs for Canadians.
Canadians from coast to coast are fed up with commissions whose results seem to be meaningless to the present government. Canadians who have been adversely affected by the FTA and will also be affected by the NAFTA want and deserve to know what the federal government will do to assist them in finding meaningful employment in the future.
In my riding of Nipissing and indeed throughout northern Ontario, as my colleague from Kenora-Rainy River has said, workers have lost their jobs and are now unable to find meaningful, well-paying jobs which would allow them to provide for their families and be productive members of Canadian society.

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In northern Ontario many communities depend solely on a single resource for their very survival. Many of the men and women who work in the mills and the mines as well as the secondary businesses in these communities have very little training in other fields. These people do not want to become wards of the state, dependent on welfare and social assistance. They want to work and they want to feel proud.
I have had people come into my office in North Bay and tell me how they have lost their jobs and can get no training or assistance to find a new job. I see their frustration and that is why today I am addressing members opposite and telling them directly that they have done absolutely nothing to create new programs for people to acquire new training. They have done absolutely nothing to provide displaced Canadians with the means to acquire further education so they can find jobs. They have cut employment and training programs by over 30 per cent during their tenure in office. Most recently, funding for programs such as FEDNOR which is crucial for economic development in northern Ontario has been cut and will continue to see a decrease in government funding over the next five years.
It is very clear to members on this side of the House that the government has done the complete opposite of what all its multimillion dollar commissions have recommended. Rather than expand programs it seems to have cut them. The Conservative government has literally inhibited Canadians from dealing with the new global trading realities and has shown no sign of changing its course.
It is interesting to note that as we talk about the need for a complete change in the retraining and adjustment programs in this country one of the Conservative leadership candidates has repeatedly stated that she supports all that free trade stands for in strengthening the different regions. The minister of defence has gone on the record as saying the free trade agreement does more for regional development in Canada than any policy in our history.
I am sure the thousands of people in northern Ontario who have lost their jobs since 1988 find little comfort in the would-be Prime Minister's remarks. I would encourage the minister while she is in northern Ontario this week to visit the communities where the unemployment
rate constantly hits 40 per cent and see for herself how great regional development has been under her party's economic policy. I am sure she will recognize that the free trade agreement has not been a boom for northern Ontario. Nor will the NAFTA agreement.
The defence minister and her colleagues do not understand that the single industry northern Ontario communities are less likely to rebound from a plant closure or mill closing than larger cities in more developed areas of Canada. When a mill or plant closes in northern Ontario an entire region and populace is devastated. Without effective adjustment programs in place, the workers who are affected can only turn to social assistance.
It is time for government to initiate programs that will provide incentives for displaced workers to retrain and educate themselves in order to gain meaningful employment. The federal government must play a vital role in ensuring that all Canadians are equipped with the skills and abilities to adjust and adapt to new employment circumstances no matter what region of the country they live in. Programs must be tailored to different regions. They must provide people with different levels of education and employment background with the skills which will be of greatest benefit to them. It is time for the government to lead rather than sit back and quote rosy economic forecasts from foreign investors who are not trying to find jobs in Canada.
There is much that is wrong with this agreement. However it would be an absolute tragedy to force the people of Canada to fend for themselves without hope or assistance from the people they elected to work in their interests.
The Conservative government has shown its inability to help Canadians adjust to these rapidly changing times and I fear its current leadership charlatans show no signs of changing that. The government did not heed the warnings in 1988 and it is not heeding them now as we prepare for the 21st century.
Today I am proud to support the motion of my colleague from Kenora-Rainy River which will ensure that Canadians have every opportunity to improve their skills and education in order to succeed and find meaningful employment.
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Ralph Ferguson: Mr. Speaker, as we move into these stages of closure on the North American free trade agreement I am proud to speak on this motion by my colleague from Kenora- Rainy River that amends the preamble of Bill C-115 to address social and labour concerns.
As I look at the current round of GATT negotiations, the impact of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and the North American free trade agreement, I have become very apprehensive as to who will be the benefactors of these agreements. For example, if we look at the increased labour costs we have here in Canada, the input costs, our standard of living, our wage rates, our labour and environmental standards and then compare them to the southern United States and Mexico we have to ask ourselves if we can survive.
If the wages in Mexico were to increase to our levels then perhaps we could compete in the long term, but the wages have dropped over the last 10 years because of brutal economic reform.
In the manufacturing sector the total compensation for labour in Mexico in 1979 was $2.89 an hour and in 1991 it was $1.59 an hour. Such a drop symbolizes what is happening in that country to the south of us. Its minimum wage dropped from $1.10 an hour in 1979 to 59 cents an hour in 1989. Those wages are on a downward trend and are not contributing to an increased standard of living in Mexico. They are going to take away from our standard of living if we have to compete.
NAFTA is an economic integration based on an international division of labour in which Canada supplies the energy, the water and the raw resources. Mexico supplies the cheap labour and lax enforcement of environmental health and safety standards. The United States supplies the consumer market. Multinational corporations profit at the expense of wage cuts and job losses for Canadian and American workers.
Canadian employment in manufacturing has declined by over 400,000 jobs since the free trade agreement with the U.S. was signed. Many of those jobs have gone to the free trade zone along the border between Mexico and the U.S. It is a sort of anything goes, mini free trade zone that we all hear so much about. Employment in manufacturing in the Maquiladora has increased by 244,000
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jobs since the free trade agreement was signed. In 1992 this was brought out in an economic report in the U.S.
In the European Economic Community, economic integration has been accompanied by massive social funds and a social charter that intends to provide a framework for upward harmonization and safeguards against the kind of social dumping NAFTA will exacerbate.
In the North American context, this amendment by the member for Kenora-Rainy River is an attempt to ensure that a country's competitive advantage is not based upon the violation of workers' rights or labour standards. These provisions are essential not only to protect Canadian and American workers but to support the efforts of workers and others to raise labour standards and the standard of living in Mexico.
I was interested to hear just recently about one of the U.S. congressmen who was very violently opposed to this same agreement. He pointed out that their increased exports to Mexico were mainly in manufacturing equipment that will utilize cheap labour and export low cost products that will take jobs away from Canadian and U.S. workers.
It is also important to have the role of labour recognized, as my colleague from Kenora-Rainy River has done. I am equally concerned that in the U.S. a streamlined inspection system has been introduced in poultry and meat processing.
In the last several years the U.S. has moved rapidly toward deregulation and the lines in the processing plants have been speeded up. Some U.S. inspection processing lines now move at a speed of 90 birds a minute in poultry processing and up to 450 carcasses an hour in beef processing or one carcass every nine seconds.
Some of these plants hire their own inspectors. If one of these inspectors is conscientious, turns down too much product and cannot keep up with this hell-bent push for efficiency then of course his or her job is in jeopardy. As a result this push for lower labour and production costs is placing the health of the consumers in jeopardy. In fact just last January hundreds of children became ill from eating contaminated hamburgers in Washington state. Three died and several now have permanent kidney damage. A year ago, on April 30,

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ABC's Prime Time Live did a documentary of what is going on in those processing plants in the United States. Now we see our own negotiators turning down a provision allowing us to turn back products not measuring up to Canadian standards, which are the best in the world. Mexican standards not only place the labour standards of this nation under attack from the transnational corporations, but our standards uphold the dignity of Canadian workers and provide them with a standard of living that is not prevalent for the average family in Mexico. They are equally important standards that protect the health of the Canadian people.
I respectfully point out to this House that this agreement should not be passed until, first, provisions are in place that will protect our Canadian people and maintain our standard of living and the health of this nation; second, the deteriorating wage rates of Mexican workers and their labour code are brought up to the equivalent of those in Canada; and third, environmental safeguards are put in place that maintain our standards and bring the two other partners to this agreement up to our standards to protect the health of our people and the well-being of this planet. The fourth point is that the House should not proceed with the passage of this legislation until the side agreements being demanded by the United States are finalized and agreed to by all three parties to this agreement and until we are guaranteed that these agreements measure up to our own Canadian standards here in this nation whether it is labour standards, environmental standards or health standards.
The future of this nation is put in jeopardy by the government's push to bring in this legislation before this House today. It is absolutely absurd that we are pushing so hard at this point when the finalized agreement and the side agreements are not in place by the neighbours to the south of us. Look at the long term implications that this is going to have not only on our people, as I indicated in the labour standards we have here or the health standards of our people, but on the very future of this planet.
I suggest that this is a big price to pay for what we have seen to date and what we do not know about that could very well be a pig in a poke. I am not prepared to vote for this legislation under these conditions and I hope the members of this House will vote against it for the same reasons.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, while I am pleased to participate in the debate, I would rather not be participating in the debate in that I had hoped that the debate would not take place at all.
Anyone who studies this agreement in detail and understands this agreement will know what we are talking about here today. It is the dismantling of almost everything we know that is Canadian. We are introducing processes that will result in the Americanization and Mexicanization of Canadian society and the Canadian economy.
We are talking about five motions put forward by my hon. friend from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca dealing with the environment. Let us be aware of what is going on in terms of the forces in North America as a result of this pending trade agreement. I think it was presidential candidate Ross Perot who first said it during the presidential campaign when he said that if the United States-to say nothing about Canada-signs the NAFTA agreement then we are going to hear a massive flushing sound as jobs are flushed down into Mexico. As we speak, down in the Maquiladora zone in northern Mexico there are 2,000 big plants with 500,000 people. When one approaches that Maquiladora area one does not have to see it or even know that it is there because one can smell it. One can see it from a long distance because of the pall hanging over the factories. The smell is overwhelming.
What is the smell? There are 500,000 people working in those plants. There are no sewage treatment facilities for those 500,000 people. There is no water in their homes. Just imagine that stench that results from living in those unbelievable, inhuman conditions day after day after day. What are people doing about it? Nothing. One can see the canals going off into the desert filled with toxic and hazardous waste. That is the way they dispose of it. One sees kids playing in the sewage ditches that are slick and iridescent with chemicals. The stories go on and on.
One of the most moving speeches I heard recently was by Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate in the United States, when he looked at this free trade deal. He said that in terms of just the health of people living in North America that this will result in the standards that we have in our provinces and certain states in the United States being pushed down to approximate those in Mexico to keep the level playing field.
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We are in serious difficulty if this trade deal goes ahead. Let me put it graphically. Let us imagine that my friend from Prince George wins $10 million in the lottery tonight. That would be a nice gesture. He decides he is going to open a new manufacturing facility such as a new processing plant. He is going to create employment for people and eventually parlay that $10 million into a substantial profit. He wants to open his facility where he will maximize profits and where the environmental regulations, labour laws and the cost of doing business will be the lowest.
What about labour costs? My friend from Prince George will have four choices. It will probably require reasonably highly skilled workers so he can locate his new plant where there are trained men and women and pay them $18 an hour. He can instead go down to some of the northern states and for the same level of skills pay $12 an hour. He can instead go down to Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas or New Mexico and pay $6.50 an hour. However, now, under NAFTA, once it is signed and in place, he can go down over the Rio Grande River and pay 60 cents an hour for those same skills.
It does not take much imagination to know that Ross Perot was right. There is going to be a massive flushing sound as the jobs head down into Mexico where my friend is going to exploit Mexican workers at 60 cents an hour, where the regulations for the environment are abysmally low and non-existent, where the labour laws are completely ignored and where the trade unions are working for the company.
That is the kind of future that this person and these people want in this country. What does this mean to our children's children? The jobs of the future will not be in Canada. They will not even be in the United States. They will be in Mexico where they are able to exploit the workers.
My hon. friend from the Conservative side says they want decent wages for the workers in the plants. Of course they want decent wages for the people in these plants. I think it is unfortunate that we hear from the Tories that fair and decent wages are something that we ought not to be fighting for in this country.
Where will the future economic activity be when one can pay $18, $12, $6, or 60 cents an hour? That is why there are 2,000 plants in that northern Mexican zone right now. That is why there are 500,000 people.
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My friend asks what is stopping them. I will say what it
is.	Right now there is no free trade deal with Mexico. In other words those goods and services do not flow freely. They cannot get access to our markets.
People say that if we enter into a free trade deal with Mexico then we should think of all the goods that we are going to sell to the Mexicans. What the hell can one buy from Canada if one is being paid 60 cents an hour? What kind of goods and services can one access if that is the kind of income one has?
If we proceed with this then there is going to be a dismantling of what we know as a country. There is going to be a natural movement south. There already is under FTA. Have we lost manufacturing jobs in this country because of the free trade deal with the United States? Yes, of course we have. Have we lost thousands or tens of thousands? No, we have lost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs as a result of the existing free trade agreement and now this government wants to expand that into Mexico.
We are talking about jobs and the fact that Canadians will have to compete with people who are paid 60 cents an hour. These are trained people. The Japanese have said that after three years of operation in the Maquiladora zone their plants are as productive as anywhere else in North America. We are not talking about some unskilled labour force. We are talking about a very skilled labour force that is continuing to reskill and upgrade in order to compete under those conditions. That is just one side of
it.	There are many.
My colleague from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca has put forward a number of amendments. He said: "We do not support this bill at all but the government seems determined to jam and ram and rush this legislation through before the negotiations are even completed". I think it must be unheard of in international trade history that we would join in an agreement when it is still being negotiated and discussed.
Again, I do not like to mention it, but I cannot help saying that I do not think it is right for a government to proceed or for this House to consider legislation when the minister responsible is not here. The Minister for International Trade finds it more appropriate to be outside the city. He is elsewhere.

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It is not as though he did not know the debate was taking place today. We all knew it was taking place today. We have known for weeks.
I want to go on record to say that the Minister for International Trade chose consciously not to be part of this discussion and not to respond to the questions that we are placing to the minister. We are talking to an empty chair. This is probably just as interesting, but nevertheless it is certainly unacceptable.
My friend from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca has put forward some of the most thoughtful amendments that one can imagine in terms of how to protect the working conditions of workers in Canada and elsewhere to ensure that the environment in our North American continent is not destroyed.
He is using Europe as an example. In Europe they were quite prepared to lay out a charter describing what rights workers will have and what environmental conditions must exist as a result of the trade deal there. Does this government ask for environmental safeguards to be part of NAFTA? No, it does not. Does this government ask for training and other operations to be available to all those men and women across this country who lose their jobs as a result of this deal? No, it does not.
Let us be clear. This government is opening up the door to the transnational companies. They are not companies in Canada trading with a company in the United States or with a company in Mexico. It is the same company just trading within itself. That is the kind of trade that most of our companies are into.
It is saying that it is going to open the doors and make it easier for companies to move that part of their operation which is labour intensive into Mexico or into the southern United States. That is what we are talking about and that is why we, as New Democrats, oppose this legislation so strongly.


Mr. Francis G. LeBIanc (Cape Breton Highlands - Canso):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak on Motion No. 1 which is the amendment to this legislation introduced by my colleague, the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River.
These motions are grouped for debate. In this grouping motions have been presented by my colleague from the NDP, the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de
Fuca. I had the privilege of sitting with him in committee and dealing with the substance of NAFTA and with Bill C-115 during the short time that this government allowed the Parliament of Canada to even consider this very important and very complex trade and investment agreement. It is more than that.
I found my colleague from British Columbia to be passionate and sincere and a very knowledgeable exponent of his party's position on this issue. He has raised many worth-while concerns which many Canadians share as we rush headlong into this agreement.
Canadians are fearful because of the complexity and the implications of NAFTA in the face of what has happened in the four years since the free trade agreement has been implemented with the many job losses and recession in Canada and with the flood of plant closings and job losses to the United States. They are fearful because of the distrust that they have of this government.
This government has demonstrated time and time again that it does not govern in the interests of Canadians but in the apparent interests of a non-elected, unaccountable and privileged few in Canada and, what is more worrisome, outside of Canada. That is why Canadians are so fearful and so concerned as we rush headlong into this debate on this legislation.
Given the power of the government to impose closure as it will and as it has on this issue, which will stifle a meaningful debate on this issue, there is really not much hope for us here in Parliament to properly address the many concerns. Let me tiy to deal with some of them in the very short time that I have to deal with this particular group of amendments concerning environmental and social issues.
My colleague from Kenora-Rainy River raised the issue of labour standards and the right of workers to free collective bargaining, to form associations and unions and to represent themselves with management. This is a right that is honoured and cherished in Canada and the United States and in many other countries but which is very frequently and systematically abused and denied in Mexico. It is only fair and reasonable that those rights ought to be part of the ground rules and the basic playing field upon which these three countries and perhaps
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other countries, as is provided for in the agreement, form this trading and investment region.
I want to raise an anomaly because I sat through a fair number of hearings on the NAFTA legislation and on the NAFTA itself. It is an anomaly which appears in the preamble to the NAFTA and in the preamble of Bill C-115 but which is absent in the objectives of the agreement. That is the way in which the agreement treats two different sets of rights and protections.
In the preamble there are clauses which deal with sustainable development, the environment, rights of labour mobility and other workers' rights. These rights are noticeably absent in the much stronger part of the legislation and the agreement which concerns the objectives and which defines the responsibilities and commitments of the respective governments. I will quote the objectives of the agreement because they are interesting. One part of the objectives of the NAITA, part (d) in article 102, says:
To provide adequate and effective protection and enforcement of
intellectual property rights in each party's territory.
It is an interesting anomaly particularly in light of the amendments that have been brought forward by my colleague and by my colleague from the NDP concerning environmental protection, child labour, the rights of collective bargaining and association by workers and many issues which have been debated and which continue to be debated in the United States. It is interesting that the NAFTA should provide protection for intellectual property and provide no protection for workers' freedom of association or provide effective safeguards in the objectives of the agreement for workers and the protection of the environment. They are two issues of very great importance not only to Canada but to the United States and Mexico.
That is an anomaly which appears in the agreement and also appears in the legislation.
The amendment of my colleague from Kenora-Rainy River addresses this in part because it puts it in the preamble which would strengthen the preamble in that respect. It could very well be placed in the objective where it would be even stronger.
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Those are the kinds of things which if we had more time to deal with this legislation we might advance to improve and safeguard the measures that need to be in an agreement like this to adequately protect the people of Canada and the people of the other signatories of this agreement. That is my first point concerning this group of amendments.
I would just like to respond to a comment that was made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for International Trade earlier today. In full oratorical flight he said that the NAFTA is a trade agreement, it is only a trade agreement, it is specifically a trade agreement, and it is nothing more than a trade agreement. That is all that NAFTA is.
In the time remaining I would like to quote for my hon. friend opposite the testimony given last week before the Senate standing committee on foreign affairs by Dr. Robert Cohen, who is a fellow with the Economic Strategy Institute in New York and is a specialist in the economics of high technology industries. He appeared before the Senate committee to discuss from a U.S. perspective some of the industrial impacts of the NAFTA on the United States, and they are devastating. A reading of Dr. Cohen's testimony would help us understand why the United States is so worried at this point in time.
I will conclude by citing what Dr. Cohen says. He says that it is not a trade agreement but is an investment agreement. He says:
What is created under the NAFTA is not only the ability to open up
trade, but the ability to industrialize Mexico under far fewer
constraints than were offered previously.
He cites all of the industries that will be able to take advantage of this situation.
He is saying in his testimony that the opportunity made available by NAFTA will be to industrialize Mexico under far fewer constraints than were offered previously. That is why we have these amendments.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, in speaking in support of the amendments by my colleagues from Kenora-Rainy River and Cape Breton Highlands-Canso I would like to say these few words in the context of two questions.

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First of all, I would like to congratulate them for their excellent input and motions that are on the Order Paper on Bill C-115.
The first question is: Why force the bill now? Why ram it through Parliament at this stage in light of what happened last week in Ottawa when the negotiators did not come to a conclusion on some crucial aspects of this trade agreement?
It is very hard to understand on the part of the Canadian public and for us in the opposition why this bill must go through now when governments in North America which are part of this proposal have not yet finalized their thinking on this important proposition.
It seems to us that there is an agenda which has not yet been explained. It will be the subject of subsequent interventions today on the part of our leader and colleagues in my party. That is because it is difficult to accept the fact that Canada should be the first to race off the mark with approval by Parliament of a very important, substantial, and complex trade proposal when the other two partners have not yet reached an agreement on this matter domestically, let alone internationally.
The second question that needs to be asked is: Have we learned from the free trade agreement? If so, what have we learned before we move on to this new continental agreement phase? It would seem that we have seen that the free trade agreement has brought in its wake advantages for some and considerable economic and emotional harm to many others.
If one were to ask the average Canadian who lives in an industrial town or city whether the free trade agreement has been good most would answer in the negative because they have been hit by some kind of industrial lay-off attributed to the free trade agreement. It is this perception of the damage that the agreement has caused to the daily life of the industrial worker that seems not to have been learned so far.
This is the reason my colleague from Kenora-Rainy River is putting forward a very important amendment on the question of labour. It is really a question that says we must learn to manage the transition for the people affected by free trade. Has the government learned this lesson? Has the government put into place the necessary
programs and measures to provide a shock absorber for the people affected by free trade agreements?
Unfortunately the answer comes down on the negative side, particularly when it comes to older workers and those who are employed in small and medium sized companies who are not benefiting from older worker programs. In other words, we are talking today about the necessity of establishing possibly two commissions. One would deal with the question of labour and the proper management of the transition from the existing trade condition to the proposed one. The second would deal with the establishment of a commission that would deal with matters related to the environment.
Why do we do that? We do that in relation to labour for the reason that I have just given. In other words, we must not allow trade to become a traumatic experience in the lives of thousands of Canadian families who are affected and suffer the results of free trade because their jobs disappear as a result of decisions made by multinational corporations. We must find ways whereby the trade agreement will ensure that the environment, which is the base of our economic well-being, is not damaged by the trade policies that will be allowed under the NAFTA.
What are we talking about here, particularly on the environmental side? Very briefly, we are talking about some common basic principles for managing environmental issues, precautionary principles. In essence we must move to take precautionary measures before we see the total damage and have the final scientific proof that there is damage taking place.
The second is the preventative principle which flows from the first. We are much better off when we prevent damage than when we repair it. The third is the polluter pays principle which has already been accepted for some time in North America, particularly in the United States and Canada. Finally there is the principle of transparency which does not need much elaboration.
We also want to talk about the importance of a commission with respect to environmental standards. We are very concerned that by moving with NAFTA we would lower rather than improve the quality of environmental standards. Harmonization is a very seductive word, but it could lead to harmonization downward not upward. We would like to find a way through the establishment of a commission to permit harmonization
May 25, 1993

of environmental standards upward rather than downward.
In essence we are talking about providing sufficient funds for the construction of sewage treatment plants and water purification systems; to encourage reduction in the use of pesticides; to improve energy efficiency; to facilitate the use of public transportation over private transportation and of course to reduce air pollution because we know air pollution knows no boundaries.
In other words we are talking about two things in these quite publicized parallel agreements and nobody really knows exactly what they will be about in the end. One is the establishment of a commission that would deal with environmental matters along with a very rough sketch I just outlined a moment ago. Of course the question is whether such a commission will have any enforcement powers. If so which enforcement powers will it be given or will it just be an advisory board like the International Joint Commission on the Great Lakes? Therefore some very important questions must be raised within the debate.
Second, are we going to establish a commission to look at the management of the transition from the point of view of the people affected by free trade? The human side of trade must be emphasized and raised at every opportunity.
One factor is related to the economic condition of the family and the other one is related to the environmental and health aspect of the population affected. It is important therefore that we put these points on record today. It is important that these parallel agreements on labour as well as the environment not be limited to advisory roles. Commissions must be created to protect the interests of the people affected and the environment. They will also have the power to implement the recommendations they see fit to define in the interest of the public in general.


Mr. Steve Butland (Sault Ste. Marie):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in debate. It is very difficult under severe time constraints to appropriately handle the debate in front of us on the economic constitution of this country and North America.
In three short days if the government gets its wish the legislation will be through Parliament and ready for implementation on January 1, 1994. Hopefully if we have
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anything to do with it, it will not be implemented and certainly if Canadians had anything to do with it, it would not be implemented.
Mr. Perot talks about the big sucking sound of jobs going off to Mexico. I do not want to quote him too often for fear of being totally associated with him but some of his quotes are catchy if nothing else. He talks about a three-legged one-eyed 40-year old camel that is about to die. He is talking about NAFTA. I am not sure of the analogy but nevertheless it is not bad. I think it aptly describes this bill.
We support some of the amendments that are before the House. We think amendments on the environment, social conditions and training are very laudable. Canadians will support them and we support them.
We also want to say that no number of amendments or side accords that could be brought to bear will ever correct this deal. It is impossible. It is flawed and unacceptable to the majority of Canadians. If they had their way and knew what it was all about they would certainly oppose this bill.
With regard to the side accords and the amendments, we are going to speak to the environment. The government has said: "Well, sometimes we are in and sometimes we are out". In the beginning it said: "Well, we are going to be at the table because we had best be at the table to protect our interests". We know it did not want to negotiate any side accords. However, as time progressed the minister said: "Well, yes we do favour the side accords". Now it is abundantly clear the government will not support them in labour standards or in environmental standards.
One may ask how bad the environment is. Mr. Gephardt, the House leader for the Democratic Party in the United States paid a visit to Mexico. Anybody who has paid a visit to the Maquiladora has a totally different perspective on this issue. I am glad to say I was there. I was not happy with what I saw but it was certainly an eye opener. I would encourage all government members to get down there and have a look.
What did Mr. Gephardt see? His group checked out a polluted site left behind by a U.S. lead recycling plant. Two U.S. engineers, both dressed in protective gear, would not let the congressional delegation near the contaminated grounds. It was a little too dangerous for politicians. But Gephardt saw Mexican labourers at work

May 25, 1993
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in the same muck trying to clean up massive piles of toxic waste without benefit of protective clothing or masks. The majority leader added one other detail. Behind the facility was a dairy whose milk was sold to the citizens of Tijuana. A number of cows from the dairy have died from severe lead poisoning.
How bad is the environment? How badly do we need side accords? We need them desperately but we are not going to get them with any teeth and certainly the deal is flawed.
Mexico has great environmental laws and it brags about them. It says it has the best environmental laws in the world but there is absolutely no enforcement.
What I really want to raise in the House today is a recent development reported yesterday in The New York Times. Some of the Canadian papers gave it some play today but not nearly what it is worth. It is suggested that the major drug cartels in the world are going to set up Maquiladoras to front their drug operations. They are going to buy legitimate television and manufacturing outlets to smuggle the drugs into the United States.
One might say this is far-fetched but far from it. In fact the National Security Archive, which is a research group that tries to declassify government documents, has come forward and confirmed it. It has been confirmed that the Maquiladora zone and the NAFTA are going to be used to push drugs through the United States into Canada. There are 1,700 trucks waiting at any one moment at that border that get basic inspection once in a while. The majority of the time there is a five minute wait because the officer says: "Hey it is their business. They have to get through". If they are not being inspected, can you imagine the drug trade?
We just received this classified document by fax a few minutes ago. I think it is worth reading for the record to explain to Canadians that we have a wonderful free trade agreement on everything, including drugs. We are spending millions of dollars to fight drugs, counteract the drug trade and help youth get off drugs and we are going to sign an agreement that will allow the drug dealers of the world to bring drugs into Canada with no problem at all. They can put it in trucks. There are no inspectors at the border.
I am going to read this so-called classified document which is no longer classified. It states: "The Munoz drug organization operating in Juarez, state of Chiapas, Mexico owns the Huersa battery recycling plant. The plant located on the Juariz-Casas Grandes Highway in an area known as the El Espion is being used as a staging point for narcotic smuggling from Mexico to the United States. The plant reclaims lead from used batteries. The organization contracts various trucking companies in the U.S. to transport large quantities of unserviceable batteries from the U.S. to Mexico. The plant is staffed by workers from southern Mexico and not by local workers".
Why? Because it is best if they do not know what is really going on. They are from another area. Talk about a negative environment. I wonder what is in those batteries. They must be super charged. It goes on to say that the plant's main building is being reinforced to accommodate a helicopter. I am wondering what this helicopter is going to do. I guess they are going to fly the batteries from Mexico to the United States and Canada.
It goes on. It is a so-called classified document and the negotiators of the agreement said it was too hot to handle. Why was this not brought up in negotiations? It was too hot to handle. We can understand why.
Of course we support the side accords on the environment and labour standards but no number of amendments like this, even if they were being supported by this government, would make this flawed deal acceptable. As we progress through the debate we find more and more revelations like this that tell us we should stop, step back from this agreement and take a look at it.
We are rushing headlong. We have to get it through in three days. We have to get it through despite the fact, and we have repeated this time and time again, there are absolutely no guarantees this bill is going to go through in the United States.
Leon Panetta who is in charge of the budget of the United States said that if the vote had been held last week the deal would be dead. After our visit to Washington we suggest the majority of commerce people feel the same way. The deal is dead unless there are teeth in the side agreements. The United States is pushing for them but Canada and Mexico are fighting those side accords.
May 25, 1993

We know why Mexico is fighting the accords. It says 80 cents an hour is enough. The government is saying it wants to improve the life of Mexican workers. I toured on a bus with a group of business people from North America and talked to them. They did not know I was a politician. I asked them about the workers in the Maquiladora. One person said to me: "Do not worry about the workers, we know how to handle them. There is no labour strife here. We will look after the workers". I saw how they look after them. It is an absolute travesty of justice. It is out and out exploitation. We laud the amendments but no number of amendments will make this bill acceptable to Canadians.


Mr. Jim Peterson (Willowdale):: Mr. Speaker, the question most people ask about NAFTA and one of the greatest concerns people have is how Canada can compete with Mexican wages which are 80 cents to $1 an hour.
On top of that there is the challenge that Mexico is graduating four times as many engineers and scientists today as Canada. We have also seen over the past four and one-half years a wholesale exodus of industry from Canada, a phenomenon which has been referred to as deindustrialization.
In Canada we have lost about 15 per cent of our manufacturing jobs over this time period. We have lost manufacturing jobs at more than twice the U.S. rate. This applies right across the whole gamut of manufacturing. Canadians have a legitimate concern. If this is what has happened over the past four and one-half years, what will be our record of job losses in our high paying industries in the future, particularly with a NAFTA when Canadians will be put face to face with veiy cheap labour in Mexico?
We have to be realistic about this. Jobs have globalized. Many of these jobs from Canada and the United States went to Mexico long before the free trade agreement was entered into with the United States. The Maquiladora region was established by major multinational corporations which were taking advantage of cheap but good Mexican labour and free access to the American market. [DOT]
The phenomenon of globalization is something with which we all have to contend. We cannot bury our heads
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in the sand. Unlike what some people in this House say, is it possible to go backward and re-establish tariff barriers in Canada and make Canadian consumers pay more for the goods we have?
Canada among all the nations of the world is the foremost trading nation in terms of the percentage of its gross national product that comes from exports and from imports. Like it or not, that is reality. Can we automatically go back and create a closed type of environment where our tariff barriers force the jobs into Canada? It is highly unlikely that we could abrogate the treaty with the United States and not suffer retaliation. We would hurt far more than the Americans would were they to erect barriers against Canadian exports. Eighty per cent of our exports go to the United States.
Those are the realities with which we have to deal. Does this mean that we cannot insist in our trade deals on at least a level playing field, on at least the opportunity to compete fairly with not only the Mexicans but also with the Americans?
Much emphasis has been put on a side deal which the United States will cut with Mexico dealing with labour standards. If what the government says is true, that it wants this trade deal because Mexico is a Third World developing country and it is only fair that we give it an opportunity to increase its exports and create a dynamic economy, then this government more than any other should be interested in having the labour standards of Mexico raised to acceptable and tolerable international standards. I am not just talking about wages but worker health and safety, the right to collectively bargain and the right to fair wages.
This, if we can achieve it, will go a long way to reducing the discrepancy between high Canadian industrial wages, which are approaching $14 an hour, and the much lower Mexican wages, which let us say are about $1 an hour.
However, Mexico is not the only concern. As we have indicated, Canada has been losing manufacturing jobs over the past four and a half years at more than twice the U.S. rate. Many of these jobs have actually gone to the United States. We have seen, for example, how Co-Steel and Dofasco are now putting up a $300 million mini mill in Kentucky. One of the many reasons cited by their president for so doing is, among other things, cheaper wages.

May 25, 1993
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Maybe Mexico is not the only concern in terms of wages and labour standards. Maybe we have to worry as well about whether the United States is playing fair and whether their playing field is level. Do we want Canadian labour standards to be reduced to those in the United States? Six of the states in the United States have no minimum wage laws; in another 14 states the minimum wage is $4 U.S. an hour or less; 20 states have either no minimum wages or minimum wages of less than $4 U.S. In addition to that, 20 states in the United States have right-to-work laws, laws which make it extremely difficult for workers to collectively bargain.
I do not necessarily carry a brief for unions or for big business, but if one of the things that workers want through the democratic process is the right to organize, then why should we allow the United States to deny them that right when we here in Canada grant them that right?
If we are going to have a parallel accord to the NAFTA dealing with labour standards, let us also be aware that we need to have labour standards in the United States which are brought up to our standards rather than lowering ours to theirs.
We find it very difficult to understand why this government is so intent on rushing this deal through. Why the undue haste? Why, when the United States has not even brought these agreements before its own Congress, do we find our bill in Parliament under time allocation without a fair opportunity to debate it?
Is the government afraid of the debate? It is going to say that we have had lots of debate. The United States does not feel it has had enough debate. There are enough concerns where it wants parallel accords, where it wants to make sure that its playing field is levelled out. It will not present it to Congress until it sees the actual accords. We are going to take it on faith.
We have faith that the United States will be able to come up with exactly the type of deal to which we would be happy to accede. We know the free trade agreement was not the best agreement that we could get. It did not have a defined subsidies code. It did not have a provision
to deal with anti-dumping. When our steel industry, in all of its right thinking, thought that it was going to have enhanced access to the United States and for the first few years had to live under a 3 per cent voluntary restraint, why is it now finding that every time it tries to meet American prices in selling to the United States it is hit by dumping? This is not a level playing field.
This agreement with the United States had many flaws, flaws which could have been curbed and cured had we had longer debate and greater discussion in Parliament.
The same applies to NAFTA. We on this side of the House are not against freer trade. We are the party that has historically promoted it. We know over the long term it produces the greatest benefit for all of our citizens. But free trade without a level playing field is selling out Canada's interest. That is what this government is prepared to do. That is why we will never support this NAFTA deal as proposed by this government.


Hon. Roy MacLaren (Etobicoke North):: Mr. Speaker, in the moment or two that remain before we break I want to underline the value of the amendment proposed by our colleague from Kenora-Rainy River.
It advances a comprehensive and thoughtful approach to labour standards within the agreement. Equally I would want to support the interventions of our colleague from Davenport and others who have spoken of the need for stronger environmental provisions to be incorporated in or around the North American free trade agreement.
Before turning to the substance of those two issues I want to join with my colleague from Willowdale in deploring the decision of the government to push through NAFTA without adequate debate.
We have the most bizarre situation of the principal trading partner, the United States, determined to wait and see what the side agreements will contain before offering to Congress implementing legislation. What has the Canadian government done? It has said: "No, we do not need to wait. These side agreements have nothing in effect to do with NAFTA. We have been proceeding with NAFTA since it is a stand alone matter and we will put it through the House of Commons this week".
May 25, 1993

We have not had an adequate debate of this major issue within our country. We had it neither in the committee where Liberals consistently urged more extensive hearings, more travel, more opportunity to hear from Canadians about their concerns. Here we have the same situation in the final stage. The government is pushing this important legislation through in a matter of three days. I cannot think that any government acting responsibly could lend itself to such a procedure.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It being one o'clock p.m., I do now leave the chair until two o'clock p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(2).
The House took recess at 1 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Alan Redway: Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate the minister of constitutional affairs on his appointment as UN envoy to the negotiations aimed at reuniting Cyprus and wish him well. He is an ideal person for the job.
For many years Canadians of Cypriot origin have been urging our government to become more directly involved in efforts to find a just and viable solution to the Cyprus problem, but as we have been part of the UN peacekeeping force since 1964 our government has been reluctant to do so.
However, we are now withdrawing our peacekeepers and Russia very recently vetoed an effort to extend the mandate of the entire UN peacekeeping force on Cyprus beyond next month. This makes the constitutional affairs minister's role both urgent and absolutely vital.
Twenty-nine years of Canadian peacekeeping on Cyprus must not be wasted.


PORTUGUESE CANADIANS
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Madam Speaker, across the country Canadians of Portuguese origin are celebrating 40 years of immigration to Canada. Historians tell us that 500 years would be a more accurate figure.
Portuguese explorers were among the first to see Canadian soil. Portuguese fishermen caught cod on the Grand Banks, but only a handful settled on the Atlantic coast.
Recent Portuguese immigration began in the 1940s and increased rapidly in the 1950s. By 1991 the number of Portuguese in Canada was estimated at about 250,000. The Portuguese immigrant is well known as a hard worker, a proud homeowner and a self-reliant member of the community.
Portuguese people have made a vigorous contribution to our economy in construction, trade and commerce, the arts, professions, farming and fisheries.
This anniversary prompts us to look ahead to the future and the challenge posed by changing employment opportunities. In doing so the Portuguese in Canada will continue to enjoy respect and admiration in the tradition of the great explorers of 500 years ago.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Madam Speaker, the proposed North American free trade agreement, NAFTA, and the legislation to implement it must be withdrawn.
In the name of free trade multinational agribusiness has sabotaged the farm support system that since the 1930s has protected farmers from the vagaries of the marketplace. If NAFTA is allowed to succeed measures to protect small and medium sized farms and their communities will likely be abolished.
In Canada in the name of free trade we have already lost domestic pricing of grain, the marketing of oats under the Canadian Wheat Board and quality meat inspections at the U.S. border.

May 25, 1993
We are now under threat of losing Wheat Board authority over marketing and borrowing, the payments to railroads to get Canadian grain to export, and the entire supply management system.
If we are ever to regenerate a sustainable, family-based system of agriculture it is necessary to defeat the concept of deregulation inherent in NAFTA. If agriculture is to survive, indeed if the economy-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I am sorry, the hon. member's time has expired.


BILL C-285
Mr. Bill Vankoughnet (Hastings -Frontenac-Lennox and Addington):: Madam Speaker, I rise today to voice my vigorous opposition to the Liberal private member's Bill C-285, an amendment to the oath of citizenship.
Bill C-285 seeks to erase a vital part of our heritage by removing reference to Her Majesty, the Queen's name, from Canada's oath of citizenship. This piece of legislation undermines the role and position of the monarchy in our government and Constitution and seeks to move Canada to an American style of government through a back-door approach.
For over 200 years the monarchy has been the most important influence in keeping our countiy together and creating a truly unique and distinct society in North America. The Crown has permitted and encouraged the development of representative institutions to serve Canadians whose ancestors have come from all comers of the world and has acted as a court of last appeal for all.
Our Queen unites Canadians of every ethnic background, and to remove reference to her in the oath of citizenship is nothing short of disgraceful. I urge members from all sides of this House, especially those-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I am sorry that I must interrupt the hon. member but the hon. member's time has expired.


POVERTY
Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Madam Speaker, since her appointment as the chair of the government's subcommittee on poverty the member for Don Valley North has unleashed a series of vicious verbal assaults and accusations against food banks and their many volunteers. Refusing to believe that poverty really exists in Canada she is trying to erase the old poverty line and redraw a new lower one so that fewer Canadians are officially counted as poor.
Last week the chair was reprimanded in public yet again, this time for secretly sending a member of her staff to lie and spy on the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto. Posing as a needy student a staff member left with four bags of food. Given the shortages facing food banks this year this act was morally reprehensible and completely irresponsible.
Therefore, I want to add my voice to those who have demanded that the Prime Minister immediately remove the member from her duties on this important committee. The actions and statements of the chair are completely inexcusable and she has repeatedly acted in poor faith and bad taste. She has become an embarrassment, even for this government which knows no level of embarrassment or shame.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member is really making accusations that do not belong in this place.


CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION
Mr.   J.W. Bud Bird@Fredericton-York-Sunbury: Madam Speaker, I wish to compliment the Canadian Forestry Association of New Brunswick upon the opening of its new headquarters in Fredericton, appropriately named The Tree House.
By establishing its new facility immediately adjacent to the legislature and the provincial offices in New Brunswick the Canadian Forestry Association has emphasized the importance of forestry on the agenda of our provincial government. Our forests rank as Canada's most important resource, both economically and environmentally, and they deserve high priority at all levels of government.
May 25, 1993

The Canadian Forestry Association is committed to maintaining the priority for forestry in Canada. It recognizes that if sustainable development is ever going to be practised successfully in Canada it must begin in our forests.


James Ross Fulton: Madam Speaker, there is a secret political club in this country composed of 100 major corporations. These corporations handle 70 per cent of Canada's exports and they have forged a political deal with the Liberals and Conservatives. Stage one of the deal was the free trade agreement.
It is now well known that the FTA cost hundreds of thousands of Canadians their jobs, families and life savings. Despite a near total media black-out on the North American free trade agreement, Canadians are starting to recognize the roles played by the Conservative-Liberal coalition to sell out Canada to the international profiteers.
It is clear that the Liberals and Conservatives voted together on December 1, 1992 in support of NAFTA in this House. On March 31, 1993, 38 Liberals failed to even show up to vote. NAFTA is 4,000 pages of special deals to cut wages, cut jobs, close plants, cut environmental protection, cut prices on resources, and cut social programs, to in effect remove Canadian sovereignty from every jurisdiction.
NAFTA is all about making the rich richer and the poor poorer, and that is why the Liberals are going to vote for it this week.


LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION
Ron J. Duhamel: Madam Speaker, last Thursday and Friday the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada came to Manitoba to visit various communities.
What were the major questions raised by seniors, businessmen and businesswomen, students and other Manitobans? They concerned the need for better jobs and better training programs leading to better jobs, control of the deficit and the debt in a realistic way, and protection of medicare.
The Liberal leader condemned the Tory leadership candidates who talked about user fees. He reaffirmed his commitment to universality in medicare, no user fees and no extra billing.

Thank you, Mr. Chretien, for coming to share with us your vision of a strong and united country, of a Liberal government.


TOBACCO SMUGGLING
Mr. Gilles Bernier (Beauce):: Madam Speaker, provincial and federal governments have made law-breakers of Canadians. People are openly selling and smoking smuggled cigarettes, while a number of Indian bands in the Montreal region control the tobacco and liquor smuggling trade.
The government has so far made a few seizures and increased fines, but it would make a lot more sense for the provincial governments and Ottawa to reduce excise taxes to reasonable levels, in order to kill the black market and recover the billions of dollars they are losing now.
We can hardly blame smokers for violating our tax laws on tobacco and encouraging smuggling, when taxes levied by both levels of government add up to $36 of the $48 retail price of for a carton of cigarettes.
Madam Speaker, it seems even a member of the RCMP was caught smuggling "Indian" cigarettes last week in Longueuil.


CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT
Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Madam Speaker, after much criticism from the Liberal opposition a member of the government party opposite has finally recognized the improper conduct of his government and colleagues.
Last Saturday the Conservative member for Portage- Interlake stated in the press:
The last eight years under Mulroney were done in a certain way, a
lot of activity took place and some was questionable.

May 25, 1993


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: He only said some.
What is the cause of this sudden burst of insightful commentary? Quite simply, the Tories know the wrath of the people will soon be upon them. They are now seeking to distance themselves from the present leadership.
Commenting on the hordes of lobbyists who skulk the capital and for years have successfully convinced their Conservative brethren in the Prime Minister's Office not to impose strict laws on their activities the member for Portage-Inter lake summed up the attitude of the government by stating:
Those are our pals and this is how we do business.
The people of Canada have seen enough of the Conservative way of doing business. When this government summons up the courage to call an election Canadians will put those members opposite out of business and out of office.


VICTIMS OF CONTAMINATED BLOOD
Guy St-Julien: Madam Speaker, on November 6, 1992, I asked the Minister of National Health and Welfare for a public inquiry into contaminated blood in Canada.
It is a tragic story, in which many victims could have been spared had greater vigilance been exercised and preventive action taken by federal and provincial governments and the Red Cross. We cannot let matters rest. In addition to the sad case of haemophiliacs who were affected, there are many important questions that will probably not be cleared up in the course of normal court proceedings. Only a full public inquiry will provide satisfactory answers.
More important than naming names is finding out how this could have happened and how to prevent a recurrence.
For the sake of all Canadians, we must have a public inquiry.


SALMON FISHERY
David Stupich: Madam Speaker, people involved in the fishing industry of B.C., both the fishers and the people working in the processing industries, are worried about NAFTA. They want Parliament to defeat it.
From a point of view of conservation and management of the resource, we have to know how many salmon are being caught and when they are being caught so that we can ensure an optimum escapement of each of the 2,500 or so families of salmon.
The free trade deal worked against this. The Americans now have the right to land 25 per cent of the salmon caught when they want to take them. We are told that under NAFTA it will become even more than that. The negotiations will continue until they have access to the whole of the resource and we will no longer be able to manage it properly.
In addition, the processing jobs are moving south as they get the right to take their own salmon. Once again, we are going to be losing jobs first to the Americans and from the Americans it will go down one step further and there will be Mexican jobs. There will be a great loss of management, conservation and employment. Vote against NAFTA is the message from B.C.


MANITOBA
Mr. Felix Holtmann (Portage-Interlake):: Madam Speaker, I hope the opposition quote me on this one as well.
When the Bob Rae NDP government was first elected in Ontario I ran an advertisement in The Globe and Mail inviting businesses to relocate in Manitoba to escape the coming trials and tribulations of the socialist regime, and some came.
Now it is even more pressing that businesses in Ontario look to other parts of Canada in search of more fertile soil in which to plant their roots.
May 25, 1993

Oral Questions



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD

[Stage Direction]
Bring me your downtrodden, your weary, your tax burdened individuals and your businesses that can no longer survive under the heavy yoke of the taxing socialist agenda. Go west young men and women, go west to Manitoba where there is hope for a prosperous future. Come to the land of endless sunshine where governments do not tax initiative and growth.
Come to the land of opportunity and strength, to where it is not considered an evil to make and keep a dollar. Come to Portage-Interlake in Manitoba where the member of Parliament will give to you what the NDP cannot-
['By ending his remarks the way he has just now, the hon. member has confirmed my previous ruling that this was turning into a personal attack. I think I was right to stop him then and I am right to stop him at this time.']
Madam Deputy Speaker:: Your time has expired.



Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Madam Speaker, today is National Missing Children's Day.
Our future as a flourishing and thriving society rests with children. Who among us has not looked into the eyes of a young child without seeing the glint of curiosity, the spark of intelligence or the simple love for life at the heart of the growing and learning process? Who can give us as much joy, happiness and fulfilment as children? The first step, the first word and the first musings, all these stages bond us as families. Children become a reason for being and raising them a main focus in life both for the family and society.
To lose one's child is a devastating incident that happens far too often. Statistics show that 61,000 children are missing in Canada, approximately 45,000 are thrown out or are runaways who need our special attention, 13,000 are unknown disappearances and 432 are parental abductions. These are alarming figures.
I commend the Solicitor General for announcing only today the publication of a manual to assist police in dealing with child abduction and runaway youth. However there still remains the problem of international abductions-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Your time has expired. I do apologize.


NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT
Hon. Jean Chretien (Leader of the Opposition):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Deputy Prime Minister.
Last week representatives from Canada, the United States and Mexico failed to reach an agreement on the NAFTA side deals. These are the same side deals the President of the United States, Mr. Clinton, says if they are not accepted he will not proceed with NAFTA and will not present the legislation to Congress.
Now that we see the negotiations are not over yet and there is a big impasse, why does the government want a blank cheque from the House of Commons? Why is the government not waiting to proceed with the legislation until we know the results of these negotiations?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, while it is true negotiations are ongoing with respect to improvements of the labour issues, the environmental issues and others, it still remains very clear from the leaders of all three countries that it is the intention to proceed with the ratification and the implementation of the North American free trade agreement by January 1, 1994, unamended I might say. There is also an undertaking that the free trade agreement will not be reopened.
The leaders of all three countries are on the same wavelength with regard to it and I expect it to proceed in a normal fashion.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Madam Speaker, the Minister of Finance chooses to ignore the very important fact that the President of the United States has clearly stated, as have the Senate and the House of Representatives, that they would not proceed with NAFTA without an agreement on labour conditions and the environment.
Last week we saw a major deadlock in the negotiations of Canada, Mexico and the United States on this question. This morning the Minister for International Trade was in the U.S. He made it clear he could not accept the conditions submitted by the U.S. government last week. Why does the government insist on having us

May 25, 1993
Oral Questions
vote on this bill, when it knows perfectly well that, by this fall, we may have an agreement that is totally different from what we have today?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, I do not share that view. Neither does the Government of Canada nor the other leaders. They have indicated very clearly the agreement would not be opened up and that it was their intention to implement the agreement on January 1, 1994.
The side agreements regarding surges, labour and environmental conditions, things the Government of Canada pursued very vigorously in the course of the discussions, will not affect the over-all body of the deal.
The commitment of all three leaders is that it will be implemented and ratified to take effect on January 1, 1994. We are proceeding on that basis.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Madam Speaker, that is not what the President of the United States has said. If there is no agreement on labour conditions or environmental conditions, the United States will not be part of the NAFTA deal. It is very clear it will not sign and will not deliver if it does not get its way.
Why is the government forcing us to vote on it when we are still negotiating with them? It is evident there is a big disagreement between Canada and United States so we should wait. Why does the government want to proceed? Is it just to try to make some political gain at the expense of the workers of Canada?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, the hon. member has been around long enough to know that in the course of negotiations certain positions are taken by respective countries to gain what they perceive as the best deal to suit their interests. That is the exercise that is going on now.


Roy MacLaren: Madam Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister has repeated several times today that the United States would proceed with NAFTA.
He must know the President has made it clear that without the two side agreements the United States now seeks the United States will not proceed. He must also know last week in the negotiations in Ottawa the United States made it clear that it would settle for nothing less than trade sanctions as a means of enforcing the so-called side agreements on environment and on labour standards.
Since there is apparently no middle ground between agreements which are enforceable and agreements which are not, can the government now tell us what the chief negotiator meant when he said there were "serious difficulties" for Canada in these proposals? What does it intend to do about these very serious difficulties?


Peter L. McCreath: Madam Speaker, what is important is that the President of the United States has made it perfectly clear he wants NAFTA implemented.
As for the side deals the discussions are going on. As occurs from time to time in discussions among different parties these are difficult at times. As indicated last week by the chief negotiator there are some differences of opinion.
The important thing is that NAFTA is not going to be changed and that is in the interest of Canada. We are putting forth legislation that will enable the government when the other parties have done the same to proceed with the implementation of the deal.
As for these discussions they will continue until such a time as they come together and agree to principles that are in Canada's interest and Canada agrees with.
In closing we think it is an excellent idea to have bilateral accords with respect to the environment, labour and the other areas, but not at the cost of NAFTA and not at the cost of Canada.


Roy MacLaren: Madam Speaker, in the absence of the Minister for International Trade let me direct a question to the parliamentary secretary who is answering for him.
May 25, 1993

Oral Questions
The United States has said repeatedly it would not proceed with NAFTA unless it got side agreements that were enforceable through trade sanctions.
Not many months ago the minister said that Canada would walk away from NAFTA if there were enforceable trade sanctions included. What is the position of the government today? Is that still its position? Can we assume NAFTA is dead in Canada if the United States continues to insist upon enforceable trade sanctions?


Peter L. McCreath: Madam Speaker, as I indicated in my previous answer, NAFTA and these side deals are separate.


Mr. Fontana:: They are not.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Bring in Michael Wilson.


Peter L. McCreath: If the Americans through their political process choose to link them for legislative purposes that is of course their privilege. Unlike our friends over there this government does not set its legislative agenda by rules from south of the border. We set our own agenda in accordance with what is in Canada's interest.
These discussions on environment, labour and the other things will continue to take place until such a time as the representatives of Canada are satisfied that what is being decided is in the Canadian interest and then we will proceed with those.


Hon. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Madam Speaker, may I first say on behalf of myself and my party that we wish Mr. Speaker all the best and a speedy recovery.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Madam Speaker, in the absence of the minister of trade my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister.
The most relevant quote today must surely have been in The Financial Post: "It has been a great month if you are an American looking for work in a Canadian company". What do they mean? Why? It is because Canadian companies are moving south at a very rapid rate.
Today's Financial Post provides all the evidence the government should need to reverse its views on the FTA and on the NAFTA. The Financial Post cites a series of companies that have moved south and that are making investments of up to $1.8 billion in the United States as a result of the trade deals.
The Deputy Prime Minister knows there are two million Canadians who would love to have jobs with that $1.8 billion Canadian. Will the minister and his government relook at the agreement and tell Canadians why his government wants to sign the NAFTA and have it passed in this House? It is going to sell out the jobs of Canadians to the United States.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, the hon. member knows very well that the bright spot in the Canadian economy has indeed been the export of goods, particularly manufacturing goods.
Friday's Montreal Gazette alluded to the fact that manufacturing fuels economic recovery: "In fact it may come as a surprise", and I am sure it comes as a surprise to the NDP, "that growth in manufacturing output in Canada has outstripped that of every other major industrial nation in the past year". That is what Statistics Canada stated in its annual report.
The member wants some examples of the advantages of the free trade agreement. Just in the last little while here are some examples of U.S. manufacturing operations moving into Canada or expanding into Canada: Heron Cable, Waterloo, Ontario; Intercity Products Corp., Brantford, Ontario; ISE Limited, formerly Sit-Rite, Mississauga, Ontario; J. L. De Ball, Montreal, Quebec; GTE Sylvania; Hughes Aircraft; Fasco Motors; GM Diesel. I could go on.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: I have a supplementary. Canadians are, of course, wondering where the jobs are, since the unemployment rate is now 11.4 per cent and over 13 per cent in Montreal. The minister knows perfectly well the unemployment rate is still going up.
My question is this: Why is the government in such a hurry to sign a new trade agreement that will reduce the standard of living of Canadians even further?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, it is precisely because we want to create new opportunities, better access to trade and secure access to trade, which will allow our manufacturers and our service oriented organizations to produce for the export market. To create a

May 25, 1993
Oral Questions
market of 360 million people is certainly to our advantage. To establish a set of trade rules with a dispute resolution mechanism that provides for freer trade and unfettered trade is clearly to our advantage because Canada has indeed proven to the world that it can compete with the best of them.
All we need is a clear set of rules, a dispute resolution mechanism and the opportunity to get in there to compete with the best of them and to penetrate those markets. That is precisely what we have done under the free trade agreement and that is precisely what we are doing under the North American free trade agreement.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Madam Speaker, what Canada needs is a fair set of rules, fair trading agreements and agreements that will create jobs here in Canada. That is not what Canadians have received.
It is clear that two-thirds of Canadians oppose the NAFTA. It is incomprehensible to this side of the House why the government insists on pushing through the deal this week.
I ask the Deputy Prime Minister: What kind of commitments has this government made? It wants to push the legislation through this week when it has not even been completed in the United States and, indeed, is not even completed. Has this government made specific commitments and if so, to whom? To the Prime Minister of Canada? To the United States? To the international business community? What are the commitments this government has made that necessitate ramming this through this week?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, I could say that more than two-thirds of the Canadian people do not share the views of the hon. member's party.


An hon. member:: It is 90 per cent.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Perhaps it is closer to 90 per cent, as my Liberal friend suggests. The fact is that individual companies have been in Mexico and have been out there exploiting the opportunities that are there. There are opportunities for western Canada, for central Canada, for eastern Canada. Why not get on with the job and create the proper environment, create the appropriate set of rules, create the appropriate dispute resolution
mechanism so we can deal in a fair and equitable manner with the best in the business.


Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the minister of health. Today, the House standing committee on health and welfare tabled its unanimous report on Canada's blood system and HIV. The committee recommends that a full public inquiry be established to look into the medical and social tragedy of the more than 1,000 Canadians contaminated with AIDS-infected blood.
Will the minister respect the will of the committee and establish a full public inquiry today?
Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of National Health
and Welfare): Madam Speaker, I received the report this morning. I accept and endorse the establishment of an inquiry that would focus on ensuring that the blood supply system in Canada continues to be safe.
I believe without question in the safety of the system itself today and the members of the committee have said that we have a safe blood management system in Canada. However, I believe it is time to examine the system itself. Because the provinces are obviously involved in the process I have written to them today. I have requested their collaboration in determining the terms of reference on the form, the composition and the mandate of the committee. I look forward to being able to launch the inquiry itself before the end of the summer. It will have to report within the next year to ensure we have an efficient and quick answer to the problems raised by the committee today.


Rey D. Pagtakhan: After repeated questions from this side of the House and now endorsed by the committee, the minister finally has agreed to the request we have been making for the last six months.
I have a supplementary for the minister. The unanimous report also recommends that the federal government revisit the compensation issue and I quote: "as a matter of urgency take the lead in establishing a process to identify and notify HIV-positive blood transfused persons in Canada". Is the minister prepared to tell the House today that he will also comply with the unanimous recommendations on these additional issues?
May 25, 1993


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Madam Speaker, if the member is impressed by what a member of his party has done, I am very much impressed by the member from Delta who chaired the committee and made the unanimous committee report.
I am going to be very honest with the member.


Ms. Copps:: You are still going to lose the election.


Benoît Bouchard: I believe it is important that the member from Hamilton listen for once when we are talking about one of the worst problems in the country. For once, let us try to listen to what we say.
I said to the member that the compensation package offered in 1989 by my predecessor was found by the Hemophiliac Society to be acceptable and sufficient, so I believe that this question will not be reviewed by the committee.
The last recommendation of the committee dealt with the way we can trace people with the problem. I will be in touch with organizations in Canada like the Red Cross association and the Canadian Public Health Association, to determine the best ways to find out whether there are many or any other people who would be in that situation.
I cannot recall having had any other case over the last five years.


POVERTY
Ms. Albina Guarnieri (Mississauga East):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Perhaps the minister will listen carefully to my question.
Last week the chair of the subcommittee on poverty admitted to having sent a staff member to masquerade as a poor person and intercept several bags of food from the Daily Bread Food Bank intended for the genuinely poor.
The same member told this House that the poor should be taught how to live with less food while her staff is busy pillaging the little food they still have. Will the minister explain why his government permits its
Oral Questions
poverty chief to carry out this kind of guerrilla attack on the food supply of the poorest of Canadians?


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I will of course allow the chairman of the committee to answer, should she decide that she wants to. I do not think this question concerns the administration of government but if the hon. member for Don Valley North wishes to answer, she may.


Barbara Greene: Madam Speaker, as usual the hon. member for Mississauga East has it all wrong.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I apologize. I will have to interrupt the hon. member. I am sure the House will help me today with this mistake. The chairman of a committee can only answer on questions of procedure. I did make a mistake in telling her she could answer.


Albina Guarnieri: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare.
Because the government is as responsible for its poverty chief as it is for the poverty of millions of Canadians, the government should know that Canada's largest food bank has filed a complaint with the metro fraud squad about the activities of this government's poverty chief.
When it comes to dealing with poverty this government is a fraud. Will the minister explain to the 69,000 children who depend on the Daily Bread Food Bank each month and for whom poverty is not a masquerade why his government's policies have condemned so many Canadians to be as poor as the ethics of the member for Don Valley North?
Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of National Health
and Welfare): Madam Speaker, I will let the Canadians who heard that question decide whether the hon. member was really worried about the children or was merely attacking the chairman of the committee.
Personally, the concern I have is for children and the poor. As a committee of the House it has the right to do what it wants to do. The minister himself deals with the problem referring to people. The hon. member knows very well that helped by the Minister of Finance, we have done what her government never did. We have put billions of dollars toward the children of Canada.

May 25, 1993
Oral Questions
If the member wants to be credible she should look after children and not use that kind of an attack against the chairman of the committee.


NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT
David Barrett: Madam Speaker, my question today is for the Minister of Justice or the minister taking his place. It relates to a report that I have in hand. The minister is here. I am glad you are here, Mr. Minister.


Mr. McDermid:: Put your glasses back on.


David Barrett: Yes, by golly, it is him. Is the minister aware of a report written by an intelligence officer of the U.S. embassy? It was released out of the national security archives and details initiatives by two Mexican drug cartels to use the North American free trade agreement as a conduit through the Maquiladora zone factories to ship drugs into Canada and the United States.
Can the minister tell this House whether or not the RCMP has been notified of these activities? What action does the RCMP intend to take?


Hon. Otto Jelinek (Minister of National Revenue):: Madam Speaker, I do not quite understand how the hon. member can tie in a free trade agreement, whether it is with the United States or Mexico or anywhere else, with the importation and smuggling of illegal substances into Canada or anywhere else.
In fact the free trade agreement with the United States has allowed our customs officers trained to protect Canadian society from the importation of drugs and illegal firearms, to be on the look-out for missing children, which we endorse today as part of Missing Children's Week, and to be able to apprehend and make more drug seizures at the border and across Canada in co-operation with the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies than before.
NAFTA and the free trade agreement have nothing to do with the importation of drugs other than allowing our customs officers more freedom to be on the look-out for such illegal substances.


David Barrett: Madam Speaker, my question for the minister was as to whether or not the RCMP had been notified of this report done by an intelligence officer for the National Security Agency.
I want to refer directly to the report and read a quote from it so we understand who is making the allegation about NAFTA. It is not I.
"The Rafael Munoz organization along with other well-known drug organizations in the Juarez and Tor-reon areas, states of Chihuahua and Coahuila, Mexico, intend to maximize their legitimate business enterprises within the auspices of the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement guidelines. Their plan calls for establishing Maquiladora assembly plants, free trade warehousing areas, fronted borderland purchases and other developments for future cross-border use. Once in place these operations can be used as fronts for drug trafficking activities into the United States".
This report was prepared for the United States government. Has the United States government made this government aware of the secret report it has prepared to alert police against this activity and what action has this government taken about it?


Otto John Jelinek: Madam Speaker, we are in constant co-operation and communication, not only with United States customs, but also with United States law enforcement agencies.
I can only repeat what I said in my answer to the hon. member's first question. NAFTA and the free trade agreement have nothing to do with increased importation of illegal drugs, other than allowing our well-trained officers the opportunity to have more time, more resources, more technology and a greater effort in dealing with missing children, the importation of illegal drugs, illegal firearms and other illegal substances into Canada.
Since the free trade agreement has come into effect, we have improved and increased our seizures of illegal drugs coming into Canada. That trend will continue with the signing of the NAFTA agreement.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for the Environment. She has been given notice of the question.
May 25, 1993

Oral Questions
Why did the Minister of the Environment award over $200,000 worth of untendered contracts to David Small, a communications consultant? How is it that these contracts are mysteriously split in such a way as to circumvent the $50,000 threshold of the Treasury Board?


Hon. Mary Collins (Minister of Western Economic Diversification and Minister of State (Environment) and Minister Responsible for the Status of Women):: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's notice.
The hon. member may recall last year in the lead-up to the Rio summit there was a great deal of anticipation of Canada's role. The Department of Environment decided it would require the services of someone with expertise to help develop and implement an appropriate communications plan.
In looking at the people available, the department selected Mr. David Small to undertake that work and he did a fine job. In fact he did so well the department asked him to carry on following the summit with a follow-up and with the implementation of the communications plan for the green plan.
He has carried out that work in a series of contracts, all of which are in compliance with Treasury Board guidelines. Mr. Small terminated his contract with the department in March of this year.


Don Boudria: Madam Speaker, if you believe that I have a portion of property in the Everglades to sell to the minister.
I want to ask the minister a supplementary question. She still has not answered why those contracts are untendered and why in particular was the $50,000 threshold circumvented.

What explanation does the minister have for the fact that her colleague, the Minister of the Environment, circumvented Treasury Board rules, not the rules of the opposition but the rules of Treasury Board, to reward a friend of the Tories? How do they justify that?


Mary Collins: Madam Speaker, I would like to assure my hon. colleague that the department did not circumvent those regulations. In fact each of the contracts was for less than $50,000.


Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister.
The sunken oil barge Irving Whale sits on the ocean bed off Prince Edward Island slowly spewing its poison cargo of over 3,000 tonnes of Bunker C oil on to the pristine beaches of the north shore and endangering the fisheries of Prince Edward Island.
Two years ago an inquiry was commissioned. It was delayed for a year. The report has been completed for six months and is still being kept under wraps.
How does the Minister of the Environment justify hiding this report? Why is there no action on its recommendations to end this environmental time bomb?


Mary Collins: Madam Speaker, again I assure my colleague there would be no attempt to hide anything. As information becomes available I will make sure that my hon. colleague receives it.
I am not familiar with the details of this issue but certainly as information is available I will advise my hon. colleague.


Marlene Catterall: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is for the same minister. This is the third time a minister in this House has answered that they are unfamiliar with the details of the situation and the report, showing an obvious unconcern for the endangered Prince Edward Island fishery, tourism, and environment.
The report was commissioned two years ago. It was stalled for a full year. It is now six months since the report was completed and it still has not been tabled with Parliament.

May 25, 1993
Oral Questions
Why is the minister refusing to table the report in Parliament? Why is he refusing to act immediately to get rid of this threat to Prince Edward Island?


Mary Collins: Madam Speaker, I can only repeat once again to my hon. colleague that any information which is available on this I will make available to her.
My understanding is there is no threat to Prince Edward Island but I will certainly provide any further information on this issue to her.


HEALTH CARE
Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the minister of health.
Every recent provincial budget has announced the restriction or curtailment of provincial drug programs due to the dramatic increase in drug prices caused in large part by the restriction on low-cost generic drugs as required under the FTA.
Can the minister explain how generic drugs can be reinstated or are we doomed to an Americanization of our health care system under NAFTA?


Benoît Bouchard: Madam Speaker, there is absolutely no relationship between them. I want to repeat what we have done about Bill C-91. It was a good bill and this was confirmed when we made an announcement last week in Toronto about medical research and the involvement of the companies for $40 million a year for five years minimum. This proves that what we said about Bill C-91 is coming true today.
In terms of the drug cost system I do not see the relationship with NAFTA. Canada has made its own policy at that level and there is no reason to believe it will change because we have a free trade agreement with the United States and Mexico.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Madam Speaker, my supplementary is for the same minister. Many Americans are also anxious about the increase in drug prices and are proposing the licensing of low-cost generic drugs.
Americans are considering adopting Canada's former system. When this happens will the government repeal Bill C-91 or is this prevented by the NAFTA agreement?


Benoît Bouchard: First of all, if I were to repeal Bill C-911 could forget the $200 million that the industry put into research last week. It was applauded by all in the research community in Canada.
Second, I am always impressed because the United States might want to do what we did before when we changed something that was best for Canada. I am sure the United States appreciated what we did and consider that we have one of the best health care systems in the world. The Americans applauded what we did with Bill C-91.


FISHERIES
Mr. Joe McGuire (Egmont):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration.
When the fishermen in Atlantic Canada compared the Atlantic Groundfish Assistance Plan with the Northern Cod Moratorium they found a great many glaring differences. Even though the situation for all the fishermen is the same, that is no fish, no income, the assistance offered is radically different.
Why has this minister pitted the groundfishermen in Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick against those in the northern cod area with this inferior, non-workable boondoggle of a package?


Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Madam Speaker, the hon. member should recognize that the situation in the maritime provinces and in the province of Quebec in the fisheries is totally different from the moratorium that was imposed in Newfoundland and Labrador. The fisheries in Labrador and in Newfoundland for cod were completely shut down, a moratorium. There is no such thing in the maritime provinces.
The measures we have put in place are designed to help those people who are affected by the reduced quotas because of the reductions announced in December of last year. These programs are designed to try to help people adjust to this reality. I think the efforts of the government along with the private sector are paying off.
May 25, 1993

Oral Questions


Joseph Blair (Joe) McGuire: Madam Speaker, when you cut a quota by 70 per cent you might as well close the fishery because fishermen can no longer afford to gear up to catch the 30 per cent. In effect the situation in the gulf region is the same as in Newfoundland.
The minister knows this package is vastly inferior to Newfoundland's cod moratorium. For example, the package in the gulf is only for one year. The gulf fisherman could lose his licence because there is no buy-back program and there is little loan assistance. Worst of all, the package is not ready and will not be for two or three months. Fishermen finished their unemployment insurance on May 15.
Will the minister do as he did in Newfoundland and provide assistance now and claim it back when the package is finally ready?


Bernard Valcourt: Yes, indeed, we will move now. As a matter of fact, fishermen and plant workers can go to the CEC office tomorrow to make their applications.


UNEMPLOYMENT
Maurice Brydon Foster: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Labour.
Last month the minister received a notice from Algoma Central Railway that it plans to lay off some 250 workers this October. It asked for a waiver of the compulsory 16-week notice period to the workers. Has the minister taken any action with regard to that notice? It will be due within a month.
If he is going to give that waiver, what action is the government taking to ensure that those jobs are maintained? This city and this district have suffered enough under this government. I want to know what action the government has taken to ensure that these jobs at Algoma Central are continued.


Hon. Marcel Danis (Minister of Labour):: Madam Speaker, I can tell my hon. friend that I will look very closely at the request from Algoma.
Concerning the jobs, my hon. friend knows that the government has already put in a substantial package with regard to Algoma in the past and I am sure that we will do the best that we can for the workers in the future.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Madam Speaker, I am talking about Algoma Central Railway. I am not talking about Algoma Steel Corporation. We know that the government did very little there. We want to know about Algoma Central Railway.
We know that the deal being negotiated between Algoma Central Railway and the Ontario government is very uncertain. We note that the Ontario government has made it clear it is not going to continue to provide the $9 million support program that it has in the past. We also know that some 2,000 jobs in Algoma district depend on the Algoma Central Railway, not only in tourism, but in transportation, freight and so on.
I want to ask the minister this. Is there a contingency program available or a plan to ensure that those 2,000 jobs are not lost, that Algoma Central Railway continues to operate and that jobs are maintained?


Marcel Danis: Madam Speaker, my friend knows that within the Department of Labour the Program for Older Worker Adjustment will apply to people who lose their jobs, provided that the criteria is met with regard to the significance of loss of jobs within the community, the 13 years that they have worked out of the past 20 and if they are 55 to 64 years old. This is the program within the Department of Labour.
My hon. friend knows also that there are multiple programs within the department of employment. I am sure that the minister of employment will also make those available to those workers that he is talking about.


EMPLOYMENT EQUITY
Alan Redway: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Employment and Immigration who is aware that over one year ago, in May 1992, the special committee on the review of the Employment Equity Act tabled its report in the House.

May 25, 1993
Oral Questions
When will the government respond to that report and when will it be introducing legislation to implement its response?


Hon. Pauline Browes (Minister of State (Employment and Immigration)):: Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for the question and also to commend him for chairing the special committee to review the employment equity legislation.
As the House knows our government was the first to introduce employment equity legislation. This pioneering law responded to a clear, vital and evident need for all Canadians to participate fully within the work force.
We are considering the special committee's ideas carefully and will table the government's response to the special committee report as soon as possible. At that time we will be looking to improve this initiative which has already made great strides in achieving fairness in the work place for all Canadians.


MUNICIPAL TAXATION
Mr. J. W. Bud Bird (Fredericton-York-Sunbury):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works.
In the December mini budget it was announced that there would be a freeze on federal grants in lieu of property taxes. The minister undertook that negotiations with the Canadian Federation of Mayors and Municipalities would be proceeding.
In New Brunswick all municipal tax assessment and all municipal tax collection is carried out by the province of New Brunswick on behalf of the municipalities. I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary if any arrangements have yet been concluded with the province of New Brunswick with respect to taxes on federal properties and for the dissemination of those taxes to the municipalities affected in our province.


Mr. Dave Worthy (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Public Works):: Madam Speaker, I think the first thing I should point out is that it is a very good question.
The situation in New Brunswick is similar to the one in Prince Edward Island. These are the only two provinces which administer the grants in lieu of taxes on behalf of
all of the municipalities within their province. Like other municipalities across the country, they are participating in discussions with the Department of Public Works. These discussions are ongoing. The grants in lieu of taxes will be at the same level as 1992.
I expect that the same levels will be achieved in New Brunswick as they were last year which was in the neighbourhood of $18 million.
5ft *	*


NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT
Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, during the negotiations for the Mexico-U.S.-Canada trade deal the Deputy Prime Minister will know that people were concerned about the selling of raw logs to the United States. Therefore the government made an exemption of raw logs. They were concerned about unprocessed fish being processed in the United States so it made an exemption for unprocessed fish, at least for the east coast.
Knowing the concern that Canadians have about the export of our lakes and river water for sale in the United States and northern Mexico, will the Deputy Prime Minister indicate why water was not identified explicitly as an exemption in the NAFTA?


Peter L. McCreath: Madam Speaker, I must say I sat here the other day while my hon. friend ripped up his copy of NAFTA. I am glad to see he has it back together again. Hopefully he will get his caucus similarly reunited in its economic policies before long.
I want to remind him that water as a bulk thing is in fact exempted from NAFTA completely. The only way in which it is included within NAFTA is as a manufactured good in bottles or things like that.
My hon. friend can have the assurances that in fact water has been exempted from NAFTA in the same way as it was under the FTA.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I have received notice of a question of privilege, and I will hear the hon. member for York West.
May 25, 1993


PRIVILEGE
Sergio Marchi: Madam Speaker, toward the latter part of my statement under Standing Order 31 in the 15 minutes preceding Question Period I was commenting on the actions of a colleague on that side, namely the member of Parliament for Don Valley North. I was offended as a member of Parliament that she would have had the audacity to send one of her staff members to basically spy and lie at a food bank.


Some hon. members:: Order.


Sergio Marchi: She put out a press release-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Andre:: Have you heard of free speech?


Mr. Keyes:: Stick around, Harvie, for your turn.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I did interrupt the hon. member as he was completing his statement.


Sergio Marchi: You reprimanded me.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Yes, I did.


Sergio Marchi: What for?


Madam Deputy Speaker:: What for is a question on which I would very much like to bring the hon. member back to our rules. He will find that commentaries under Standing Order 31 should not include personal attacks- and it does say so very clearly-congratulatory messages, poetry or clearly frivolous statements. I do not think the hon. member's statement was frivolous in any way, but I think it was a personal attack on the member and Standing Order 31 was certainly not the place to do it.
I did stop the hon. member at the time. I wish he would not go on at this time to repeat the personal attacks he started to make during his statement under Standing Order 31.


Sergio Marchi: Madam Speaker, I respect the ruling of the Chair but I wish to say, simply for the Chair's purposes, that I was not attacking the member of Parliament for Don Valley North personally. I was questioning why she would send a member of her own
Privilege
staff to essentially take four bags of food that were very much in need and to suggest to food bank operators that he needed the food when he did not.
She took responsibility for that action. She sent out a press release suggesting and admitting she did that. It was the subject of media scrutiny over the weekend. I simply wanted to avail myself of the opportunity under Standing Order 31 to say that my colleagues and I on this side find that action irresponsible and repugnant.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: By ending his remarks the way he has just now, the hon. member has confirmed my previous ruling that this was turning into a personal attack. I think I was right to stop him then and I am right to stop him at this time.



['The Chair will take the question under advisement.\nThis is a very serious matter. There is certainly privilege involved when a committee report is made public before it is brought to the House.\nI will reserve judgment and come back to the House as soon as possible.']
Albina Guarnieri: Madam Speaker, I am at a loss as to why you ruled my first question out of order since the point of my question was that this government was responsible for the activities of its poverty chief.
My point is that poor Canadians have been ripped off by having the poverty chair-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I do not think the hon. member can hold the government responsible for the action of one person which is why I called-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The chairman of a committee. This is not the government acting and this is why I interrupted the hon. member. I hope this answers her question.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I realize you have ruled that the chair of the committee is in no way obligated to speak. She obviously was rising in her place. I know she wants to address the House. May I suggest that you seek unanimous consent to permit the chair of the committee to make a statement.


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.

May 25, 1993
Privilege


Madam Deputy Speaker:: As you may remember, during Question Period I was prepared to allow the hon. member as chairman of the committee to answer the question.
I was later reminded-and I think people will understand that in the new setting today maybe I was in a bit of a quandary over the particular rule-the hon. member as chairman of the committee is allowed to answer questions on procedure and so on. Of course at this point with the consent of the House everything is possible; there would be unanimous consent for the hon. member to answer.


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: The government says no. Muzzle her.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: There is no unanimous consent.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: I didn't hear a thing.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: It happens sometimes but I did this time.


Mr. Tobin:: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. To be perfectly clear, will the record show that both opposition parties gave unanimous consent for the member to speak?


Madam Deputy Speaker:: This is not a point of order. Consent was not given. I am prepared to listen.



Madam Deputy Speaker:: Earlier today there was an application for emergency debate under Standing Order 52. The Chair has considered the application put forward by the hon. member for Skeena for an emergency debate on the Kemano II dam project in British Columbia.
As I mentioned to the House at the time I wished to examine this matter and get back with the decision as soon as possible. While the Chair acknowledges that the matter raised by the hon. member is one of importance, it does not meet with the provisions of Standing Order 52 at this time to give permission for a debate.


PRIVILEGE
Mr. Stan Wilbee (Delta):: Madam Speaker, as chairman of the subcommittee on health issues I wish to raise a question of privilege regarding the apparent leak to the media of our latest report on the blood transfusion system in Canada.
Members of the committee have worked long and hard to produce a significant report, unfortunately the effect of which has been damaged by the release of material prior to presentation to the House. This establishes a serious problem for all future committees in producing reports that could be leaked for any number of reasons.
I would therefore ask that you consider the appropriate course that should be taken in light of action which I consider to be a gross contempt of the parliamentary rules and procedures.


Rey D. Pagtakhan: Madam Speaker, I would also like to rise on the question of privilege emanating from the apparent premature release of the report of the subcommittee on health issues, on which I sat, by the mother committee of health and welfare.
I have given you notice in advance, Madam Speaker, as well as the chair of the standing committee on health and welfare, the chair of the subcommittee on health issues and other members of that subcommittee.
I submit the privileges of members of the House of Commons have been breached by the apparent premature release of the draft report of the subcommittee on health issues regarding the HIV tainted blood, which report was due to be tabled today and in fact was tabled this morning. I would like to state at the outset that I did not release the document to the public and I would like to believe no member of the committee did either.
I believe my colleagues uphold the principle of parliamentary privilege as I do. Naturally I am hurt that a colleague from the government side, the member for Don Valley North, would suggest the possibility that opposition members both in the NDP and my caucus could have released it only because we allowed ourselves to be interviewed by the media.
May 25, 1993

For my part I talked to the media only when called and with the explicit understanding that I could only discuss the testimony of witnesses which is in the public domain and my opinions on the issue. The two issues on which I did discuss my opinions were ones I had already raised more than once in questions in the Chamber for over six months.
Of course I did not indicate to the media how committee members reacted to my views and my opinions at any time. In fact one of the media reports indicated I neither confirmed nor denied the report. I dealt with that with great care.
The member for Don Valley North indicated in The Hill Times of May 20, 1993: "This is very wrong and I have noticed that Conservative members of the committee have not been discussing the report until it is tabled. Stan Wilbee is refusing to speak although Chris Axwort-hy and Rey Pagtakhan are speaking. So one or both of them are the ones who released the report", said the member for Don Valley North.
I demand an apology from the member for Don Valley North. I ask her to stand and I will accept that apology.
I believe it is a question of privilege. It is in violation of the proper order of proceedings that this document should have reached the press before it had been tabled in this Chamber. The essence of confidentiality on this issue is to ensure equal opportunity of access to reports of the House of Commons by all Canadians. If we release the report ahead in the House all members of Parliament have equal access to this report and therefore all Canadians from coast to coast at the same time.
The parliamentary tradition of first access in the House of Commons ensures that information indeed is equally accessible to all Canadians. I would submit the temptation to be quoted ahead of others is a natural human trait, but in order to sustain the life of this privilege and the principle of equality on which it stands we must guard against the temptation.
Who released the report remains the question. It is important that no precedent be set to accept such flagrant disregard for the discipline of confidentiality. I ask you, Madam Speaker, to look into the matter. If you find there has indeed been a breach of the privilege of
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this member and other members of this Chamber I will be prepared to make the appropriate motion at that time.


Barbara Greene: Madam Speaker, I would like also to ask you to investigate this matter because of the hard work the chair of the committee has done in particular and the other members. This advanced release of the report meant that they were not included in the media commentary. We know that the standing committee members did not receive an advance copy of the report through an error of the clerk's department. The list of people who could have released the report is indeed a very small one. If in fact it was not the hon. doctor from Winnipeg on the other side then I apologize to him.
That leaves only one other person I am aware of as well as of course the member for Halifax who was at the standing committee where it was presented.
I think that it is a very small list of people and certainly some sort of investigation should be done because it has certainly violated the privileges of all the members of Parliament on this very important issue.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The Chair will take the question under advisement.
This is a very serious matter. There is certainly privilege involved when a committee report is made public before it is brought to the House.
I will reserve judgment and come back to the House as soon as possible.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of Bill C-115, an act to implement the North American free trade agreement, as reported, with amendments by a legislative committee; and Motions Nos. 1, 7, 27, 30, 31, 32 and 33.
[Stage Direction]
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: At the suspension of the debate the hon. member for Etobicoke North had eight minutes remaining.


Roy MacLaren: Mr. Speaker, before we broke I was underlining the irresponsibility of the government in bringing forward the NAFTA legislation for final disposition this week when we obviously do not yet know what those two side agreements to which I referred earlier will contain.
The United States has made its position very clear that it will not proceed until such time as it is certain of what will be in the side agreements. Yet the Canadian government continues to take the view that somehow the side agreements are irrelevant to the central issue of NAFTA when it must know perfectly well that the side agreements-if they mean anything-will entail differences in how the agreement is interpreted and applied.
In these circumstances we on this side of the House are strongly opposed to the procedure that this government has chosen to follow. It has not provided Canadians with the opportunity to debate or even to understand because it does not itself understand what will be in the two side agreements.
Earlier today my colleagues drew attention to the fact that the central issue concerning how side agreements on labour and environmental standards would be enforced has not been resolved. Only this past week here in Ottawa a major road block was encountered when the United States took the view that the side agreements should have what has been loosely called teeth but in fact are the provisions for enforcement through the application of trade sanctions.
The government has never indicated to the House or to the Canadian people what form such trade sanctions might take. It has merely said through its chief trade negotiator that such trade sanctions are unacceptable.
Surely on an issue of this importance all Canadians should know what the standards would be. Also, they should know the role of the proposed tripartite environmental commission and a parallel commission on labour standards and what those would have as their mandate. Finally, they should know what ability tripartite organizations would have to encourage compliance with the standards.
There are precedents available both in national law and in international law to suggest resolutions of this issue, however, on the eve of shoving and pushing through the NAFTA legislation we do not find any indication from this government as to its stance with regard to enforcement.
It is well known that in the case of Mexico the labour laws and more particularly the environmental laws are of a generally high standard. The issue or the problem has been that those standards have not been applied presumably largely because of the inability of the Mexican government to muster the resources to apply those standards.
It is not beyond the wit of humankind to devise methods of resolution and of application if time is given to serious consideration of these issues. Instead of providing that opportunity for the Canadian Parliament to offer its views and to offer its advice on how best to proceed, the Canadian government is proceeding quite unlike the United States and quite unlike Mexico.
The United States Congress will not be asked to pass judgment on implementing the legislation until such time as the side agreements are completed. It is evident that the Mexican Senate is not proceeding rapidly to endorse or ratify the agreement.
The result is that of the three parties to the proposed agreement it is only Canada which is acting in this precipitous fashion. It is beyond our imagination on this side of the House what possible motive the government must have for doing this.
If the government could explain its position, which it consistently has failed to do, then we might better understand why it is that it is in such a rush. In the absence of such explanations all we can ask is why it is in a rush. What is the hurry? Why is it that the government is proceeding in this precipitous fashion?
It intends to apply time allocation tomorrow. By Thursday afternoon, if it follows that path, presumably the NAFTA legislation will be out of the House of Commons. If we can infer from its actions in the House of Commons what its intention would be in the Senate then we can conclude that the government will apply time allocation in the Senate and we shall have the NAFTA legislation out of the Canadian Parliament by mid-June.
May 25, 1993

By mid-June we will know little more-if anything- than we know today about the intentions of the United States, why the United States has put forward its proposals on side agreements, what its commitment to those specific proposals are and to what degree it regards those proposals as negotiable with Mexico and Canada. Is it that in fact Mexico and Canada are merely spectators at a negotiation between the United States administration and the United States Congress?
Anyone who has had contact, as it were, with the United States Congress in the past will recognize that quite often in international agreements the situation arises whereby the administration, after prolonged negotiation with the U.S. Congress, finally comes up with what it regards as a solution to the problem. Then it says to its international partners: "That is the agreement between the President and the Congress and do not think you or we are going to change one comma or period in that agreement. That is it. Thke it or leave it".
Is that the situation that Canada wants to be placed in? Is that wise? Is that why the government is acting today? Does it seriously think that it is to Canada's advantage to proceed with this legislation when these and a myriad of other questions remain to be resolved?


Ms. Lynn Hunter (Saanich -Gulf Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I am privileged to participate in this debate this afternoon. To begin I think it would be useful for the members of this House and those watching to understand where we are in history and how we came to be where we are now.
Of course in early 1989 the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was passed by this House. After the Bush administration had been successful in completing that task, it then looked southward to have a trade arrangement with its southern neighbour, Mexico. The Canadian government at that time realized that it was going to be scuppered if it did not try to participate in that trade arrangement with Mexico. It decided to crash the party, as it were. In that arrangement there was a lot of me-tooism on the part of the Canadian government.
Government Orders
Subsequently there was a presidential election campaign in which George Bush went up against Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton had to distinguish himself from George Bush on the issue of the North American free trade agreement. All of a sudden the wisdom of participating in a trade arrangement with Mexico was put in some doubt. However, does Canada change its position in the light of this new information? Oh, no. The me-tooism just carries on. Even after the party has been proven a bust we still want to crash it. This is called sanity gone completely amok.
Before getting into the substance of debating the amendments before us this afternoon, I want to put my comments in context. We are opposed to the North American free trade agreement. That is unequivocal. It is not just the procedures of this government's implementation of this legislation, it is the legislation itself that we are opposed to.
I also have no confidence that any supplemental agreements will adequately address environmental or labour concerns. I feel that the concerns in any trade arrangement that is made on any basis with any group should be embedded within the agreement.
The North American free trade agreement has huge gaps on environmental standards and labour law. Therefore I think it is fundamentally flawed and no supplemental agreements will address those concerns.
That being said, the amendments proposed by my colleague from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca are an attempt in the face of this blind determination on the part of the government to pass the North American free trade agreement to humanize this very inhumane legislation.
To us it is utterly mystifying why the government is rushing to pass the North American free trade agreement legislation. Whose agenda is this anyway? What is the almighty rush?
I was in Halifax 10 days ago and met with colleagues from the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Senate. There is considerable doubt as to whether or not the legislation will pass in the United States. They are concerned that there are inadequate provisions for environmental standards and for labour law. Just this past week we have learned that the Canadian government negotiators have

May 25, 1993
Government Orders
split with their American counterparts on those supplemental agreements.
The Americans very much want strong enforceable tariffs so they can ensure that the laws they bring forward can be enforced. Canada is saying no. No, we do not want them to be enforced; we do not want trade sanctions to make certain that environmental or labour legislation is respected. So the U.S. and Canada have split on this.
The question should be asked; How can this split foster our negotiating stance at the table? Why should Canadians have any confidence at all in the ability of the Canadian negotiators to represent the interests of Canadians?
I know from first-hand experience how little faith there is in Canadian negotiators after the Canada-U.S. agreement. I ask the government why should the fish plant workers and the fishermen on the west coast, or the east coast for that matter, have any faith that the Canadian negotiators are working in their interests? If these negotiators are, as the government suggests, working in the best interests of Canadian citizens, the question of wages becomes a topic for vety real scrutiny.
My colleague from Kamloops has done a lot of research on this issue. He has come up with some frightening figures. As we all know, the map of North America is like an upside-down triangle. Well, the upside-down triangle is very real when it comes to wages. For jobs such as computer technicians or similar skill levels, in Canada the wage rate is $18 per hour. In the northern tier states-the triangle is getting a little narrower here-it is $12 per hour. For the border states, that is, Texas, the southern states, Florida, and so on, it goes down to $6.50 an hour. These rates are for similar skill levels. In Mexico those jobs pay 60 cents an hour.
What kind of logic would say that a negotiator is going to convince any investor to locate a plant in British Columbia when he can make that same investment in Mexico and have workers work for 60 cents an hour as opposed to $18 an hour in British Columbia? When we have negotiators using that kind of logic I am concerned not just as a parliamentarian but as a parent. How can I tell my children there will be jobs in the future when we
have a government that is negotiating that kind of a trade deal?
We are just focusing on the labour costs. I have spoken a number of times on the environmental provisions in NAFTA, but there are frightening pictures of environmental concerns along the Maquiladora where there are open sewers and no environmental standards or no enforcement of any environmental provisions that are there.
The amendments we are debating today relate to environmental and social conditions. This agreement is a bad deal for Canada. It is a bad deal for workers. It is certainly a bad deal for anyone who wants sustainable development in the future. It has no vision or only one that is tainted by the greed of the transnational corporations.
As politicians we have more to answer to than those in the boardrooms of our country. We have to answer to the workers and to future generations. This is a bad deal for Canadians, a bad deal for workers everywhere.


Mr. Alex Kindy (Calgary Northeast):: Mr. Speaker, it is with interest that I listen to this debate that concerns not just Canada, but more particularly the people of Canada.
Last Saturday, May 15, there was a tremendous rally on Parliament Hill. About 60,000 people marched in opposition to this agreement. These were ordinary people, people who are part of the Canadian fabric, workers, plumbers and others representing average Canadians.
Those people decided that this deal was not a good deal. They felt that it was premature to talk about free trade with the United States and Mexico. One of their reasons was that because of the free trade agreement with the United States, Canada has lost over 450,000 manufacturing jobs. Those jobs will never, never come back to Canada.
We are not in a position to be competitive with the United States and Mexico. I am not saying that trade as such is not a good idea, but before engaging in a free trade situation, we have to have conditions that allow us to be competitive. Those conditions do not exist right now in Canada.
May 25, 1993

First, our interest rates are much higher than those in the United States. Therefore, the manufacturer that has to borrow money has to pay much more for it. Second, it is a fact that taxation is about 10 per cent higher in Canada than in the United States. Therefore, why would any manufacturer locate a plant here if he knows that people who work in the United States or Mexico have a much lower rate of taxation? These two factors do not allow us to be competitive and as long as we do not have the same level of taxation, whether it is in the United States or Mexico, we will be the losers.
Another factor is that our climate is much harsher and therefore, it is much more expensive to produce goods in Canada. Just to give an example, even though they love Canada, most Canadians like to spend the winters in the south. In the past we have seen industries move to the United States, to Atlanta and the south because production and labour costs are much cheaper there.
All those reasons are not conducive to having a free trade agreement that will benefit Canada.
This particular NAFTA agreement has many serious flaws. 1 would like to cite one. It is on page 16 of the North American free trade agreement and concerns intellectual property: "This section also provides rules for protecting trade secrets generally, as well as for the protection from disclosure by the government test data submitted by firms regarding the safety and efficacy of pharmaceutical and agrichemical products".
This is a very serious matter. Looking back in history, we know what happened to the thalidomide victims. At that time the test data had not been divulged and people were taking thalidomide. As a physician I remember pharmaceutical agents visiting our offices and telling us that this medication was 100 per cent safe. Later the test data showed there were abnormalities in foetuses.
With this agreement the pharmaceutical companies would be able to protect test data showing that pharmaceutical products such as that would be dangerous. For that reason alone we are losing our sovereignty. If we sign this agreement we will not be able to control data that should be available to the general public.
Government Orders
It is known that Bill C-91 concerns pharmaceutical companies which are mostly foreign owned. That bill protects their patents for 20 years. Our generic companies are losing ground. This is not creating jobs in Canada. For that reason and many others working Canadians know very well that this deal will hurt them. It certainly does protect major corporations, but the home offices of those corporations are not in Canada and they do not have the interests of Canada in mind.
What we need are small businesses that are Canadian by nature. We know those businesses create more jobs than any free trade agreement would.
The European Economic Community has a free trade deal, but that deal is completely different. In Europe the countries are closer together and there is very little difference in the pay scales. Therefore it benefits Europe to some extent.
Sweden wanted to get into the European Community but it was decided it could not join. It would not be competitive with the other countries because of its taxation structure and productivity. Therefore it is still waiting as it has not solved its problems inside the country.
I think the same applies to Canada. As long as Canada has lower productivity, higher taxation and higher interest rates than the United States, it cannot be competitive.
Another question I would like to ask is as to how this deal would solve our debt and deficit problem. I am sure it will not. It is going to aggravate that problem because we are in debt. How are we going to pay the debt of $660 billion that all levels of government owe to Canadians and to foreigners? With that deal we will never pay that back and we will become the Panama of North America.


Mac Harb: Mr. Speaker, I join with my colleagues on this side of the House in opposing the legislation as it is proposed by the government for many reasons. I would like to share with you as well as with the public a few of those reasons.
The free trade agreement came into effect on January 1, 1989. There had been a lot of promises on the part of the government. One of its promises was that when the agreement had taken effect a lot of adjustment programs

May 25, 1993
Government Orders
would be put in place in order to deal with displaced workers. There would be programs to train and retrain the work force and so on.
We have seen a lack of initiative on the part of the government in those areas. In fact we have seen the opposite since the signing of this deal. While the Canadian and the American governments have agreed on the elimination of trade barriers, unfortunately we have seen a lot of discrimination when it comes to Canadian products such as softwood lumber, steel, wheat and meat.
One would suggest that those products were discriminated against by the Americans basically because there has been no agreement on the definition of a subsidy. Having said that, unless the subsidy question is resolved I would suggest that the same sort of scenarios will develop if and when the North American free trade agreement is implemented.
The subsidy question is still up in the air and the different parties are dancing around it without being able to tackle it head on. That is one problem we are faced with.
The second problem we are faced with is that there has been no guarantee in the event the North American free trade agreement is put in place that a multilateral committee would be able to resolve all of the trade disputes between different countries. There is no guarantee that committee would be able to do so without a proper definition of what forms a subsidy and what does not form a subsidy. Our work is cut out for us.
On the other hand, the government is rushing this legislation through at an incredible speed, way over the speed limit, to pass it through the House of Commons and pass it through the Senate. Only then will it stop without giving it final approval. Royal assent will not be given to the North American free trade agreement until both the American and Mexican governments have received approval of the North American free trade agreement from their legislators.
It has already been stated by the President of the United States that this deal will not go through the United States Congress and the Senate without having a parallel agreement along with it. On the other side, our government is saying that is not the case. As members of
Parliament who are representing the people of this country we should be given the clear goods in terms of what the position of the government is in the event the parallel agreement does not go through.
What is the position of this government in the event that the American government does not approve the free trade agreement over the next few weeks? I might suggest that the government will end up with egg all over its face. Simply put, there is no reason for us to be in the position we are in to push for a legislation when we have absolutely no clear indication or a clear statement on the part of the American government that it will go through.
Unlike our colleagues in the NDP we do not want to see walls built around Canada. We do not want to lock ourselves in. We are a party that believes in fair and freer trade. At the same time we do not want to see ourselves in a position whereby we are giving everything away without trying to put the fundamentals in place in order to protect the interests of Canadian business and the people of Canada as a whole.
I might suggest that this particular agreement, and the way the government is handling it, is not in the best interests of Canadian business, the Canadian public or the government.
The government will have no credibility after June 15 or June 23 when it goes to the negotiating table when the Senate and the House of Commons have already approved it. The government will have played the last card in its hand. Our negotiators will not be in the best position they could have been if the government had waited to have the legislation approved by this House and by the other place.
It is gambling at the expense of both Canadian business and the Canadian public, gambling that is not going to be in the best interests of Canadians.
There are a lot of things we would like to see happening to both the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and eventually the North American free trade agreement. We must have a clear and unequivocal statement on the question of subsidy codes. We also must have a clear understanding and a clear statement on the question of the anti-dumping code.
May 25, 1993

We also must have an effective dispute resolution mechanism because obviously what we have before us now is not solving the question of disputes and is not really dealing with all of the disputes before us in an effective manner.


Roy MacLaren: That's why we get in trade disputes.


Mac Harb: Absolutely.
We also must have a clear understanding of labour standards among all three countries, Canada, the United States and Mexico, as well as a clear understanding of the environmental standards among the three countries. We also must have similar protection when it comes to energy, as they have in Mexico.
However our position on the North American free trade agreement as it stands right now is unequivocally clear. We will not be supporting the legislation as it is proposed before the House of Commons. As I have clearly stated earlier, my party does not believe in building walls around Canada, as the New Democratic Party wants to do. It has voted that it will not support any free trade agreement, not this free trade agreement, not the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, not any agreement. When someone is opposed to any trade whatsoever, one would question the motive.
On the other side, the government has decided to give away everything without tiying to protect the interests of the business community and the labour community in Canada, as well as people at large. We have those two extremes.
The Liberal Party position on this issue is clearly the right position. With that I would join with my colleagues in voting against the legislation.


Ron Fisher: Mr. Speaker, I certainly will be addressing some of the issues raised at the end of the previous speaker's speech because the implication that New Democrats are opposed to trade is one of the most spurious arguments that has come up of late.
I would like to start by congratulating the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca for having made the amendments he has to the proposed legislation by the government. In this particular group he has proposed an
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amendment affecting a matter of labour adjustment. There certainly will have to be labour adjustment because if this agreement goes into effect the dislocation of wage earners in Canada, not just hourly workers, is going to be phenomenal. It will be much worse than the dislocation which occurred as a result of the free trade agreement with the United States.
We know that there was literally no adjustment at all. The committee set up to look into it proposed that there was not that much of a dislocation and adjustment was not needed. It is certainly open to question because we have had enormous dislocations because of it. This is a precautionary amendment to make sure it does not happen again.
He is also proposing that we address the matter of a social charter as it relates to the further dislocations which occur in our society and workers' protections for certain programs. I do hope I will have time to address some of these issues in more detail later.
He also proposes an amendment concerning the right of association, something which touches on organizing as far as labour is concerned. He also addresses forced labour and equality of pay between men and women. Another amendment which the speaker for Esquimalt- Juan de Fuca proposed addresses the matter of the environment. In another amendment human rights are addressed. I commend him for all those amendments.
I cannot help but reflect not only on the legislation before us right now but also the whole legislative process that has gone on since I came into this House. The first item we dealt with, certainly myself anyway, as new members of the House of Commons was the free trade agreement with the United States. I would suggest that what we really have seen not only since I came into this House but since this government became elected was the imposition on all Canada of the same kind of a period which has become known in Quebec as the great darkness.
The great darkness refers to that period in Quebec when the government was so tremendously oppressive of its people that there was very little opportunity for any kind of democratic action to be pursued and it was very difficult for people to express their human rights and function in a normal democratic society at all. I suggest

May 25, 1993
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that what we have in Canada now is the same as it was in Quebec. It is best described as the great darkness.
The very fact that this legislation is being pushed through as hastily as it is without any real evidence that it has to be done as quickly as it is being done marks the very epitome of the kind of oppression which was so extant during the great darkness in Quebec. We certainly have it here now.
The basic assumption is we have a contempt for people. That was certainly symptomatic of what was happening during the great darkness. It is rather strange that as recently as last fall another item which the government wanted to put through the House of Commons was so thoroughly gone into. It is strange that we are not doing it in this case as well. I refer to the referendum which we had last fall on the proposed changes to the Canadian Constitution.
I suggest that while we could look at the changes last fall as being changes to the Canadian Constitution, this North American free trade agreement has been referred to by the Prime Minister as being an economic constitution for this country, in fact beyond that, an economic constitution for North America.
If we are going to be looking at the economic constitution of North America I would suggest that it just as rightly refers to the economic constitution of Canada too. That being the case, I would suggest that it would be in the interests of all Canadians, and certainly it would be in the interests of the government, perhaps and most likely for its even potential re-election aspirations, to give Canadians the opportunity to be able to go through the economic constitution with the same thoroughness and receive the same amount of information and debate-I am referring to the North American free trade agreement-as was given to the Constitution.
There are a number of issues, as I pointed out earlier, to which some very close scrutiny must be given to the effects of what this agreement will do. The New Democratic Party is totally opposed to the passage of the North American free trade agreement because we have to, as Canadians, look much wider than just within the area of
North America. I do not want anyone to mistake that our concept is that it has to occur.
But if we are looking at the legislation, we have to do the best we can to make proposals to it which will make it as humane and as acceptable as possible to all Canadians. Yesterday I was talking to some people who asked: "Ron, how are things going in Ottawa," and I had to reply: "Not very well". When they asked what was the matter I had to tell them that this was the week when the North American free trade agreement was going to be passed in the House of Commons. You had to be there to appreciate the sense of despair conveyed by the looks on their faces.
As I said earlier, there is the whole matter of the right to organize. There is the matter of human rights. In so far as the province I come from is concerned, there is the matter of orderly marketing, which is going to be tremendously threatened by this as it was by the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.
I see that my time has very nearly run out so I would like to move:
That, in accordance with Standing Order 26(1), this House
continues to sit beyond the ordinary hour of daily adjournment for
the purpose of continuing consideration of report stage of Bill C-115,
an act to implement the North American free trade agreement.


Peter L. McCreath: A point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am just looking for clarification. Is there a particular timeframe involved in the motion?
Would this involve the waiving of Private Members' Business or would the House still have Private Members' Business and then continue? That is the kind of clarification we really want.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The House has heard the terms of the motion moved by the hon. member for Saskatoon-Dundum.
I want only to add to the question raised by the hon. member for South Shore that if the House decides to agree to the motion that Private Members' Business will be at five o'clock and the House will be sitting in the evening until debate collapses.
Will those members who object to the motion please rise in their places?
And no members having risen:
May 25, 1993


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: There being no members rising in objection to the motion, according to the provisions of Standing Order 26(2), the motion is deemed to be carried.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Bob Speller (Haldimand-Norfolk):: Mr. Speaker,
I wish to add my voice to this debate and to thank my colleague, the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River, for putting forward this motion. It is the first motion and talks about a number of very important aspects of this free trade agreement. I want to highlight some of these.
The hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River is trying to make sure that when the government signs the free trade deal or goes into a free trade deal, the rights of Canadian workers, indeed of all Canadians, are protected. The hon. member and I do not feel this is actually taking place.
In his amendment he asks us to respect the freedom of association and affirm the role that free and independent, public and private sector unions play in the conduct of democratic governance. He wants to honour the rights of working people to organize and to bargain collectively and the right to strike. He wants to encourage an open dialogue between management and labour in all decisions affecting the future of the work force as a result of this agreement.
Prior to this agreement, this country entered into the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. In that agreement we found that labour was shut out of the process. In fact there was not that negotiation and as a result Canadian workers were left out of this deal. They feel their demonstration on the Hill a few days ago shows their rights are not being protected and are not even being addressed by this government.
Finally, what my hon. colleague, the member for Kenora-Rainy River, wants is the adjustment programs that were promised by the Prime Minister and the Minister for International Trade.
After the last deal these same requests that the Americans are addressing, that President Clinton has said are important and he will bring in in his country for American workers, are programs that somehow the government has forgotten about. It says it cannot bring in adjustment programs because it would discriminate against those workers in industries that are closing down not because of free trade. How would you make it fair to
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address the concerns of those workers who have lost their jobs because of free trade and those workers who have lost their jobs simply because of the downturn in the economy?
I do not buy that argument. My friend, the member from Rainy River, does not buy that argument. My friend, the member for Cape Breton Highlands-Canso does not buy that argument and the member for York West does not buy that argument. On a daily basis the government provides funds and programs for certain sectors of the economy such as the fishing industry in my friend's riding. He may argue that the government does not provide enough and he is probably right, but there are specific programs directed toward specific aspects of our economy and specific industries in the economy that are hurt.
The government came up with the de Grandpre report as a response to this. It was really set out to justify its inaction. The government has done nothing with the recommendations of this report which would have gone,
I would suggest, a long way in dealing with some of these problems.
That is what the hon. member is asking for and I do not think it is an unreasonable request. I hope that the members opposite, as few of them as there are in this House tonight, will take a serious look at supporting this amendment.
I will be talking on this bill at a later occasion. I just wanted to address some of the concerns of my friend. I want to say that a lot of constituents in my area of Haldimand-Norfolk, when I was at the Jarvis parade yesterday came up and said to me: "Bob, how can this government be passing this legislation? I thought they were still in negotiations. Is it not still negotiating the labour aspects of this bill and the environmental aspects of this bill?" I said it was. They said: "Well will this not have a major impact on how this bill will influence Canadian labour codes or influence Canadian workers or influence the environment of Canada?" I had to agree. They said: "Why the heck are you passing this bill at this time?"
I will be talking a little later when the environment motions come up about my concerns on how this government did not address environmental concerns in this legislation. I want to read a news story from Southam News where it states: "Canada seeks limits on NAFTA environmental powers". I am sure it relates in the same way to the labour code which my hon. friend has been

May 25, 1993
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talking about. It reads: "The confidential Canadian position paper, reprinted by Inside U.S. Trade"-we had to get it from Inside U.S. Trade because we did not have access to it here in this House-"shows that Canada could curb the powers and propose a three nation monitoring system. Canada proposes that the commission act more as a mediator producing recommendations that may assess parties to reach a mutually satisfactory resolution in any dispute", rather than putting some teeth into that.
Canadians really want to know what this issue is because there is a question of sovereignty. It is a question of how much sovereignty do we give up as a country in order to get some sort of fair trading practice with both the United States and Mexico.
The report also states that the government said that Canada would allow the commission to look at complaints from citizens or environmental groups only if they received backing from their home government.
It seems to me they want to mute some of the concerns of these groups before they go to these commissions. The whole idea of the commission is to make sure that Mexico for instance which has the same environmental and labour laws as Canada will enforce those laws.
If it does not enforce them, products coming into this country from countries that do not have the same environmental or labour standards as this country will have a tariff or possibly may not be allowed into the country.
That makes a lot of sense. How can we as Canadian farmers stop a Mexican product on which DDT was used? We cannot use it in this country because it is not environmentally sound. How can we allow those products into our country without first making sure those unsafe pesticides and herbicides are removed?
That is the crux of this issue. It is an issue of labour standards also. Why should we as a country allow our workers to lose jobs to Mexican workers and employers who do not have the same standards as we do in Canada? There is a way to stop that. We can make sure that
products coming from those countries are not allowed in this country if they are not playing by fair rules.
I think we as a country need to get away from being the boy scouts of the world. We need to take some strong trade actions to stop this material from coming into our country. Canadian workers, farmers and businesses have no fear of competing against anyone in the world. I believe we as a country can compete as long as we have a level playing field.
We do not have that level playing field now under the Canada-U.S. free trade deal. This NAFTA deal is even worse than the one we now have with the United States. If we do not have a subsidies code, if we do not have similar anti-dumping legislation then there is no way we as a country can compete fairly with the other countries. Let us have fair trade and not this so-called free trade.


NOTICE OF ALLOCATION OF TIME TO CONSIDER REPORT AND THIRD READING STAGES
Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to report stage and third reading of Bill C-115 an act to implement the North American free trade agreement.
Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice of my intention to move a time allocation motion at the next sitting of the House for the purpose of allocating a specified number of days and hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings of the said stages.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Shame on you. Resign.


Harvie Andre: Is the hon. member going to jump over her desk and assault me?


David Barrett: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order can you explain to me how the member can come in, do the motion and then run out of the House without any debate here in the House about closure? What are the rules about this?
Can he come in here and just shut it down that way without any comment from anyone else? I would like an explanation. He cannot just run out of here after this.
May 25, 1993


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: I simply remind the hon. member that this is a notice given by the Government House leader, who availed himself of the provisions of the Standing Orders. What the government House leader just did is in accordance with the Standing Orders. He may at any time advise or notify the Chair that he intends at some point to present a time allocation motion. This motion is in order and is not debatable, and it was made in accordance with the provisions of the Standing Orders.


David Barrett: This government is corrupt, the whole bunch of them.


MEASURE TO ENACT
[Stage Direction]

Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I am tempted to yield the floor to my hon. colleague from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca who is doing extremely well here. What a situation we find ourselves in today.
It is most incredible that the government is again shutting down debate just after the process has begun. We saw this-


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order given the importance of this issue, I would like the Chair to call a quorum please.
[Translation\
And the members having been counted:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: I see that there is not a quorum. Call in the members.
And the bells having rung:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: I see that there is a quorum. Resuming debate. I give the floor to the hon. member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to have as many members in the House as possible for the words I have to offer all of us today.
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As I started to say earlier before we were interrupted for the quorum call, I find what has just occurred in this Chamber extremely distasteful. Debate has just begun on the report stage to look at numerous amendments that could extend for hours if not days simply on the amendments that have been brought before us. Before this debate even begins the government walks in and announces it is going to move a closure motion to shut down the debate.
As you will recall, at second reading of this bill we also had a closure motion that effectively cut debate on this important bill to just a little over two hours in this Chamber. When the committee studying this legislation sat down to have a look at it the government members moved the motion that essentially produced a closure in committee. The very first motion they discussed set a specific timetable for the committee. Committee debate would end on a given day whether it had finished its study or not. Now at report stage and prior to third reading after only a couple of hours of debate in the House, the government House leader has once again come in and imposed closure on us.
There are important things we have to talk about here. The parliamentary secretary earlier today accused members on this side of the House of not wanting to debate the bill because we kept talking about process. We are forced to discuss process because the government continues to cut off useful debate on this issue.
The member for Kamloops put it quite clearly earlier today that all the debate in the world is not going to change the opinion of the New Democrats in this House of Commons. We do not agree with the North American free trade agreement or the legislation that is being brought in to implement it. We are very strongly opposed to this legislation because of its failings.
This government does not want to listen to the debate that puts forth the failings of this legislation and gives it the opportunity to have second thoughts about this poor piece of legislation it is forcing upon the Canadian people. As an opposition party in this House of Commons we have an obligation to talk about its inability to listen to what the people of Canada have to say, the experts throughout the country and the people who are speaking for those who oppose the agreement itself.

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We have heard over and over again from Canadians from coast to coast to coast, from people who have studied this legislation and from people who have studied the implications of the agreement how bad this legislation or agreement really is and the devastation it is going to cause to the people of this country. One of the things that is not discussed frequently either in this Chamber or anywhere else is how this legislation will impact on ordinary people in all three countries, in Canada, the United States and Mexico, working people, people concerned about the environment and people who live off the land. These are the people in Mexico, the United States and Canada who will be adversely affected by this legislation. This government refuses to take the opportunity to listen to this debate and maybe take a second look and recognize what it is doing to this country.
It is a very important debate. The government should be sitting here listening to it with all its ears. Earlier today members of my party brought to the attention of the Chamber the fact that during this important debate on a bill that is 4,000 pages long, the minister responsible for this legislation has chosen to be elsewhere. In fact quorum had to be called just a few minutes ago because there was only one member of the government party in the Chamber.
I know that it is not proper etiquette in this place to talk about the presence or absence of a member but, my goodness, this is a debate that is dealing with the economic future of our entire country. This is a matter that is going to affect the future of hundreds of thousands of Canadians tomorrow, the next day, the next month and for the rest of the life of this country however long we have to exist as a sovereign nation.
This bill implementing the North American free trade agreement rewrites the economic constitution of this country. This morning the hon. member for Kamloops gave a very eloquent speech in which he talked about the economic constitution of Canada and how the North American free trade agreement essentially restructures the entire economic framework in which we operate.
Where does this come from? I am asked this over and over and over again in my own constituency. What is the rush? What is the urgency? What is the need for an agreement of this nature? I took a copy of the very large
North American free trade agreement to one of the high schools in my constituency just two weeks ago. I took that agreement in because these young people were saying: "We need to establish better trading practices between countries". I agreed with them. We do have to trade in a more elaborate fashion that allows for Canadians to be employed, to earn wealth and to create revenues for the running of the country, their communities and their households.
When one puts that agreement in front of persons and they intelligently flip through it and read it, they notice that this is more than simply a way in which we are going to trade goods between one country and another. It is a brand new economic structure for North America and it comes from the corporations who operate with no political boundaries in mind.
Who is asking for this agreement? It is not the small business in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan or the mediumsized manufacturing company in Cut Knife, Saskatchewan or the produce company in Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan. These are not the companies that are pushing for this deal. They are the companies that are the friends of the Conservatives such as the multinationals who are already getting the tax breaks and the corporate breaks and who are treating their friends to tax-free lunches in SkyDome boxes while they watch the Blue Jay games. These are the people who are going to benefit from the North American free trade agreement and not the working people or the farmers in Mexico, the United States or in Canada. Not on one's life.
We have an opportunity here today to debate reasonably and effectively some veiy important amendments to this legislation which, while it will not correct the problems, if this government is bound and determined to barrel ahead with it, it will in fact smooth the water somewhat for the people who have to live with it after the fact.
We have side agreements which are being negotiated that this government seems to be ignoring. My goodness, there is just no logic to what is happening here.
Mr. Speaker, I see you have given me the one minute signal. I am sorry that I only have 10 minutes to speak. I do want to indicate that as it stands and as this legislation exists today as a restructuring of our entire economic framework, I and most of my constituents and my party cannot support the legislation or the agreement.
May 25, 1993


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak on Bill C-115 which is the free trade agreement for North America.
It is really incredible that this bill is only the implementing legislation for an agreement that is at least six inches thick and that the government treats it in such a cavalier way. It whipped through the whole public hearing process with very few witnesses and no hearings across the country.
We are going through a charade here in the House of Commons this afternoon and tomorrow. The entire legislation implements a free trade deal that not only involves the United States and Mexico, but makes provisions for all the nations of the North and South American continents to join in. The government hardly has a minister or any members in the House. It is as if this was tissue paper and did not really matter.
I think it is incredible that the government would negotiate a deal like this and go to all the effort that is involved and the political downside. Canadians are opposed to the deal two to one. Then the government members do not even come into the House to bother defending it or to argue in favour of the bill.
I have the distinct feeling that we are facing the same situation as in 1987-88 where essentially the vast majority opposed the government yet it implemented the FTA. In the 1988 general election something like 57 per cent of the people opposed it. We have this situation today where the North American free trade deal is being rammed through the House in a matter of 12 hours with no participation by the government to speak of at all. Speeches are being made by the members of the Official Opposition and by the NDP to try to call on the government to take some responsibility to treat this matter seriously.
Our party is in favour of freer trade around the world. In the 1988 general election we supported expanding our trade with countries including the United States, Mexico and all other countries through the GATT agreement. We did it simply because we believe that Canada has a better opportunity to negotiate a freer trading arrangement with the rest of the world through multilateral trade arrangements rather than through the FTA.
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Clearly if there ever was a trade deal that turned out to be veiy bad it was the FTA. It is impossible to count the number of jobs that were lost. Some say it is 400,000 due to the FTA. Clearly thousands and thousands of Canadians are not working today because of the FTA combined with the fiscal and monetary policies of the Government of Canada during the ensuing three or four years since the FTA was first signed in 1988 and came into effect in 1989.
I guess the part of the NAFTA agreement that I find offensive is that the government has the experience of the FTA with the problems of multiple trade remedy law attacking Canadians and Canadian products, the problems of the anti-dumping duties imposed against the steel industry and the countervail duty on hogs, pork and other commodities. Yet the government is sitting down to negotiate this.
Let us be clear about this. The same guy that signed the FTA is the same guy that signed the NAFTA agreement. The Minister for International Trade, who was Minister of Finance back in 1987-88, is the same negotiator. He was aware of the deficiencies of the FTA. Yet in the NAFTA he did not move to correct it. He did not try to get a subsidy code. He did not try to get an anti-dumping code. Look at every other international trade agreement around the world, whether it is the European Economic Community or the Australasian agreement with New Zealand and Australia. He did not try to correct those problems and so those are two very major problems.
The fact that we are reducing tariffs in some ways will be beneficial to Canada because essentially we had a type of one way free trade deal with Mexico where we were allowing most things from Mexico into Canada but it had quotas and all kinds of trade restrictions on our exports. However, the obvious things are those deficiencies in the FTA which the government made no attempt to correct as far as we can see.
There is the whole question of labour standards. If there are people working for $1 an hour manufacturing things in Mexico and they are working for $12 or $15 an hour in Canada then it is going to be very hard to compete. If there is a plant that can turn out plastics in Mexico where there are no environmental standards to meet and the waste is discharged into rivers, streams, or landfills then it is very hard to compete.

May 25, 1993
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At least there was a change in government in Washington last January 20. If there had not been a change then that would have gone on. At least the Clinton administration has a concern with that arrangement such that it is demanding side deals related to labour standards and the environment.
That is why the motion put forward by the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River is so important. It proposes to make remedies to the problems relating to labour standards and the whole social milieu and the arrangements in that regard. I compliment the member for Kenora-Rainy River in putting this motion before the House. It is one of several being debated in this group.
It is incredible that we are debating this legislation today. The United States has not even introduced the legislation in Congress, either in the Senate or the House of Representatives. We have no idea about the companion pieces of legislation relating to labour standards and the environment which are very important.
We are not only dealing with the environment as an economic cost in the manufacture of things, but there is also, from the hon. member for Lambton-Middlesex, a motion relating to the chemical residues in food and agriculture products which are so important. We want to trade with Mexico. We want to trade with all nations around the world but we want to do it in a safe and healthful way.
We are opposing this legislation today not because we do not want to expand our trade with Mexico and the other Latin American countries, but we are concerned with the situation where legislation is rushed through the House. We do not even know when the companion legislation will be negotiated or if it ever will be negotiated with regard to the environment and human health and safety or labour standards.
This is really being rushed at us. It is not having the proper consultation with Canadians. Canadians are very concerned about it. They are very frustrated by the process and they want to see this legislation put off until it is better organized and better arranged and until there is a more complete consultation with Canadians so that we do not buy a pig in a poke as has happened so often in the past with so many of the things the government has brought forward.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, I too would like first of all to add my voice to those on this side of the House who are condemning the government for ramming through a bill which has not even been negotiated by the Congress of the United States, the Parliament of Mexico and indeed the negotiators here in Canada.
I find it incredible that a few short moments ago the House leader of the Tory party once again, for the umpteenth time in the course of this Parliament, came in and invoked closure. The Conservatives will go down, when they die as they will in a few short months, as the government that invoked closure the greatest number of times in Canada's history.


Peter L. McCreath: The most obstreperous opposition in the history of Canada.


Sheila Maureen Copps: The member says obstreperous opposition. It was not the Liberal Party that brought in the tactic of bell ringing. When we had the discussion of the Crow rate back in the early eighties there were literally hundreds of hours of discussion in the House. The Conservatives of the day, who were in opposition, charged the chair. The current government House leader was known for grabbing the mace and attacking the Speaker. These are the same people who are now suggesting that because we have had a mere 12 hours of debate on this very critical issue we are somehow being obstreperous.
In 1988 Canadians were asked to sign an agreement. They were asked to take a leap of faith by a Prime Minister who promised them hundreds of thousands of jobs were going to appear as a result of the free trade agreement. At that time we had some warnings for the Canadian people. We said that the steel industry was an industry potentially at risk if the free trade agreement did not contain a proper definition of what constitutes a subsidy and if it did not foresee an integrated steel market patterned after the pattern set by a Liberal government with the auto pact.
Five years ago we were accused by the government of being obstreperous. We were accused of being fear mongers. We were accused of all sorts of things. Five years later the only question that remains is: When can we get rid of this government?
May 25, 1993

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In the city of Hamilton employees at Adpak today received notice that another Hamilton manufacturing plant will be closed. The people of Hamilton know that the promise of the Prime Minister about the free trade agreement has not materialized. In fact what we have is a trade deal that has gone in one direction. Now we are not even being asked, we are being told to ram through a NAFTA deal, a 4,000 page document, that has not even been negotiated by the three parties.
Why is the Prime Minister and his government so desperate to get this trade agreement through in the next 15 days? Could it be that it has more to do with his intention to rewrite the history books than it does with his concern for Canadian workers?
Any objective observer who analyses the last four years of economic decline, particularly in the manufacturing sector, can only conclude that the free trade agreement has not worked for Canadians. It has sent Canadian jobs and Canadian companies south of the border. With the holes in the current NAFTA we can expect more of the same.

There are gaping holes in it concerning the definition of subsidy and concerning labour standards.

That is why I am happy that the member for Kenora- Rainy River has introduced a very constructive amendment that would deal with one crucial issue and concern for Canadian workers: Under the NAFTA, under free trade, will Canadian labour standards be protected or will we see Canadian wage rates, Canadian working conditions, and the Canadian right of free association being pulled down to the lowest common denominator?
I am sure members on the government side of the House will be standing over the next few hours, because that is all we have since the government is insistent on ramming this through, and giving chapter and verse about all the wonderful trade laws and environmental laws that exist in Mexico. It is true. Mexico has reasonable labour and environmental standards on the books. There is only one problem, which is that they are respected in the breach.
Anybody who witnessed the absolutely horrific environmental disaster of that liquid oil leak which occurred last year in Mexico, where an industrial company that was making cooking oil was pouring the extra cooking oil into the sewers of Guadalajara, will know that all the labour laws in the world will not help if they are not applied.
In its current form this bill has absolutely no protection for Canadian workers, for Canadian labour standards or for Canadian environmental standards.
We are being asked by this government to buy a second pig in a poke. We bought a pig in a poke in 1988. Remember the Prime Minister's promise: "Sign this trade agreement and we will create hundreds of thousands of jobs".
The jobs have been created but they have not been created in this country. In my own community in the last three years we have lost over 10,000 jobs in the steel industry alone and the steel industry was supposed to be one of the winners in the free trade agreement.
If one is a smart business person and has undergone an expansion-and that is essentially what we did in the first round of free trade agreements. We expanded our capacity to trade but did not do the proper cost benefit analysis to Canadian workers and Canadian companies in the first phase of free trade.
The amendment by the member for Kenora-Rainy River requires that this agreement respect freedom of association and affirm the role that free and independent public and private sector unions play in the conduct of democratic government.
This agreement must honour the rights of all working people to organize, to bargain collectively and to have the fundamental right to strike. This agreement must implement retraining and adjustment programs for workers displaced as a result of this agreement. This agreement must encourage an open dialogue between management and labour on all decisions affecting the future of the work force.
The Prime Minister of Canada promised that in 1988 every worker who lost her or his job as a result of the free trade agreement would get government assistance. What happened? The government struck a commission and the commission came back and said: We are sorry but we made a mistake. We made a promise but we are

May 25, 1993
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not going to deliver. There is not a single program that this government has developed specifically to respond to those workers who have lost their jobs as a result of the free trade agreement.

The same Prime Minister promised us in 1988 that there would be adjustment programs for workers who lost their jobs, but what is he doing now? Not only is he offering nothing but he is cutting back on those who had to apply for unemployment insurance as a result of economic policies. We took the Prime Minister's promise in 1988. We said yes to the free trade agreement because he promised jobs and employment for Canada. But now we see jobs going to the United States and even to Mexico.
This amendment is a basic guarantee required both by the Confederation of National Trade Unions and the Quebec Federation of Labour, a collective right which does not exist now in the document as tabled. Why? If the government believes that its document is good, if the government believes in a second stage of free trade, why is it forcing us again to vote on a bill which has not even been negotiated by the three governments concerned? It is an idiotic policy that reflects only one thing: The Prime Minister prefers to make history rather than create jobs. That is unfortunate for Canadian workers.


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this amendment, which I find very laudable. I hope that the political parties in the House of Commons will support it.
Let me first review the Liberal policy with respect to NAFTA. We as a party want a common set of trading rules and a level playing field. We want a definition of subsidy and we want it now. We want a definition of dumping and we want it now. We want to ensure that there are appropriate labour and environmental standards before we proceed and we want that now. We want the same deal on energy as Mexico has secured from the U.S. and we want it now not later. We need sovereignty over our natural resources.

When I made my speech in 1988, as we began this trip with the United States, I remember asking at the time that we obtain a basic guarantee for Canadian workers to have training and retraining programs which would help those who lost their jobs find new ones. You will no doubt remember that, Mr. Speaker, because I know you have an excellent memory, just as your colleagues opposite who are going along with everything I am saying now.
During that election campaign, we were told we would have the best training and retraining programs in the world. But what happened in fact? Well, Mr. Speaker, you know as well as I do that there were no such programs. Nothing like that happened, so the country is in worse shape.

Today we talk about 1.6 million Canadians unemployed, but some people suggest there are probably twice as many because some people have given up. We talk about over 2.2 million Canadians on social assistance, perhaps even more than that. We talk about over two million people being fed in food banks this year in Canada, one of the richest nations in the world. We talk about a country that once looked after its poor and those who did not have enough in such a way that they could get back into the work force. This is what has happened to our country because of these policies.
This proposal that we ensure free association, that we can continue to have unions involved, that we can assure workers that their bread and butter and their jobs will be protected is an essential one. Perhaps even more important, we can not only state that there will be the best training programs available in the world but make sure that anything we can do to make sure that this happens will be done.
We do not want to fall into the same trap we fell into before. We went forward with an agreement and found out later that we were totally unprepared and now thousands of Canadians are in the unemployment lines, thousands of others are receiving social assistance and thousands of others are being fed by food banks.
In this country, and we could quibble about definitions of poverty, there are close to five million Canadians living at or below the level of poverty, most of whom are
May 25, 1993

women and over one million of whom are children. This is really deplorable.

Although the United States is not going ahead, and although the United States wants the same accords as we are seeking, why does the government want to go ahead rather than wait? Well, there is a reason for that, Mr. Speaker, and you know it, your colleagues know it, we all know it: It is because of the coming election. What are they doing? They are trying to do something which they think will help them stay in power. Well, I am sorry, they are in power but they will not be for long.
When you put your party before your country, when you do not care about the workers and people of Canada, you lose power. Canadians will decide at the next election.
I close with this. What my colleague from Kenora- Rainy River proposed is a very laudable amendment that is worth supporting. I would like us all to support it. Do not forget that we do not at all want to weaken Canada's labour laws. We absolutely want to strengthen them-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member.


CANADA PETROLEUM RESOURCES ACT
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Wednesday, May 12, 1993, consideration of the motion of Mr. McKnight that Bill C-106, an act to amend certain petroleum-related Acts in respect of Canadian ownership requirements and to confirm the validity of a certain regulation, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee in the Natural Resources envelope.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to order made on Wednesday, May 12, 1993, the House will now proceed to the deferred division on the motion for second reading of Bill C-106, an act to amend certain petroleum-related acts in respect of Canadian ownership requirements and to confirm the validity of a certain regulation.


[Stage Direction]
Call in the members.

Government Orders

[Stage Direction]
Milliken	Rideout
Tlirner (Vancouver Quadra)
Madam Deputy Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a legislative committee in the Natural Resources envelope.
Madam Deputy Speaker:: Pursuant to Standing Order 30(6), the House will now proceed to consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to rise today to speak on this bill. It is the first bill I have had as a member that is declared to be votable in this House and I am very pleased with that.
The purpose of this bill is to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act. As members, and people across the country will know, the Canadian Wheat Board Act now provides for the Canadian Wheat Board to market grain in the areas of wheat and barley.
There is a difference between the way that wheat, and oats and barley are set up under statute. Presently under the Canadian Wheat Board Act any changes to wheat have to be made in this Chamber by Parliament. That is not the case with barley. Barley is under the Wheat Board Act simply as a regulation and that can be removed by an Order in Council by the minister. As you will recall, that happened in 1989 when oats was removed. I think the minimum protection that will be accorded to barley under this act is important when one looks at the way the oats and the barley issues were handled.
I would suggest that the removal of oats in 1989 was done in a self-serving way with no concern for the future of a viable or healthy rural Canada. In fact it is tantamount to many of the issues and directions this government has had with respect to agriculture and rural Canada. Whit both oats and barley there was no open discussion in the House and there certainly was very limited discussion at the Standing Committee on Agriculture.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS


Mr. Rod Laporte (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre) moved: that Bill C-297, an act to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act (oats and barley) be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee in the Natural Resources envelope.
There was no debate in the House or in committee because the government opposite prevented debate from taking place. There was no debate in the House or in committee on oats.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but I ask for the co-operation of both sides of the House. People watch our debate and the Speaker wants to hear the hon. member.


Rodney Edward Laporte: As I said, there has been no open discussion on these issues. The clear advantage of this bill is that for the first time it brings the Canadian Wheat Board on to the floor of the House with respect to the future of barley. This is important to get all parties to put
May 25, 1993

Private Members' Business
their positions on this issue. It is something we should aspects of agriculture were invited. The growing togeth-welcome.	er initiative was going to hail in a new era for agriculture.
I think in discussing the whole issue of barley and the future of the Canadian Wheat Board, we have to look at the whole area of agriculture and rural Canada. What we really need in this government and in this House are some clear objectives with respect to rural Canada and farming. In order to discuss the role of the Canadian Wheat Board we have to know what those objectives are. We have to know what the plan is in society for agriculture specifically and for rural Canada generally. It is not a debate we have engaged in very often. What we really need right now in rural Canada is a lot of assistance. Rural Canada is an infrastructure. There has been a viable rural infrastructure in place in this country but it is being eroded.
Every day it is becoming harder and harder to survive in rural Canada. We sometimes forget that 33 per cent of Canadians live in three cities in this country and 47 per cent live in nine. The rest are spread out in rural communities. Often rural Canada and rural direction does not get the attention it deserves from this government.
One of the objectives of the New Democratic Party is to make agriculture self-reliant. We want farmers to be self-reliant. In order to do that we need some clear rules from this government as to where it stands, where farmers stand and where agriculture stands. So far we have not had that.
The Tory government has been very good at mouthing rhetoric regarding family farms and the future of farm families but its actions have been much different. We have had a litany of examples over the last few years. Farm fuel, rebates have gone. Oats has been removed from the Canadian Wheat Board and the interest-free cash advance program is gone. The loss of those programs has hurt farm families and the average farmer.
Remember GRIP? GRIP was the flagship of the growing together initiative. It was instituted by the then agriculture minister who held a huge rally at the Westin Hotel. Some 1,400 people supposedly representing all
There was talk of consultation and meetings with various groups. But at the very same time that was happening the minister of grains and oilseeds, the present Minister of Agriculture was busy removing oats from the Canadian Wheat Board. At that time the minister of grains and oilseeds said he was consulting with Canadians. He was consulting with the industry. He gave out a list of groups which supported the government. They were mostly hog marketing boards and so on. In fact he included the Alberta Sheep and Wool Commission as one group of people he had consulted with in removing oats.
It was interesting because he did not consult with the Advisory Committee to the Canadian Wheat Board, the only elected body in Canada that represents producers at the level of the Canadian Wheat Board. The minister said at that time he did not have to consult with them and that is true. He did not have to and he did not.
There was certainly no open consultation. When oats was removed from the Wheat Board the polls said that 74 per cent of producers did not want oats removed from the Canadian Wheat Board as opposed to 19 per cent who wanted it on the open market. There certainly was no consultation with the producers or some of the key groups that represent the producers. It was simply consultation with those who agreed with the position the government planned to put forward.
The barley issue has been approached from a slightly different point of view but with basically the same results. The minister set up a so-called round table to represent the industry except he appointed the people individually and they happened to represent some of the industry groups. They did not pick the people.
A report came out called the Carter report. Dr. Carter is a well respected economist, however the report itself came under some real criticism. In fact, with due respect to Professor Carter, the report was in many ways discredited. Certainly there was enough doubt left after the committee had its brief hearings on that issue which made it very clear that the Carter report certainly could not be taken on its own.

Private Members' Business
What was the government's response to that? The associate minister to the agriculture minister, Dr. Bjar-nason appeared before the committee. He replied to a question I asked that if he had time he would read the recent report put out by Dr. Andrew Schmitz who came to the conclusion with his colleagues that barley should not be removed from the Canadian Wheat Board. I submit that the report Dr. Schmitz put out certainly is not a biased report. After all Dr. Schmitz has done work for the federal government. He did work for the Devine government. That is a report which should have been considered but the government has not considered it or the report that came out the year before by the Canadian Wheat Board.
In fact the round table that was put together met only once after the Carter report was released. They were asked for their views and were dismissed. It was not consultation in any form of a definition that you could find for consultation. Yet we had the government mouthing the words that it is trying to help agriculture, it is trying to do what is best for agriculture, it is trying to respond to the needs of agriculture. It is responding to a very small segment of the agricultural population. The agricultural committee was gagged on the barley issue.
When we wanted to bring the commissioners of the Canadian Wheat Board before the committee they were refused. It is unbelievable. They are making changes to the Canadian Wheat Board and they refused to bring the commissioners of the Wheat Board to the committee. It is as if they were making changes to Air Canada, or to CN, and not bringing some of the directors of those corporations before a committee. It did not happen.
When we asked to hear the advisory committee of the Canadian Wheat board, a body elected by producers to represent producers at the wheat board, we were denied. We had Professor Carter before the committee and we asked for an extension of time. That was denied because the government does not want to consult.
We need some real consultation and this is where consultation should take place. The Canadian Wheat Board should be reviewed. It was set up in 1935. There have been changes made to it. A board cannot remain stagnant. The way we market grain has not been stagnant. Surely if we are going to make changes we should do it in an open fashion.
The purpose of setting up the Wheat Board in the 1930s was to help market surplus grain the countiy could not get rid of. That was its purpose and it did a good job. In fact when the Canadian Wheat Board was first set up it was going to be set up as the Canadian Grains Board but in the debate that followed that bill in the House there were changes made. In fact it was reduced to simply wheat and at that time there was a dual marketing system. For a few years the farmers had a choice of hauling their grain either to the Wheat Board or to market through the private grain trade. That did not work.
What happened was when the initial price for the Wheat Board was higher than the so-called spot market the grain came to the Wheat Board. When the price was lower grain did not come.
The argument on the other side has been that if we open up barley and have a dual marketing system farmers will have a choice. That is not a choice because the nature of the Canadian Wheat Board requires that it have a monopoly in marketing grain because of the pooling system. If you are going to maintain a pooling system you cannot have a situation where the Wheat Board does not know how much grain is coming in, when it can market it and so on. If this is going to work it is going to work on a monopoly basis or not at all.
This bill is inadequate. It only calls for barley to be given the same protection under the wheat board as wheat is. There are more aspects to the Canadian Wheat Board and the future of grain marketing than that alone.
A number of areas could be looked at. One of the key aspects of this bill and of the Canadian Wheat Board is that we have to remember the Wheat Board is paid for by farmers. If we remove barley from the jurisdiction of the Canadian Wheat Board, it is not going to save the taxpayer a penny. The taxpayer will not gain anything because the taxpayer does not pay for the Wheat Board, farmers pay for the Wheat Board. Those people who have permit books, those people who grow grain, those people who are hauling to the Wheat Board, are the ones who pay for the Wheat Board. It is not going to
May 25, 1993

make a more efficient government by taking barley away from the Wheat Board.
If we remove barley from the Canadian Wheat Board it is not going to lower the price of a loaf of bread. In fact, right now I think a farmer receives something like three or four cents per loaf of bread for his or her grain. There is no intent to lower the price of bread. There is nothing to be gained toward saving the taxpayers money. Why are we doing it? The farmers do not want it.
A recent poll said that the vast majority of farmers wanted at least a vote. The only reason they want it is that the government is hell bent on destroying most of the support systems that farmers have, the real support systems, the support systems that allow farmers to work for themselves, that allow farmers to be self-reliant, that allow farmers to raise their families, to contribute to their community and to become part of what we know as a rural way of life, a way of life that is disappearing.
The way this government has handled agriculture has had the opposite effect. It may be an advantage to the grain companies but it is certainly not an advantage for the farmer, and it is certainly not an advantage for rural communities. Many of us who come from rural communities know it is like. We know what is happening in those communities. We know the economy is faltering, that jobs are not available, and what good jobs there are disappearing with the abandonment of grain delivery points, the abandonment of railways. The whole change that this government is making toward agriculture has hurt rural Canada.
There are a few points that should be considered in this area. Should the Canadian Wheat Board be marketing more grains? I do not know. Perhaps it should. Certainly the producers would like some input into that. We have not done a study on that. There has been no study on the advantages of the Wheat Board expanding marketing. That has not been done.
Perhaps the role of the advisory committee should be changed. Perhaps the advisory committee should be given more power. Perhaps it should have more input into the policy of the Canadian Wheat Board. Perhaps it should be required to deal with the minister at least once
Private Members' Business
a year. The minister might learn something if the minister listened to the advisory committee. That would be something to consider. In fact, that might be something that might be legislated.
Another area is to ensure that commodities and major changes are not removed from the Canadian Wheat Board without a vote. Surely to goodness the least we can do with this bill is to give farmers a real vote. Is that asking too much, to allow farmers some say in the future of their own Wheat Board, particularly when they pay for it? This is not something where the government is doling out hundreds of millions of dollars or billions of dollars every year. Yet this government seems to want to destroy it contrary to what farmers want. Surely there should be an open debate. This is a government that talks about open debate, talks about consultation, yet it is the one that is stifling them.
I know that my time is going to be up very shortly and I just want to end by saying this. The debate on the Canadian Wheat Board is important. It is an important debate not only for agriculture, not only for western Canada, but it is important for all of rural Canada. It is important because the way the various representatives of the various parties put their position forward should be indicative of their attitude toward rural Canada.
I would suggest that in rural Canada the primary resource sector, whether it be fishing, forestry, mining or agriculture, is key to its future. We are going to need diversification and development in other areas, but the primary resource sector is the key to the future of rural Canada. How a federal government approaches the primary resource sector is going to be the key on how rural Canada is developed.
The way that this government has moved with respect to agriculture should send shivers down the spines of most Canadians. We can look at other primary resource sectors. The fishing industry is in peril in Atlantic Canada. The future of mining and mining communities which become deserted after years of people contributing in a particular area, the future of forestry with respect to clear cutting and other areas, all of these issues are important for rural Canada.

Private Members' Business
The Canadian Wheat Board, which is important to western Canada, is one of those industries that is important to the rural community in that part of the country.
I would like to conclude by saying that I am looking forward to hearing what other members and the government have to say. I am also very pleased that this bill has reached the floor of the House and that we are finally having a debate on the Canadian Wheat Board, a debate on agriculture and a debate on the future of rural Canada. It is an important issue for all rural Canadians.


Mr. Ken Hughes (Macleod):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to join the ongoing debate that has been held several times in this House and in committees of this House about issues that are relevant to our rural constituencies in western Canada. I really welcome the opportunity to participate in the debate today.
I would also like to note at the outset that the specific role, mandate and potential of the Canadian Wheat Board has been the subject of a lot of discussion both here in the House of Commons, in the agriculture committee and in farm organizations across western Canada for a long time.
The proponent, the member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre, has stated that he wants to see an agricultural sector that is self-reliant. He wants clear rules from the government. This government in the last few years has been working hard to ensure that there are clear rules for agriculture, that there are fewer regulations for agriculture and that the whole agrifood sector is capable of competing internationally against those people and interests that we have to compete against in the world. We cannot hide from competition in the world today and this government is making sure that the agrifood sector is as competitive as possible.
Let me start by reflecting on a success story that has been remarkable. That is the success story of oats that has developed since 1989. Let us look at the facts. The facts are pretty clear. For the 10 years between 1977 and 1987, under the Canadian Wheat Board marketing monopoly, oat exports were 110,000 tonnes per year. In the four years since, 1989 the average has been more than three times that; over 350,000 tonnes in exports per year. This year there will be more than 600,000 tonnes in
exports. That tells me that is quite an improvement. That is more than six times the amount of oats that was exported in the 10 years from 1977 to 1987.
Now let us talk about the whole agrifood export chain. There also happens to have been three new processing plants on the prairies, one in Manitoba, and two in Alberta. Those processing plants have the capacity to handle 170,000 tonnes and 75 per cent of that goes for export. That is 170,000 tonnes capacity in these processing plants on the prairies. That is compared to only 110,000 tonnes in total exports in the 10-year period prior to 1987.
This is a remarkable growth in the market. This has come about in part because Canadian farmers have been offered the choice and they seized the opportunity to choose to find their own niche markets or to market their oats privately and that has been a tremendous success. I do not think anybody could argue the contrary, although I am sure that my colleagues on the opposition side will try. However, as the facts really speak for themselves, it is impossible to argue the contrary.
Look at the facts. Look at oat prices today. The price for oats today is up about 25 per cent over what it was last year. It is a very positive market for oats producers. Farmers were given a choice. They took that choice and it was possible to develop a very important market for those farmers who took that opportunity. That is a big success story.
I remind members of the opposition that nobody is proposing that barley be taken away from the Canadian Wheat Board. The proposal out there is simply to allow both private marketing and marketing through the Wheat Board. Farmers will have the chance to choose how they will be able to market. They would have had the opportunity to market barley into the United States only, incidentally. In the continental market they would have that opportunity to choose.
The world marketplace has changed dramatically over the years. With those changes there is a real need for change in the government and in the way in which those in the Canadian agrifood industry deal with the challenges before them. They have to ask themselves some questions.
May 25, 1993

What grain marketing structure can best exploit market opportunities? That is the first and most important question the industry must ask itself. The Agriculture Canada regulatory review held last year is an example of government and industry working together to answer this question.
Of course this bill we are talking about was introduced in September 1991 prior to the launching of the regulatory review. To a large degree events have overtaken it, but this does provide us with an opportunity to put some facts on the table which are critical to understanding what is going on in the marketplace.
The review asked whether those regulations governing industry were enhancing the competitiveness of Canadian farmers or whether those regulations were hindering it. Numerous changes to regulations have already been made and more are coming. These changes will reduce paper work and lessen costs for farmers.
Part of the review of the regulations was an examination of the concept of a continental barley market. During the regulatory review some members of the agriculture industry asked that this specific issue be reviewed and examined further. Some said they wanted an opportunity to sell their barley on the open market within North America, while others endorsed the continuation of the Canadian Wheat Board as the sole marketer of Canadian barley to outside markets.
It was pretty clear that the issue of barley marketing was one that needed further study. Mr. Speaker, I think you will understand that the bottom line for everybody involved was to examine what was best for barley producers.
A study was commissioned and was chaired by the associate deputy minister of grains and oilseeds. An industry round table of 19 members was put together for the study. This group included representatives from the Canadian Wheat Board, the Canadian Grain Commission, Prairie Pools and other farm organizations and grain-trading companies. The round table agreed to the selection of a consultant to carry out the analytical work. After the consultant was agreed upon, the group also agreed to the terms of reference and the methodology for the study. Round table members were encouraged to
Government Orders
provide their input to the consultant and the consultant then reported back to the round table through his study.
It is important to put into perspective Canada's barley industry.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but the time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired.

Pursuant to Standing Order 96(3), the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of Bill C-115, an act to implement the North American free trade agreement, as reported, with amendments by a legislative committee and on Motions Nos. 1, 7, 27, 30, 31 and 32 and 33 .

The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Before resuming debate with the hon. member for St. Boniface, I would like to comment briefly on the request for clarification I received this morning from the hon. member for Lamb-ton-Middlesex who wondered why Motion No. 18 standing in his name was not grouped with other motions relating to the environment and social questions.
After taking this matter under advisement, the Chair has decided to maintain its decision, because matters relating to food inspection come under the jurisdiction of Agriculture Canada, not the Department of the Environment. That is why the motion was not grouped for debate with Motions Nos. 1, 7, 27, 30, 31 and 32. However, the hon. member from Lambton-Middlesex is perfectly free to deal with the environmental aspects

May 25, 1993
Government Orders
of his amendment in his comments on Motion No. 18, if he so wishes.
When the debate was suspended, the hon. member for St. Boniface had 5 minutes left.


MEASURE TO ENACT
Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, before the debate was interrupted, I raised the following question: Why rush this particular piece of legislation? I advanced the hypothesis that the government was trying to position itself for the election. We all know there needs to be an election this year, whether the Tories want it or not. There will be one and the Canadian people will render a verdict on all of their policies.
Mr. Speaker, you understand this particularly well. If the government can get it through now it could create a bit of space between this legislation and the election. In doing so it hopes that Canadians will have forgotten that this legislation, as inadequate as it is, was forced through by a majority government.
Another hypothesis has been advanced. That is that the Prime Minister will be leaving that office shortly. He no doubt wants to go down in the history books as someone who has made some substantial contributions to his country. Why in the world would he ever want to be remembered as the person who pushed forward the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement with all of its inadequacies and then NAFTA which'repeats the weaknesses of the previous one, I will never know. But then it is difficult to understand the logic of the Prime Minister.
I recall time and time again the government saying that it created all these jobs, but it forgot to say that the jobs that have been created have been south in the United States.
What really amazes me is that whenever government members talk about the creation of jobs they never talk about the other side of the ledger, the kinds of jobs that have disappeared. Has anyone heard that figure? They talk about the jobs they have created. Do they talk about the kinds of jobs that have been created? Are they long-term jobs? Are they well remunerated? Do they have benefits that we expect of Canadian jobs? Of course those questions are never addressed.
It is really unfortunate that we cannot put the cards on the table and look at both sides of the ledger in an objective way. If we did that, the government knows full well there would be a net deficit. There would be a loss of jobs for Canadians over all and a loss of good jobs for Canadians in comparison to those that have in fact been created.
My colleague from Kenora-Rainy River has advanced an amendment which contains two very important points. In a sense, he asks the question: Will collective bargaining be adversely affected by NAFTA? He has concerns about that.
Looking at Mexico's labour standards one knows why he is asking that question. Not only are the wages substantially lower, not only are certain benefits that we enjoy non-existent there, but there are also very few resources for monitoring whether or not those which they have in legislation are in fact happening. This is documented in an article I recommend to all members of Parliament with respect to the economic implications of NAFTA. It talks about child labour laws, minimum wages and maximum hours and it goes on to very significantly document the present weaknesses in Mexico.

A wide gap exists between these labour laws and what we have here in Canada.

The other question my colleague raises is on training and retraining. I know, Mr. Speaker, that you would agree with this particular point. While the government promised in the election campaign that it would have the best training and retraining programs in the world, of course that never did happen. As a consequence of that thousands of Canadians have lost their jobs and have lost hope of finding other jobs. It is a really sad situation out there.
I repeat that what the Liberals want is a level playing field, a definition of subsidies, a definition of dumping. We want to make sure that there are appropriate labour and environmental standards. We want the same energy deal as Mexico got from the United States. We want sovereignty over our natural resources.
May 25, 1993



Mr. Speaker, in concluding, I would ask the government to act responsibly and to look very carefully at an amendment which, in my opinion, is very worth while.


David Stupich: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to say a few words in support of the motions presently before us. The content of Motion No. 1 which was moved by the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River is actually covered in Motions Nos. 30, 31 and 32 moved by the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca.
Nevertheless, it is worth reminding ourselves that in dealing with this legislation there is always the concern as to what we are going to lose. Motion No. 1 refers to the rights of trade unionists, freedom of association, freedom of workers to associate, to affirm the rule of free and independent public and private sector unions and the role they play in the conduct of democratic governance.
I recall one occasion when I was a member of the B.C. legislature. The attorney general at that time, a Social Credit member, the Hon. Robert Bonner, said that the people in British Columbia had the highest standard of living of any province in Canada.
He said the reason for that was that we had the strongest trade union movement. It was the action of the trade union movement in improving the standards of the workers in that province that obliged the employers to improve their technology so that they could compete nationally and internationally. The only way they could do that was to be more efficient in their production and they were able to accomplish that and still pay the highest wages in the whole country.
When people talk about the New Democrats imposing this and wanting to keep the level of the people in Mexico down, it is not that at all, but neither do we want to drop our standards. We want to maintain ours as they are and we want the rest to come up to ours rather than ours going down to their level.
Our concern is that without adequate safeguards the NAFTA legislation before us will result in a decrease in the standard of living of Canadians. There is no need for that. We want to protect it. That is why we support
Government Orders
Motion No. 1 as advanced by the member for Kenora- Rainy River as well as a number of amendments moved by my colleague, the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca.
In part Motion No. 7 reads:
Nothing in this Act or the Agreement shall be interpreted so as to prevent or limit a Party to the Agreement from establishing a tax on any good imported from the territory of another Party to the Agreement to fund any labour adjustment program or environmental program made necessary by reason of the Party's trade with that other Party or as a result of the production of that other Party.
We will recall the government of the day promised when the FTA came into effect that there would be a training program. There would be money provided for a training program so that people who lost their jobs as a result of the free trade deal between Canada and the U.S. would be trained to take up other vocations where there were opportunities for employment.
We will also recall the government decided to cut back on expenditures to save money. It decided that one of the things it could do without was this promised training program, the program that was going to make us train our workers to take up the new job opportunities.
If the government does not have the money to fund it there should be some other way of funding it. What way would be more appropriate than to apply a tax on goods being imported, goods which we could very well have produced in Canada were it not for FTA. Soon there will be NAFTA, the way things are going.
It makes sense if we have to raise the money somewhere to raise it on items like this one. Once we have done that and once we have the money for the training program, we could agree to reduce that tax. We are a sovereign nation. We should have the right to do that if we choose when there is a specific purpose such as the retraining program, something that is going to improve our workers, to educate them to the extent they will be able to take up other job opportunities.
Motion No. 27 is also before us at the present time. It actually deals with clause 242 of the free trade deal as do several other motions here. In this case we are adding something to it, that NAFTA will not come into effect unless the legislative bodies of the NAFTA countries have adopted a charter of fundamental social rights for North America modelled on items 2 through 12 of the

Government Orders
charter of the European community. What has been accomplished there is a good example.
We have had discussions in the Elouse previously wherein members have referred to the European Community and said: "If it is good there it is good here. If they are doing it in Europe, then to compete with what is happening in Europe we should be prepared to adopt the same procedure here in North America and have a North American free trading zone".
If we are to go that route then let us go the same route as the European community did by bringing in a charter of fundamental social rights for North America. The government talked about a level playing field when it was bringing in the free trade deal. Let us bring this level playing field into effect with respect to the charter of social rights for North America and let us agree to adopt Motion No. 27.
Motion No. 30 is the next one in the grouping before us at the present time. Again it is an amendment to clause 242. In this case it is covering all the ground raised by the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River but a good deal more explicitly. We will not go along with the NAFTA implementation act:
Until the Secretariat of the International Labour Organization states, in writing, that it is satisfied that the United Mexican States and every state in the United States of America is complying fully with the following conventions of that Organization:
(i)	Convention number eighty-seven guaranteeing the freedom of association and the protection of the right to organize.
Certainly in this day and age in Canada we can agree that is a fundamental right that should be protected in the legislation we are discussing at the present time. It continues:
(ii)	Convention number one hundred and five abolishing forced labour.
(iii)	Convention number one hundred guaranteeing equal remuneration for men and women workers for work of equal value;
(iv)	Convention number one hundred and eleven abolishing discrimination in employment. [DOT]
agree to that. However I think we should send a signal out to everyone who is aware of this legislation on what we are doing in North America, that we not only believe in these things but we are prepared to put them in writing and to agree to them as part of the agreement among the three states or there will be no NAFTA.
Motions Nos. 31 and 32 deal with material similar to that moved by the member for Kenora-Rainy River. Certainly there is nothing in them that anyone here is opposed to. I just cannot believe anybody would be opposed to any of it.
I would urge the House to approve these amendments to NAFTA. It will not be good legislation but at least it will not be as bad as it is now.


Mr. John Harvard (Winnipeg-St. Janies):: Mr. Speaker, I want to put a few remarks on the record with respect to the NAFTA.
The NAFTA as currently written is the embodiment of neo-conservative trickle down economics. There is a notion behind the agreement, the way it is written now, that if we get government out of the way, lower tariffs, remove the border between Canada and the United States and give much more sovereign power as it were to the large corporations, to the multinationals and transnationals, something miraculous will come out of it. The notion is that something great will happen; that there really ought not to be any role for government if something goes wrong; and that there ought to be no co-ordination among the private sector, government, unions, volunteer agencies and so on. The notion is that is not our business, that we should leave the business of trade to the private corporations that will do their thing and we will benefit.
All one has to do is look at the economic carnage wrought by this government over the past eight to nine years and one will know that trickle down neo-conservative economics just do not work. We should ask the 350,000 manufacturing workers who lost their jobs in the last several years whether trickle down neo-conservative economics work and they will give us a resounding no.
Is there anyone in the House who would oppose any of The NAFTA as written is terribly flawed. It builds that? Is there anyone in the House who would not agree upon an already flawed document called the free trade that this should in effect be the practice of the three agreement, the bilateral agreement between Canada and countries entering into this agreement? I think we all the United States. If we try to build something on a
May 25, 1993

flawed base, regardless of how good that something is it too will be flawed.
It is interesting to note that we are involved in debate on the very crucial issue of whether to enter into a trilateral agreement with Mexico and the United States. The proposed agreement raises hundreds if not thousands of questions, and what does this government do? It moves time allocation. In other words it wants to limit debate. We have to ask ourselves what the government is afraid of. What is the rush? What is going on? On something as important as this issue one would think the government would be providing more time for debate, not less.
We also have to ask those questions in the context of what is happening in the United States. The Bush administration approved the NAFTA with Canada and the United States, but there is a new occupant in the White House.
There is now a Democratic administration in Washington. Democrats in the main have some serious questions about NAFTA and the way it is drawn up. All indications are that NAFTA will not survive the political debate in the United States unless there are some substantive parallel accords applying to labour standards and environmental standards. In other words, the message that we get from the United States is that if the NAFTA is not beefed up, if it is not strengthened through parallel accords on the environment and labour standards it is a no go and NAFTA will not survive Congress in the United States.
That is the message that we get from the United States, yet this government appears to be totally oblivious of what is going on across the line. It is saying to heck with that. It is just proceeding. It has already signed the document and now it wants to shove it through Parliament, ram it through Parliament.
What is the rush? What is this government afraid of? One would think that the government would want to put the brakes on the process here in Canada and wait until developments move forward in the United States but that is not happening.
One of the great boasts of this Conservative government about the FTA before it was passed and after it was implemented was that it gave Canadian manufacturers
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access to the United States. The government said if we could just get into that U.S. market then it would be just great. It said that manufacturing would shoot up, there would be all kinds of jobs created, and it would be heaven again.
Ask the people in the steel industry about that. Ask the people in the pork industry. Ask the people in the softwood lumber industry whether there has been free, unfettered access to that great U.S. market. The answer is no. They have another experience to tell us. There have been all kinds of harassment because that so-called access to the United States is not as great as this government would suggest.
One of the reasons for that is that we have a bilateral agreement that involves two countries, one that is much larger than the other. It is 10 times the size. When one is that big it can play around with the agreement. It can bully the smaller partner in the agreement. It can ignore all the legalese of the documents that should be guiding trade and commerce between the two countries. That again was ignored by this Conservative government.
Therefore we have an FTA that was poorly negotiated. It is flawed and now this government is trying to build upon on that flawed document with still another flawed document called the NAFTA. There has to be a renegotiation. There have to be improvements made.
We on this side of the House have stated over and over again some of the things that have to be done, some of the minimal conditions that have to be met. For example, we must have a subsidies code. We must have an anti-dumping code.
Right now each country lives according to its own internal rules. We do not really have a common law when it comes to subsidies or when it comes to dumping and we need that. Our experience since the FTA was implemented tells us that we must have common rules for each country to live by. Those are two things that we want, a subsidies code and an anti-dumping code.
We also want a much more effective dispute resolution mechanism. The way it is now the Americans can come up with almost any kind of trumped up charge against the way the FTA is working and drag various sectors of the economy through all kinds of examination, litigation and so on. Therefore we must find a better way of resolving our disputes.

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Consistent with what is happening in the United States now, we need agreed upon labour standards. If we are going to have the Mexicans involved in a trade pact with us we must have agreed to labour standards. We also must have agreed to standards when it comes to the environment. There are simply too many questions on this side of the border about labour and environmental standards as they are in place right now in Mexico.
We ought to have the same provisions under NAFTA when it comes to energy as do the Mexicans. That is not the case now. They have a stranglehold on their energy supplies in that country and we do not in this country. We have to share our energy supplies with the Americans.
This is a flawed document. It must be renegotiated if we want to be fair to the workers in this country who have a lot of questions about NAFTA.


Mr. David Walker (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to stand here and participate in this debate. There are several issues at stake here and it is appropriate that the House take extra time tonight to discuss these issues.
For those who were in the class of 1988 the issue of trade is one that has preoccupied us since the day we were elected. First we had to immediately deal with the free trade agreement. The Official Opposition warned that it was one thing to trade with the United States but another to trade properly. However our interventions, amendments and arguments against the government were all rejected in favour of the free trade agreement. Subsequently we have gone through five years of horrendous economic decline which the city of Winnipeg has felt in an especially difficult fashion.
My constituents want me to participate in this debate to ensure that the government understands that in their opinion the North American free trade agreement is every bit as bad, if not more threatening, as the original agreement.
My colleague, the hon. member for Winnipeg-St. James, just finished an eloquent speech in which he outlined the reasons we oppose this free trade agreement.
I would like to use this first opportunity to participate in this debate to focus on one or two issues that are of
relevance to the whole country and particularly to Manitoba.
My colleague from Kenora-Rainy River, who I must also take this opportunity to thank for his very wise participation in discussions in Winnipeg on aboriginal training issues, has moved amendments to the legislation.
Most Canadians do not realize that the piece of legislation that we are dealing with is an immense document, the workings of which the opposition has been given no assistance to understand. Nor have we had an opportunity to fully discuss the ramifications of this act with different experts.
Having said that I think it is very appropriate to start by looking at the preamble. What the preamble does ignore, and what the member for Kenora-Rainy River wishes the House to amend and accept, are the labour conditions that exist in Mexico and the difficulties they will create for the Canadian labour market.
It is quite obvious that the burden of the original free trade agreement has been felt by Canadian workers in union and non-union shops. They will be made vulnerable to changes in the labour market.
One of the interesting differences in the trade strategy of the Liberal Party dating back to the 1960s and the trade strategy of this government and the NDP is that the Liberal Party has a long tradition of making the right deal at the right time.
Occasionally we get laughter from the NDP but the people who benefited most from the free trade agreement are those in the Canadian automobile industry. Who has benefited the most from that but a man named Bob White? He is up there marching back and forth saying that he does not like trade agreements. Has he ever asked his workers about the trade agreement? Never. Why? Because they are too busy making money.
It is the recognition of the trade movement itself, and not its leaders, that a reasonable trade strategy is the way to go. Notice all of a sudden that those members are very silent. All of a sudden there is dead silence. They are thinking: Oh, yes, those are our cheques. We had better be quiet for a few minutes.
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Liberal members recognize that a reasonable trade strategy is the way to go. The international trade agreements we have struck in the past, the ones that we seek to reform, are the appropriate way to go.
The North American free trade agreement fails in the fundamentals, in terms of labour. For that reason we oppose it.
My colleague from Kenora-Rainy River has moved to make the following amendment in the preamble:
"respect the freedom of association and to affirm the role that free and independent, public and private sector unions play in the conduct of democratic governance,
honour the rights of all working people to organize, to bargain collectively and to strike,
encourage an open dialogue between management and labour on all decisions affecting the future of the work force as a result of this agreement,
implement retraining and adjustment programs for workers displaced as a result of the agreement, including support for those wishing to become self-employed-"
The purpose of this amendment, which the Official Opposition fully supports, is to recognize that labour conditions in Mexico and parts of the United States are fundamentally different from the labour relations we have set out to achieve in this country by provincial and historically although not currently by federal legislation. It is also to recognize that the conditions in Mexico have to be dealt with more directly than has been proposed.
I would like to quote a government document. It says: "Labour abuses are widespread in Mexico. The weak enforcement of Mexico's labour laws has been cited as a strong argument against freer U.S. trade with the country. Mexican resources for enforcement are scarce. Work place inspections are infrequent, particularly for border operations, and only in rare cases are sanctions applied by inspectors. Inadequate safety conditions contribute to industrial accidents in smaller firms and at construction sites".
My colleague from northern Ontario knows full well, as do I, the conditions in the mining industry and the lumber industry, for example, and how many years it took through stringent provincial and federal legislation to ensure the protection of workers.
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When we enter labour agreements with other countries we have to ensure that the governments of those countries and the companies operating in them have a commitment that is appropriate for ensuring the safety of workers. This is not a natural process but requires a strong-willed government.
I think we are all disturbed by the news in the last couple weeks about what is going on in Mexico. We have to ask whether there is a strong-willed government that can create the best working conditions for its people?
For example, there are child labour laws. The child labour laws are observed in large and medium sized manufacturing and commercial establishments in Mexico but they are not well observed in small shops and factories and they are virtually ignored in the informal sector.
The statutory minimum age for employment is 14 years. Mexican children between 14 years and 16 years of age may work but are subject to special legal protection and shorter working hours.
According to a study by the Cato Institute an estimated 10 million children work at least part time in Mexico supplementing an adult labour force of about 30 million. The huge number of child workers reflects generalized poverty and inadequate enforcement of child labour laws. Therefore we are competing with a labour market in which children are very active. That is totally contrary to everything we strive to achieve in this country.
When we have already undermined the financial and income security of Canadian families through several actions taken by this government and other provincial Conservative governments, can one imagine the insecurity felt when they are competing against children from other countries? People will wonder why they cannot compete the same way. Why can they not bend the rules? They will wonder why family firms cannot have children working in them when after all they are relatives.
We have drawn a line because of experiences in Europe and elsewhere. We have drawn a line that says we are not going to allow child labour. We cannot then enter agreements with other countries which have turned away from these problems and pretend they do not exist.

May 25, 1993
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When we talk about Third World labour conditions, we must in our deals set out what we expect. This party believes that unless we deal with the issues of child labour laws, minimum wages and maximum hours, these conditions will be exacerbated.
I do not think we are doing the Mexican labourer or skilled tradesperson any favours by offering access to a market under working conditions which are so poor. There will be no incentive among the companies involved with these labour markets to improve the working conditions of these people. Conversely there will be tremendous pressure, some of it actually very legitimate, by Canadian companies saying they cannot compete with $1.23 or $1.25 an hour and they must have an equal playing-field.
The only way an equal playing-field can be achieved is through a tremendous depression in the wage structure in Canada and this party has stood for proper working conditions for all Canadians for generations. When this party was the government, the minimum wage for workers under the jurisdiction of the Government of Canada was the highest in the country. It is now the lowest.
The proof of the commitment of the Liberal Party on trade issues and working conditions for Canadian workers is unparalleled and the Liberal Party is very proud of that.
For these reasons we believe the act has to be amended not only in the substance, which we will return to later in the debate, but in the very preamble. The veiy way in which the act is framed is contrary to the interests of Canadian workers.
I fully support my colleague from Kenora-Rainy River who understands the conditions of working people in this country and has brought forth to the House very fine amendments.


Mr. Sid Parker (Kootenay East):: Mr. Speaker, I too wish to take part in the debate and speak to the report stage amendments on Bill C-115, an act to implement the North American free trade agreement.
Before I start I want to comment on what the government is doing here because it is not getting the message out to the people.
In my riding of Kootenay East some Americans came to Cranbrook and interviewed some of the businessmen with regard to the NAFTA agreement and what they thought about it. Most of the businessmen said they were not too concerned about the NAFTA. They were more concerned about the GST and its effects.
The Canadian people have to understand that the goods and services tax is a part of the free trade agreement. The manufacturers could not compete with the Americans and the other industrial nations with a manufacturing tax off, so the government took it off the manufactured goods, put it on the consumers and said: "There you are; now we are on a level playing-field".
The patent drug legislation is another area where the Americans complained so the government brought in patent drug legislation to answer their needs.
The Prime Minister said our health services would not be affected in Canada and that was not part of the deal. Why did it cut back on the equalization payments to the provinces? Why is it quietly saying it is going to be okay that we might have to bring in some user fees? Why is the new leadership saying that user fees could be something of the future? To beat the requirements of the free trade agreements. That is what it is all about. To downsize what we have in Canada so the government can say we can compete. Let us get it clear here what we are talking about.
I want to specifically talk about the environmental aspects of free trade. In my riding the situation is almost an environmental disaster. It was created by the Liberals in 1965 when Prime Minister Pearson was trying to bring about the Columbia River Treaty and some of those arrangements. We have a reservoir there called; Kooca-nusa: Kootenay, Canada, U.S.A. That is why it is named Koocanusa. It says "recreational reservoir". Twenty years later come to the Kootenays and have a look at that reservoir now. It is nothing but a dust bowl.
The Americans are siphoning the water out of there so fast when we are supposed to be storing it for flood control and hydro electricity. They are using it for irrigation, tourism and fish enhancement. They are going to flush it dry this summer and kill all the fish on the Canadian side of the border to meet the needs of the Americans.
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I want to go a little further with regard to The Equinox which has put out a very good report called Diverting Interests: To Keep the U.S. Southwest Blooming, Visionary Engineers are Proposing to Replumb the Waterways of Canada.
Francis Dale, a Los Angeles lawyer who was Richard Nixon's ambassador to the United Nations who states: "We'll pay you for it. It will not take any water away from you. It is a path through from Alaska so to speak". His thesis is that to survive and flourish as a common market of North America, Canada and the United States must develop more co-operative and profitable uses for our fresh water resources. He confesses that the Americans are guilty of shameful over-consumption and notes that the United States uses three times more water today than it did 30 years ago.
I could go on with regard to another aspect of it. Bill Clancey, president of Multinational Water and Power Inc. of Vancouver is the dapper silver haired person behind the latest proposal to sell Canadian water to southern California. Claney, who describes himself as a business facilitator and public relations consultant, worked for and became a close friend of former B.C. premier W.A.C. Bennett during the Columbia River Treaty.
He talks of the North Thompson diversion which is another hare-brained idea to divert the North Thompson into the Mica reservoir, a salmon-bearing river in British Columbia, and bring it down into the United States to meet its needs.
They also talk about:
diversion, according to Clancey, would cause little or no
environmental harm to the North Thompson River since salmon
runs occur primarily in the fall, reasons Clancey,
They told us they were going to store the water in the Kootenays during the summer when there were high run-offs. Then in the fall they would take it for their hydroelectricity.
These are ramifying things that are happening here. If this government was really concerned about trying to protect our water instead of saying it is only selling bottled water it would put other terms in the treaty.
In the heat of the 1965 federal election campaign with massive river diversion schemes in the air such as the
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North American Water and Power Alliance, then Prime Minister Lester Pearson spoke promisingly of arrangements with the United States by which some of our water resources would be moved to the south. Our Liberal member says he applauds what the Liberals were doing in those days. We know what they have done. We see it every day in the Kootenays.
Opponents of water exports say there are a number of legal manoeuvres that can be undertaken to blunt the possible effects of the trade pacts. Wendy Holm would like to see an official memorandum of understanding signed by both Canadian and American trade officials limiting the free trade agreement and NAFTA to only bottled water. If that is what they say it is, draw it up that way. As well, Canadian intentions can be clarified. At present large-scale export of water is against federal government policy but not against the law.
In August 1988 the government introduced Bill C-156 to prohibit large scale water diversion but the bill died on the Order Paper. When the federal election was called it was never reintroduced.


Mrs. Sparrow:: We do not need it.


Sidney James Parker: The hon. member for Calgary says we do not need it. Come to the Kootenays and tell the people in my riding you did not need it.


An hon. member:: Nobody trusts you.


Sidney James Parker: They told us 20 years ago when the Columbia River Treaty was being debated that we would not need it because we would store that water during the summer and when it was winter it would be covered with snow and we would not notice the difference. Yes, that lasted for 15 years. But now the Americans are taking that water and leaving the dust and the wind. Salmon are being caught in little pools of water to die in order to feed that desire of the Americans and their water systems.
They want to flood cities such as Bull River and Invermere and transfer our fish-bearing North Thompson River into the Columbia. The hon. member for Calgary says we do not need it. The Canadian people better wake up to what is happening with regard to these agreements because 20 years from now it will be too late. They will come and say they are going to take it. In my

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riding the people know. They clearly know when they see that reservoir being drained.


Mr. Fred J. Mifflin (Bonavista-TVinity-Conception):: Mr. Speaker, I very seldom commend anybody from the unofficial opposition. There were certain elements that struck home with me but I am not going to dwell on them.
I am speaking to a bill that involves 4,300 pages and there is no way that can be covered in 10 minutes. I intend to speak on this again. I want to draw the memory of a lot of people in the House to what happened during the last campaign. It involved the free trade agreement. The way I approached it with my constituents was to tell them we were dealing with the future. We did not know what free trade was going to do. There were certain things I was concerned about but I did not know for sure. It was like playing a game of poker where $500 could be lost but only $50 could be gained. I do not like playing those kinds of poker games. I have no objection to free trade. Free trade is a good thing across the world and we are looking at globalization. I am not an opponent of free trade but this free trade agreement failed at the 11th hour. We get all the concessions that are now causing this trouble with respect to subsidies, definitions and a better idea of what we are giving away, what we are getting in return and in particular, the protection of jobs and the training for jobs lost that was going to be accomplished in a relatively short time, certainly in the length of this Parliament and the level playing-field that was discussed in general terms.
As I stand here today, I find it very ironic and paradoxical that when we came into this House, those of us who were elected in 1988 and some are in this House tonight, the very first debate we had at the opening of that Parliament was a free trade agreement that was not definite. There were things in there that even the government confessed it did not know how they were going to work out. But it felt by and large it was going to be good for Canada. A percentage of the Canadian people took the government at its word.
Now it is veiy ironic that as we are about to close this session of the 34th Parliament we are now about to go into another agreement that is larger and has more uncertainties that compound the uncertainties we had
before. But we are better off in one respect because we know some of the promises made in 1988 were not being kept and we know where we are now. I want to mention some specifics that I have been tracking very closely.
To begin with, the difficulty was how many jobs were going to be lost and gained. They ranged from 450,000 gained to 100,000 lost. Nowhere in the wildest imagination could anybody realize that the jobs lost would be somewhere in the vicinity of 300,000 manufacturing jobs alone in four years. I have not addressed the service industries and I have not talked about other aspects of Canadian industry. Consider a labour population that is in the vicinity of 13 million. When we talk about one sector losing 300,000 jobs, that is a large percentage of the entire labour force. It is not lost temporarily but lost never to be regained. We know it is not plus or minus anything. We know that in one sector alone it is over 300,000 jobs.
I want to talk about level playing fields. I agree with some of my colleagues who have said that the goods and services tax was related to the free trade agreement. The manufacturers' sales tax cost 9 cents to the dollar. For every dollar collected the government could use 91 cents for whatever purpose. However, it had to be traded in for the goods and services tax that affected not only the 30,000 businesses that the manufacturers' sales tax affected, but the 1.3 million small businesses in Canada. It cost them anywhere from $7,000 to $9,000 to implement and cost the Canadian taxpayer 56 cents out of every dollar to collect.
It is 10 times more inefficient than the manufacturers' sales tax, to say nothing of the fact that it has gone on 1.3 million small businesses. Every individual in Canada is being haunted by this goods and services tax. That was not envisaged as part of the free trade agreement.
Consider social programs. One of my concerns was that it would affect unemployment insurance. In the province of Newfoundland and in my riding, which the last time I checked had the second highest unemployment rate of the 64 regions in Canada, it was a major concern. My constituents were told by the minister representing Newfoundland and the Prime Minister that they had no worries about social programs. They were a
May 25, 1993

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sacred trust and, in particular, unemployment insurance programs would not be touched.
Today the government contributes zero to the unemployment insurance program. Bill C-21 changed it completely, took away the job development programs and rearranged the whole business of how unemployment insurance takes place. It has upped the ante by almost 50 per cent to those paying and those employing. If that is not a change then I do not know what is.
Nothing was going to happen to our medicare. That was only four and a half years ago. The major candidates who are now trying to be Prime Minister of this country and leader of the Conservative Party have been talking about a medicare that is not being financed by the government. Is that not the beginning of the end of what we considered to be one of the major pillars of Canadian society? It is what makes us so different from other countries in the world. It was a program that was introduced by Liberals. In four and a half years we have gone from: "It is not going to be a problem," to "It is already a problem". In Newfoundland alone we have lost $750 million in the last few years from transfer payments and EPF. A lot of that money lost has gone to reducing hospital services. If that is not the beginning of the end in a relatively short time, I do not know what is.
These are promises that were made four and a half years ago: "Nothing is going to happen". Well, it has happened and what are we gaining? We were supposed to gain free access to the American market. We have not gained free access to the American market. We have been hit time after time and the hit list has included Canadian exports in softwood lumber, steel, wheat, magnesium, pork and the list goes on.
I am standing here tonight and the government wants me and my colleagues on this side of the House, and I think some disbelievers over there, to accept that the North American free trade agreement as an adjunct, add-on, an extension to the free trade agreement is going to be good for Canada. I do not accept that and my colleagues do not accept it. I do not think anybody in their right mind would accept it for the very reason that the promises made for the free trade agreement with the United States were not kept.
There were jobs lost. There was no compensation program. There were no job training programs put in place to compensate for it. Unemployment insurance has been changed. We still have no definition of subsidies. We are looking at the beginning of the end of medicare as professed by the leadership candidates for the Conservative Party. We have lost somewhere in the vicinity of a half million jobs. Now we are being asked to sign on the dotted line to involve another country where the labour costs are less than a tenth of what they are in Canada. We are looking at a minimum wage that is out of sight. I believe it should be out of mind.
On top of all that we are looking at labour standards and environmental standards that have not been discussed. I find it incredible that we were being drawn by the Americans before and the relationship between the Prime Minister and the President of the United States certainly was great grease for the skids to get this going.
Now we are all alone in this. The Americans are saying that they are not sure they want to pass this so we are rushing to get this completed before Parliament ends. We are going to be sitting all alone with this agreement if we allow the government to go ahead and sign this. There will be nobody else to sign it. The Americans will not have it signed. Parliament will be dissolved. We will be into an election. Where will we stand then?
This is the most ludicrous thing that has happened certainly in my relatively short time here in Parliament and I am sure in the lifetime of many who have been here for 25 years. I have spoken to them. They cannot believe that this scene is taking place tonight.
I hope they have the opportunity to speak in more detail on more specific subjects concerning this atrocious deal in the next day or so.


Mrs. Diane Marleau (Sudbury):: Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to speak to Bill C-115 at report stage.
It seems to me that it was only a few years ago that I stood in this same House shortly after my election in 1988 to speak against the free trade agreement. Here we are after countless other disastrous pieces of legislation have been passed by this Conservative government speaking to another trade deal.

May 25, 1993
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This is report stage and one of my colleagues, the member for Kenora-Rainy River, moved an amendment which speaks to protecting the people of Canada. It is in fact quite a j ust amendment and I think we should all, including members on the Conservative side of this House, support this amendment.
The people of Canada are frightened, desperate and confused. They listened to the Conservative government telling them time and time again how they were going to be well-served by the policies of this government.
The free trade agreement came in. There were massive losses of jobs. Many of those jobs were lost because of the original free trade agreement that was signed and voted on in this House in December 1988.
The Conservatives opposite say that perhaps not all jobs were lost as a direct result of the free trade agreement. I would say perhaps not. A lot of it might also have to do with this government's very high interest rate and tight monetary policy and a whole host of other terrible Conservative policies which have devastated the economy in Canada.
Now it is rushing through this other disastrous piece of legislation while the Americans and our own negotiators look at parallel agreements. We do not even know what is going to be in them but we are going to agree to a trade deal.
Has anyone ever told this Tory government that one does not agree to things until one knows what is in them? I remember when I was a young girl and somebody said: "Do not worry. Trust me". My mother always said that the first time somebody tells you that then one should worry and not trust. That is exactly what this Conservative government is saying to us and to the people of Canada: "Do not worry. Trust us". By golly, nobody can trust this government. It has had it. Not only that, it is at the end of its mandate. Why this huge rush to approve a trade agreement when we are not quite sure what is going to be attached to it?
I suggest that we not rush into it, but it has never listened to anything that we have ever said. After all, it seems to believe that it knows it all at the expense of the Canadian people. If the government so sure that it is doing the right thing then it should bring in this amendment. It should consider the well-being of the people of Canada who have elected us to serve them. I believe this Conservative government has time and time again forgotten that it is serving them.
Right now we hear that there is a recovery on the way. I ask this Conservative government to go to the people and tell those who are out of work and underemployed where that recovery is because whatever recovery there is, it is a jobless one.
Our first duty is to the people of Canada to ensure that they can afford a livelihood, raise their families and have a decent way of earning a living. This is not happening. This has not happened since I have been in office. As long as those members have been sitting opposite us I can truly say that this economy has really gone from bad to worse especially when it concerns the workers of Canada.
I wonder about this Conservative government that is so prepared to rush this NAFTA bill through. For one thing why is no one standing up and speaking to this amendment?
Knowing what has happened in the past I can say that it of course will not approve these amendments. There are a host of other amendments which also speak to the social well-being of the people of Canada. Why is it that none of the Conservative members stand up to speak to this motion one way or the other? Either tell us why the government will vote against this motion or tell us if it will support this motion. I think that the people of Canada, the people who elected them, want to know why they are so determined to have a vote on this bill this week.
They want to know that. They want to know before the vote actually occurs. Remember, as I said just earlier in my few brief remarks, the people are desperate and frightened. They want some kind of word on what is going to happen to them. What will happen to them if we end up agreeing to a NAFTA that has side deals? We are not even sure what is in them.
I beg this Conservative government to at least support these very well thought out amendments. It is an absolutely worth-while endeavour to support these amendments. It would not hurt it to show a little compassion perhaps, once in a while, although I know it is difficult.
May 25, 1993

I stand here and I know I am not supposed to say this, but to make it even more disastrous there is not one Conservative here in the House of Commons, except perhaps for yourself, Sir, and I know you are not supposed to be partisan. However, there is not one Conservative member of Parliament in this Chamber right now. Yet this Conservative government is so absolutely anxious to have this bill passed.


An hon. member:: Here comes one now.


Diane Marleau: There is one. There are a few.
Does it really believe in serving the people of Canada? I think not. I think that very soon the voters in the next election will let it know in a very resounding way.


Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, it is intriguing to me to hear a member from the Liberal Party first of all point out that there is nobody in the House from the Conservative side and when she leaves, as she is doing, there will be no Liberals left. Beyond that we are going to get into this all night.
What is more important is where will the Liberals be when the vote comes? This bill is now before us at report stage. It has already received first and second reading, second reading being approval in principal. At second reading the vote on the bill was 113 for and 94 against; 113 being Conservatives and 94 being Liberals, New Democrats, Bloc and Independents.
What was intriguing was that while 42 out of 44 New Democrats were here, one being absent because of a death in the family and the other being in Europe at the time on parliamentary business, there were 38 Liberals missing. The vote at second reading was carried by the government by 19 votes.
The opportunity of defeating the government and defeating this legislation was the best that there had been in this Parliament. The government only won by 19 votes yet 38 Liberals ducked that vote; 38 Liberals were not here to stand up for Canada and for their country.
The member for Vancouver Quadra who was the Liberal leader in the last election said that free trade was the fight of his life. He was not here to vote, joined by 37 other Liberals who ducked the vote.


An hon. member:: You cannot talk about who is not here. You know that.
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John F. Brewin: We are allowed to talk about who is not here for a vote. The member opposite suggests we are not allowed to say who is not here. We are not allowed to suggest who is not here sitting listening to this fascinating debate and the speech that I am making.
We are entitled and will over and over again point out to the people of Canada that if they want to defeat the North American free trade agreement and its legislation they have only one choice in the next election and that is the New Democratic Party. If they want to keep it in they are going to have to vote for the Conservatives because the Liberals have no position that could be relied upon by the people of Canada. Those who sent them here to defeat the free trade agreement would have to be disappointed on the vote at second reading because that was an opportunity to defeat this legislation and to defeat this government.
When this bill passes, as it will, because the government has the majority in this House, it still remains for the United States Congress to enact legislation implementing the North American free trade agreement. All the information that is coming out of Washington is that is a very problematic proposition.
If it is approved in the United States, as it will be regretfully by this Parliament, and it is approved by the government of Mexico, the free trade agreement will come into force on January 1, 1994.
However, the agreement will have in it a provision that it can be cancelled by the government of any one of the three countries on six months' notice. We say to the people of Canada that if we have the opportunity prior to January 1, 1994 we will cancel the North American free trade agreement.
I say to the people of Canada that it is critically important that they understand what is at issue in this bill. First of all this bill reinforces the free trade agreement and free trade regime which was put into place on January 1, 1989. Now Canadians have had experience with that bill, that legislation and that regime.
The NAFTA takes the free trade agreement and makes it worse. It adds Mexico, a country that not only has a fascinating history, with many citizens and residents we applaud, but has a government that has stamped on the human rights and civil rights of its

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people. It has one of the worst records on the continent in terms of human rights. It has no effective legislation in place in respect of the environment. It has wages one-quarter to one-tenth of what they are in Canada. It has no social legislation which compares one iota to the social legislation we have in this country.
The first problem with the North American free trade agreement is that it pairs us up with a country whose standards in economic and social policies do not compare to ours. It offers, to corporate investors an opportunity to take the resources from this country and move them, not only to the United States as the free trade agreement does, but all the way to Mexico. With it will come that gigantic sucking sound of jobs going south that Ross Perot referred to in the last election in the United States. That is the first problem.
The second problem with the North American free trade agreement is that it turns over to a dispute mechanism the sovereignty of our Parliament and our legislatures. It gives to a trade dispute mechanism the authority to override legislation adopted by this Parliament or by the legislatures in territories of our country if those laws conflict, in the opinion of this disputes mechanism, with the terms of the North American free trade agreement.
Our government has negotiated a deal that takes away the sovereignty of this Parliament, turns it over to a body which will be appointed by the three governments which will meet in secret and whose mandate is to ensure that the economic interests of private corporations in North America override the interests of the democratically elected institutions in our country.
It may seem like a ludicrous proposition that which I have just stated because why would any government do that? Even more, why would a majority in Parliament, members of Parliament who are democratically elected and accountable, go along with it?
The answer goes back to a speech of Ronald Reagan prior to the 1980 election in the United States when he set out the neo-conservative agenda for North America. That agenda said that we have to begin to break down the barriers and open up the resources of North America to corporate America.
The barriers he referred to were barriers that were erected originally ironically by a Conservative government, the government of Sir John A. Macdonald. Those barriers were erected to develop what he called the national policy. Those barriers were erected to protect our society in what was then called British North America, to permit us to develop north of the United States a society which was different from the United States. He recognized, and the people of his time recognized, that it was essential if we were to have a sovereign country, we had to have our own economy. This government and the Conservative members who support it have sold this country down the river, not once with the free trade agreement but now a second time with the North American free trade agreement.
We will vote against this bill. We will fight this bill every step of the way, tonight, tomorrow, the rest of this week and into the election campaign. We will ultimately, with the people of Canada, win the fight to keep this country sovereign.


Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough West):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to take part in the report stage discussions with respect to the NAFTA legislation. In the brief 10 minutes allotted to me I want to explain to the constituents of Scarborough West in particular why it is that I am speaking at report stage and what the situation is, why we are even here this evening.
I know those who are watching on television might find it interesting that they simply do not see any Conservatives. This is an interesting situation because, as you know, Mr. Speaker, we see speaker after speaker from the Liberal Party standing up and discussing this issue. For every two or three Liberals we see one New Democrat stand up and speak to this issue, but we have not seen any Conservatives. This is fascinating.


Mr. MacWilliam:: A point of order, Mr. Speaker. I just want to clarify the misleading statement made by the hon. member who currently has the floor. I want to put on record that my colleagues and I in the New Democratic Party have initiated this all-night sitting to ensure that every member of our caucus has the opportunity to
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debate the free trade agreement fully and thoroughly with the fact that this government has called closure.
The member is misleading in his statement suggesting that we are not-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ricard):: I am sorry, it is not a
point of order, it is a point of debate. The hon. member has the floor.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: It is fascinating that the hon. members are first, paying attention and, second, taking away from my time or trying to with spurious points. I intend to deal with the situation that the hon. member mentioned about why we are here at 7.15 in the evening, because it is a very good point that I wanted to get to. I am sure there are many people who are very interested in this bill, as indeed they should be.


Mr. Belsher:: I want to watch the hockey game.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: I hear some shouting on the other side that people want to watch the hockey game. Well, if NAFTA cannot take precedence over a hockey game we are in serious, serious trouble in this House of Commons.
What I want to ask is this.


Mr. Sobeski:: There are no Leaf fans in Scarborough.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: Gee, this is great. They are upset and I have just begun. Wait till I am here till three o'clock in the morning. They actually woke up, I cannot believe it. Or at least I got them away from the hockey game.
In any event, why are we here? The hon. member from the New Democrats pointed out that the government is ramming the NAFTA legislation through the House of Commons this week. That is a tragedy. That is why its members are not here. That is why they do not put up any speakers. They want to ram NAFTA through the House of Commons as quickly as possible. So what have they done? They have put a notice of motion for closure. What does that mean? It means no debate.
How did I find this out, besides reading about it in the newspapers? I wanted to speak on third reading of the NAFTA legislation and I called our critic and I asked him to please put me on the list. He said he was sorry but there was no room. I asked what he meant. He explained that because of the closure motion we are only going to be able to debate NAFTA at third reading for one day.
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As we all know there are certain periods of time allocated for debate and only so many people can fit into those slots. There are 80 of us in the Liberal Party, all of whom wished to say a few words about this nefarious legislation. We are not going to be able to because there is a certain rank and precedence, and quite properly so, of the critics and associate critics of the various departments that are particularly concerned with NAFTA.
I get an opportunity to say a few words now at report stage on different amendments. That is why I am standing today, first of all, to deal with this first group of amendments. Seven amendments are proposed in the first group and there is one in particular that I would like to talk about and support, and it is Motion No. 1, not surprisingly, moved by the hon. member for Kenora- Rainy River, my colleague. It would be very interesting to see if anybody on the government benches gets up to explain what is wrong with this amendment. What is wrong with the government members on the other side agreeing with this particular amendment?
We all know that they are not going to agree with anything. Not only that, they are not going to tell the Canadian people why they do not agree with anything. They think that a document which contains 4,300 pages is perfect. There is not a word, not a comma, not a crossed t, not a dotted i that is missing. Everything is absolutely perfect and cannot possibly be improved.
Who could believe that? Who would have the audacity to make a statement like that? It is the government members on the other side of the House. It is hard to believe they all insist that this document is perfect, that there cannot possibly be any improvements. It is inconceivable to them that anybody on this side of the House might possibly have some good ideas which could make the NAFTA legislation a little bit better. Better for whom? For Canada.
I look at this motion and what does it talk about? It talks about the freedom of association and the ability for us in Canada to organize our workers and to permit our workers to organize in a free and democratic country.
I am not going to read the entire motion because it is four paragraphs but I want to precis it. It is there for a reason and what does it suggest? First of all it says we should be able to have the freedom of association. We

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should be able to have independent public and private sector unions that play a part in conducting the democratic process in this country.
It is interesting that my colleague moved a motion dealing with unions. What happened to the New Democratic Party members? Where are their motions dealing with unions? It was the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River who was concerned about workers. I commend him for that and I know that the working people of Canada will remember that in the months to come.
In any event he goes on to suggest that there should be retraining programs and adjustment programs for workers displaced as a result of this agreement. We know, despite all the rhetoric on the other side that there are going to be workers displaced because of this agreement.
We know that in the riding of Scarborough West, the riding I am privileged to represent, the Scarborough GM van plant just closed. We know for a fact that was due to the free trade agreement. All the workers who were displaced know that. Everybody in Scarborough knows that. The families of those workers know that. The spin-off industries that are going to be affected by that plant closure know that. And my hon. friend, the member for Kenora-Rainy River knows that. The reason he moved this motion was to provide that there be retraining and adjustment programs for workers displaced as a result of the agreement.
I ask myself: What is wrong with that? What is wrong with putting in a few words to protect those people who might just be adversely affected by the North American free trade agreement?
My friends over there would have us believe that this 4,300 pages of an agreement is absolutely perfect and incapable of amendment. They would have us believe that nobody is going to be adversely affected by the North American free trade agreement.
Of course that is not true. Everybody knows it is not true. Therefore my hon. friend has moved an amendment to provide for the protection of those workers who will suffer as a result of the North American free trade agreement which the Conservatives are going to ram through this House this week without adequate debate. There is absolutely no reason to do so, none whatsoever.
They are not going to stand up today and tell us why they are doing this and they are not going to stand up today and tell us what is wrong with Motion No. 1 moved by my colleague. I will tell you why, Mr. Speaker. It is because there is nothing wrong with it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that amendment. But because it is an amendment, because it is a change from what has been drafted and what has been agreed upon, it is absolutely inconceivable that the other side would even think about supporting it.
That is a tragedy. How can we proceed with this agreement with that kind of mind-set? How can we on this side make any sort of constructive recommendations, do anything in the way of bettering a bill? One of our jobs in opposition is to constructively criticize, to offer suggestions. How can we do that when the minds on the government side are closed? They will not listen. They will not do anything except ram through the agreement.
This is not some fanciful idea I have, but I predict that by midnight on Thursday, if this government has its way, this deal will be passed unamended by this House of Commons and that government will be judged for that sort of action.


Mr. Simon de Jong (Regina -Qu'Appelle):: Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to join the debate this evening on the first part of the amendments dealing with the North American free trade agreement. My remarks will be general because the amendments specifically deal with the environment and social policy.
We heard much from the Conservative benches during the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement debate and now in dealing with NAFTA about the changing nature of our world, globalization, the need for international trade, et cetera. I have no dispute with much of what they say as indeed we have seen a tremendous globalization, particularly starting in the 1960s, picking up speed in the 1970s and then well into the 1980s.
We see both positive and negative results. We see the positive side where there has been tremendous economic development in parts of the world particularly in parts of Asia where tremendous growth is occurring. There is no doubt about that. The People's Republic of China, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, India and I believe very soon
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Vietnam, will experience a tremendous increase in their rate of growth.
Yet one also has to stand back and wonder what benefit this growth has been to the ordinary people in many of those countries. I had the occasion to visit some of those countries. I saw the huge skyscrapers going up, apartment buildings that in terms of the rents are comparable to those in downtown Vancouver, Toronto or New York. There are the very expensive clothes and the Mercedes. But in the shadows of it all is the beggar. There are people who are still working for the equivalent of $1 to $1.50 a day. Much of their so-called prosperity is on the backs of the poor.
When it occurs and when the workers are able to demand a little bit more as they now are in Korea and Taiwan, those industries are being moved to mainland China, to Thailand, to Vietnam or to North Korea. There is this continuous shift searching for very cheap labour, as though that is the important component.
Of course with globalization, we have now opened our borders to these countries and now our Canadian workers have to compete against them. We see Canadian companies, the large retail organizations, setting up their own manufacturing units. The hammers, other tools, clothing or whatever are all manufactured especially for them under contract to what essentially are sweat-shops so that they can provide Canadian consumers with supposedly cheap goods. I imagine the mark-up between the factory gates in the Third World and the time the item reaches the consumer here is quite substantial.
We are asked to continue this with this agreement, to have our own North American version of an Asian backwater so to speak, our own source of cheap labour. That is what this is all about: the ability of our ownership class to have access to cheap labour.
The government has the gall to suggest that this is good for Canada, that this is good for the men and women who work, make and produce the things we need in this country, who pay their taxes and keep this country going. This government claims that this frontal assault to the average Canadian is a good thing. [DOT]
We have seen the results of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. We have seen hundreds of thousands
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of jobs leave Canada. Of course it was the combination of the free trade agreement and the high Canadian dollar that priced our goods out of the market and allowed this huge exodus of capital and manufacturing jobs out of Canada.
What I do not understand about the Tories is that there is a simple thing they have never figured out. It is that people need to earn incomes in order to buy the goods and services the businesses are offering. If Canadian men and women cannot earn the dollars in good jobs, then they cannot buy. It is no wonder we have this recession. It is no wonder we have lost the confidence of the consumers. It is no wonder we have the deficit. It is because more Canadians are out of work and are not able to pay taxes. Instead they are drawing UI and welfare.
That is a recipe for disaster. Why is this government acting against the self-interests of Canada, of this nation? It has a job to protect and govern this country. Why in Heaven's name is it so adamantly on this course that is going to do further harm and cripple our country?
The government is of course driven by ideology. I would suggest in some ways the neo-conservatives over there are the purest ideologues left in this country. They are driven by ideology. They are not driven because something is good for the country or because it makes common sense. They are driven because they feel this is the right thing to do.
Therefore, we are down this neo-conservative path that the Americans have finally rejected. I suspect that the Americans will not pass this agreement because they have come off the neo-conservative binge and have assessed the damage it has done to their country. They have seen the type of economic malaise that exists in the United States in the numbers of unemployed and the deficit they have. They have come off that. It is a question of time a matter of months before finally we in Canada can get off this same ride the neo-conservatives have put us on.
What a ride it has been. We have the highest per capita debt in the world. We have the highest level of unemployment of the industrialized countries. They have crippled this country. Of course in one sense we can understand it. These people believe in little or no government. They will leave behind a government and a

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country so in ruin and laden with such a weight of debt that the government will not be able to do anything.
These people have succeeded in down-scaling government and one would almost think they did it deliberately. In fact, there are some who suggest that David Stockman who was the budget bureau director under Ronald Reagan is now openly admitting that they ran up the deficit in order to justify cutbacks to social services down the road. It was part of the neo-conservative agenda to destroy government. That is what these people have done. What a record.
Of course when we deal with NAFTA that is part of the scenario. It is part of the grand design. They burden us with huge amounts of debt. They deregulated so that now we do not have any viable transportation system left in this country. They have done it with communications. They have done it across the board. They have weakened our cultural institutions. They have tied our hands with the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. Now I suppose the height of their accomplishment is NAFTA where Canadian workers are going to have to compete with the Mexican workers who earn $1, $1.50 or $2 an hour.
What an accomplishment in eight or nine years of various governments, including past Progressive Conservative governments as well as Liberal governments often crowded by the CCF and the New Democratic Party. We have built institutions in this country to help protect and enrich the lives of Canadians and to make this one of the most decent, civilized countries in the world. In nine short years these folks driven by neo-conservative ideology have brought us to our knees. They have crippled Canada. I am afraid it will take a long time to heal from the abuses inflicted on us.
I am not against international trade. There are some good models we could follow. The Conservatives during the 1988 election said that we should look at Europe. I agreed. The Europeans got together and formed a social agreement. It was not just an agreement on trade but an agreement on social policies, labour standards and the environment to ensure that the whole matter was not dragged down to the lowest common denominator of
Greece, Spain and Portugal. There are plans afoot to raise those countries to higher levels, but in this agreement there is no such guarantee. We will be forced down to the lowest common denominator.
For that reason my party and I are opposed. We will do everything possible to protect Canada, our way of life and our standard of living.


Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg Ihanscona):: Madam Speaker, I too would like to participate in the debate tonight.
As I listened to the hon. member for Regina-Qu'Ap-pelle I was struck by the passion with which he spoke. I actually contrasted it with my own mood tonight. It is one of despair to some degree. As once again we are debating something that has been compared to a constitutional debate changing the economic constitution of North America under the threat and indeed the reality of closure.
When the government moved closure on second reading of this legislation I asked the Chair at that time to intervene on behalf of Parliament, to protect Parliament from becoming a rubber stamp and to protect Parliament from the tyranny of a majority that simply regards any prolonged debate on something of this importance as a nuisance. There was a time when closure came after the opposition had dragged the debate on for a while. Now the government House leader if we are not prepared to agree to limit the debate before the debate starts feels justified in moving time allocation. If we do not agree before the debate starts we get a motion of time allocation.
That is not the purpose of closure or time allocation. If at a certain point the government feels the debate has gone on long enough it does not take it long to move time allocation. It can take the political risk of cutting the debate off. The opposition can take the political risk of dragging the debate on. We do not even get to do that. We do not get to let the Canadian people make some kind of judgment about whether or not the debate has gone on for too long. Right off the bat we have time allocation, and all of this at the same time as we are allegedly down in the United States negotiating parallel or side agreements to the very agreement we are seeing rammed through the House at this particular time.
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It is embarrassing to think the Canadian negotiating stance is that we are negotiating but in the meantime we are going to pass the bill and the implementing legislation as is. It is only embarrassing if one looks at it with any kind of national self-respect. I guess it is not embarrassing if one looks at it through the eyes of the Conservatives because the fact is that they like this agreement just the way it is. They really do not want to improve it. It is so transparent. They like it the way it is because the idea of putting in tougher environmental standards or tougher labour standards goes against their particular view of the world.
That is where the hon. member for Regina-Qu'Ap-pelle was right on when he said this was an ideological fixation on the part of the government. It is fond of thinking that somehow the New Democrats are the ideological ones, but this is the most ideological government we have had in Canadian history. It has rewritten the ideological fabric of Canadian society.
What the government is doing in these agreements is trying to enshrine its ideology beyond its own political existence as a government so that regardless of what happens to it its particular view of the world will be enshrined in these agreements for a long time to come, particularly if we get a Liberal government after the next election because the Conservatives will have done all the dirty work for the right wing of the Liberal Party.
These agreements will not be changed and, as I have said before, they will outlast the Conservatives. They will go far beyond the reach of their political life as a government.
The Minister of Finance said it well this morning when he was answering questions in the House respecting the North American free trade agreement. He said: "Why are not people out there exploiting these opportunities that the North American free trade agreement creates?" Creates for whom?
I want to say two things. I think the word exploit tells us a lot. These agreements are really all about exploiting the people of Mexico, the people of Canada and, for that matter, the people of the United States. It is about exploiting the working people of those three countries by pitting them against each other in a new form of so-called competition. The opportunities are not for Canadian workers. The only opportunities they have are to be faced with ultimatums from their employers to take
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a $3 an hour cut in wages or lose their jobs as is the case with a number of firms in my riding and in Winnipeg generally. Those are the only opportunities that exist for Canadian workers.
The opportunities are there for Canadian exporters of a certain kind: people who are willing either to export or to relocate in Mexico and take advantage of those low wages. Those are the opportunities, but what are the opportunities for? They are opportunities for exploitation. We should just reverse exploiting opportunities and talk about opportunities for exploitation because that is what it is.
All the statistics about how Canada is benefiting from the free trade agreement only have to do with exports. They do not say anything about jobs. They do not say anything about social well-being. They do not say anything about the environment. All they talk about is certain kinds of export statistics.
Theoretically we could have a handful of companies in Canada employing only a handful of people who are very successful at exporting all kinds of things to other countries. This would make our economic statistics look great except for the fact that a whole lot of people who used to have jobs do not have them any more. I suggest to the minister that to the extent he believes these statistics, and I am not sure he does, he is suffering from what the famous philosopher Alfred North Whitehead once called the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. That is investing certain abstractions with a reality that hides what is really going on. To have the Minister of Finance, the minister of trade, or whoever does it from day to day here get up to talk about these wonderful export statistics is a good example of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.
The concrete reality is that Canadians everywhere have either lost their jobs, are losing their jobs, are being asked to accept a lower wage, a wage rollback, or in a variety of other ways are being asked to forfeit the standard of living and degree of social justice we have achieved in the last 40 years to 45 years in the name of competition.
I had my nomination meeting a week or so ago within about 48 hours of the tragedy in Thailand where a factory was burned and somewhere in the neighbourhood of 250 women died. It struck me that there was a competitive

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factor, a factory that was a good investment according to all the rhetoric we hear on the other side. It probably was very productive. It probably had very high productivity, low overhead, cheap wages and no union. The list goes on of the ways the factory in which those 250 women died met all the standards of competition, efficiency and productivity. This was a place for people to invest, invest in death.
That is what we are being asked to applaud time and again in this House, the fact that we are turning the world into a place where decisions to invest in places like that factory in Thailand are called good when they should be called bad.


Sheila Maureen Copps: I rise on a point of order. I am just clarifying, Madam Speaker, that I will be speaking on the next motion.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Yes. The hon. member has spoken on this group so I will have to recognize somebody who has not spoken on it. Otherwise we will have to put the question on the first motion.


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: Madam Speaker, about 10 years ago the Prime Minister was first elected to the House of Commons. As a matter of fact I think it was in his very first speech in the House that he said: "Give us 20 years and you will not recognize this country".
The Prime Minister has had less than 10 years and already if we look at the economic situation in Canada we are fast becoming a Third World economic basket case. It is quite a legacy to have left us; it is quite a legacy to have left the Canadian people. Although the Prime Minister may soon be gone that legacy will indeed live on through the enshrinement of the policies and the ideological commitment of this government in both the free trade agreement and the proposed North American free trade agreement.
These agreements are a way of enshrining the government's corporate agenda. None of us on this side of the House has any difficulty with the idea of reducing trade barriers, reducing tariff barriers, increasing opportunities for Canadian workers or increasing opportunity for Canadian business.
These free trade agreements really do not have a lot to do with that. What they do have to do with is opening up
the Canadian market for exploitation from multinational corporations, be they U.S. multinationals or other multinationals operating through the United States. They have basically opened up the opportunity to exploit not only Canadian workers but Canadian resources.
With the proposed signing of the North American trade agreement between Canada, the United States and our now our newest partner, Mexico, this exploitation will be furthered to include the Mexican workers, the Mexican economy and the Mexican environment where basically all the pieces of the puzzle if you like have been put into place through the FTA and now through the North American trade agreement.
The United States and the multinational corporations operating in the United States will have an opportunity to exploit cheap Canadian resources and cheap Mexican labour.
As my colleague for Regina-Qu'Appelle mentioned earlier in his presentation, these agreements do not have the kind of social charters that are necessary to guarantee equality in terms of opportunity for workers and in terms of basic standards for health, environmental safety, and educational opportunities.
The social charter should be very much a part of this agreement to ensure that countries such as Mexico, a developing Third World nation, brings its working conditions, environmental conditions, its health and labour standards up to the level that Canadian workers and Canadian people have enjoyed.
Without those guarantees, this is exactly what President Clinton has been talking about when he has said he will not sign this agreement unless there are parallel agreements that guarantee certain provisions for workers and certain provisions for environmental standards. He will not sign the agreement because he is aware that without these parallel accords, without these extenuating provisions, what happens as we have already seen through the free trade agreement is a downward spiral to the lowest common denominator.
Rather than raising the wages and working conditions of our brothers and sisters in Mexico up to the standards that Canadian workers have traditionally enjoyed, what will happen is that the working standards for Canadian workers and U.S. workers will spiral downward to the lowest common denominator. That in the long run is not going to be healthy for the Canadian economy, nor will it
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be healthy for the United States economy which is why we have seen Ross Perot.
We all know Ross Perot was one of the U.S. presidential leadership candidates. This man was a multibillionaire. He knew a good deal when he saw one. He knows how to make a good buck. He took one look at that trade agreement, shook his head and said if this agreement is signed all we are going to hear is one great sucking sound as U.S. jobs go south of the border. He was speaking on behalf of U.S. workers and U.S. industry.
I want to say that if this agreement is signed in Canada and Canada signs into the agreement as it is now written, all we are going to hear is an even greater sucking sound as Canadian jobs and Canadian resources are also drawn south of the border.
This agreement coupled with the free trade agreement that we are now experiencing, the radical restructuring of our economy as a result of its signing four years ago, provide that opportunity for the multinationals, the transnationals to access Canadian resources and Mexican labour.
They have got all the pieces of the puzzle put together and it is a level playing field for the multinationals where they can move capital and labour to wherever they see the best fit. If you reread it to the lowest common denominator where labour is cheapest and environmental standards are the most lax, it means it will allow them to move these factors around like pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle. Canadian workers, and I submit Canada's economy, will suffer significantly as a result of this.
It is interesting that while Mr. Clinton has said this agreement cannot be signed unless these other provisions for environmental standards, health and safety standards of workers are also met, here we are in this House of Commons today with this government ramming through this agreement, calling closure on the rewriting of our economic constitution, probably one of the most important questions that this House has faced in many, many years. The rewriting of Canada's economic constitution through the signing of this agreement will set us on an irreversible path of economic and political union with the United States in a few short years.
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It will be a path that is well delineated. Without a blink of an eye this government on the most important question facing this House, the most important question facing the Canadian people, denies the opportunity for debate even in this House of Commons, even in this Parliament, through the calling of closure, through the calling of time allocation.
Time and time again we have seen this government use and abuse this parliamentary procedure to ram through its political and ideological agenda and abrogate its responsibility to the Canadian people by castrating the process of Parliament. Those are pretty strong words, but that is exactly what is happening through the calling of time allocation on this motion.
A few months ago when we had the opportunity to debate the rewriting of our social constitution through the holding of the referendum in the fall, this government spent limitless amounts of money and went to no ends to ensure that information was provided to every part of this country. People were inundated with information on the referendum and why they should support the government's position on the referendum.
Here we have a question that the Canadian people need to address and should have the opportunity to address, a question that is ever as important as the referendum question was. I submit it is even more important because it is the rewriting of our economic constitution, and this government has not taken the opportunity to provide information to the Canadian people. It has not taken the opportunity to involve the Canadian people through a possible referendum process in itself. It does not even involve the members of Parliament who are here representing their own constituents and allow them the opportunity to debate this issue.
This is a very sad day when the government calls closure on a motion as important and as critical as the signing of this economic constitution for Canada, the signing of this North American trade agreement. It is a shameful day when that abusive privilege is given the opportunity as it has been through the calling of closure on this motion.


Mr. Chris Axworthy (Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing):: Madam Speaker, it is almost five years since this House debated the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement after the last election and after the majority of Canadians

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voted against the free trade agreement, but of course free trade agreements did not start there.
There were other efforts to sell out Canada before, but the modem free trade trend did start at least just before the 1988 free trade agreement. It began, of course, with the appointment of the Macdonald commission, the royal commission by the then Liberal government, and the report by the Macdonald royal commission which mapped out the free trade agenda for Canada which the Conservative government has so carefully followed.
It is important to note the amount of support for free trade agreements like the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement and like the Mexico deal in the Liberal Party at that time and indeed today. If we look across the country at Liberal premiers we will see, for example, the Liberal premier of Quebec and the Liberal Government of Quebec strongly in support of the North American free trade agreement. We should not forget that the Liberals talk out of both sides of the mouth when dealing with these important matters facing Canadians. We should also remember that rather than take the position of scrapping the free trade agreement with the United States and having nothing to do with the North American free trade agreement with Mexico, the Liberals talk only about making changes to that agreement even though both President Bush and President Clinton have indicated that this sort of renegotiation is simply not possible.
We now have this government again, against the wishes of Canadians, ramming through the North American free trade agreement with Mexico. It is not providing ample opportunity for this House to debate it or even for Canadians to debate the consequences of what surely will be essentially a new economic constitution for this country, making worse what has already been made intolerable for Canadians by the Canada, U.S. Free Trade Agreement and entrenching the loss of sovereignty even further than was done by the Canada, U.S. Free Trade Agreement.
Basically what is being tried now is essentially the same as before, an economic agenda being driven by the marketplace with no concern for the costs to individuals, the costs to families, the costs to communities, but letting the big business community controlled almost all
offshore to decide to use Canadian resources, American capital and Mexican labour to produce the products that might be sold both in this part of the world and in others.
Since the signing of the free trade agreement some estimates have indicated over a million jobs lost in Canada and in Saskatchewan one in nine manufacturing jobs has been lost since the free trade agreement.
The experience that Canada has had with the free trade agreement signed with the United States has not been one which would suggest we would want to go even further, that we would want to pursue this approach yet again.
Some of the government supporters will say things might have been worse but for the free trade agreement. First of all it is hard to see how they could have been worse. I think if you try to tell those 4.2 million Canadians who are either unemployed or on social assistance that the free trade agreement in fact helped them they would laugh because they simply could not see how that could be the case. When we have a country in which 16 per cent or 17 per cent of Canadians are not participating in the productive work force it is quite clear that the economy is not working for Canadians.
No matter what the numbers or the figures are with regard to the value of manufacturing products sold to the United States over the last year, if Canadians are not working we cannot say that the economy is working. If it is working in one sense who is it working for? Certainly not for Canadians, but it may be working for large multinational corporations which so freely contribute to the coffers of the Conservative Party for its election efforts and which worked so hard and spent so much money in the last election to get the Conservative Party elected.
The world is changing. There is no doubt about that and New Democrats recognize that as much as anybody else. The question is how we are going to respond to that change. Are we going to give up control over Canada and Canadian resources and Canadian jobs and the Canadian economy? Or are we going to tiy to map out a strategy which enables Canada to respond to the changing times, to the changing world, so as to maintain jobs in Canada as best we can and to create new jobs in Canada. Basically we have a choice. We can throw up our hands as this government wants to do and leave all these decisions to the international marketplace, dominated as
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it is by huge corporations which have enormous problems competing with each other but have a great deal of ease finding ways to work with each other so as to benefit themselves.
We can throw up our hands or we can tiy to develop a strategy, a plan which enables us to compete in the world and still keep jobs here in Canada.
It is odd but the Conservative government continues to ignore the fact that all successful economies around the world have strategies, have plans and have a vision for the way in which their economy will develop. Most of those successful economies have plans which have been developed, not alone by government, but with business and very often with workers also there is a consensus, an agreement, a commitment to work together to solve the country's economic problems and to maintain a decent standard of living and a decent employment rate for their citizens.
The basket case economies, the economies that do not work, like Canada's, are those that follow this neo-conservative agenda of just throwing economic decisions out into the international marketplace. The United States, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand are really the only countries that have attempted to respond in this way.
We should take some lessons from countries that have successful economies, from the economies of Asia, Japan, northern Europe and in particular from those northern European countries that have a long and distinguished social democratic tradition in which jobs came first and jobs continue to come first. Those countries are also experiencing difficulties with the world economy, but surely we in Canada would look with glee at an unemployment rate of 6 per cent, which Sweden has, rather than the one of some 12 per cent which we have.
Even through the good times, through Liberal governments and Conservative governments alike, we had unemployment rates stubbornly high, twice as high as those in those social democratic countries because those countries put jobs first. Canada, in its economic policy development, has never put jobs first. We have constant-
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ly, both Liberal and Conservative governments at the federal level, attacked inflation by creating unemployment, attacked interest rates by creating unemployment and attacked problems with the dollar by creating unemployment. That is not an acceptable policy to pursue.
We all know that the Canadian Catholic bishops have said that not only is that not an acceptable policy, but it is an immoral policy, that this government's policies are immoral, not just wrong but immoral. Nobody should be able to do that sort of thing to Canadians and their families.
Who wants this deal? Do the 4.2 million Canadians who are out of work or on social assistance? Do the Canadians struggling to maintain their families on inadequate incomes as they see their real income decline over the last decade? Do Canadians who are struggling to maintain their homes and pay their mortgages want this free trade deal with Mexico? Of course they do not. The only people who want this free trade are the Conservative Party, some Liberal provincial governments and also the supporters of that party, the big business community. They want it so that they can take advantage of the opportunities for themselves without having to care about what is good for Canadians or for Canada. It is in the self-interest of the large corporations, but it is not in Canada's interest and it should not be pursued for that very reason.
In closing I would just like to draw a contrast with the common market in Europe which is much more about planned development and strategies than this government is pursuing with the United States and Mexico. It is also much more about raising standards of regions and countries that are less well off than others. That would be a much better approach to take than this one of throwing the whole economic decision making open to the big business community.
We cannot, in all consciousness, support a deal which does not protect the environment and protect health care standards for workers in Mexico.


Mr. Jerry Pickard (Essex-Kent):: Madam Speaker, as I look around the House I do not see many people who are very happy with the legislation that we are dealing with tonight.

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Many amendments to NAFTA have been brought forward. Our party feels that there are many things about this agreement which are totally unacceptable. Certainly there are things about the agreement that must be changed before any consideration is given to expanding our trade.
As Liberals, we are a party that has always looked upon trade as something that is very beneficial to this country. We realize that our country's greatness has grown because we are a great trading nation. It was a Liberal government that brought in the North American auto pact, which brought prosperity in manufacturing year after year after year, that brought hundreds of thousands of jobs and a great job surplus to this nation. Trading dollars throughout the world made Canada prosperous and always has.
However, since the day that the free trade agreement was brought in with the United States and the auto pact was changed, we found a real loss in jobs. We found a dragging down of our economy. We found that Canadians were suddenly going from a very prosperous nation to a position where we were seeking jobs, where we were concerned about the recession, we were concerned that our brothers, our neighbours, our cousins were all out of work. We are in very difficult straits. I have to think that the government opposite must have concerns about this because what did it do before the debate started? It forced time allocation on this debate.
In other words, it said: "We are going to push this through as hard and as rapidly as possible so that the Canadian public does not hear all of the concerns we have with the 4,000 pages of this NAFTA proposal".
We feel that those proposals should be debated very thoroughly, very fully, so that all possible avenues of improvement are put forward. The government, on the other hand, has set its own agenda. That agenda, unfortunately, is very politically partisan. We have an upcoming election and there is reason to believe that the Conservatives are trying to get the NAFTA off the floor of the House of Commons and passed as quickly as possible so that it is not the election issue that it should be, so that it is not debated fully and Canadian people do not see the negatives that are coming forward. They are almost trying to throw a blanket or table cloth over the whole issue, push it through as rapidly as possible and leave the Canadian people in the dark.
I believe that is a very poor practice. It is not an acceptable practice in modem societies. However, that is what is being done today.
Why are we dealing with closure on the NAFTA agreement when the other two nations involved are not even finished negotiating the complete deal at this point? Why are we being pushed so hard at this point to talk on the issue? Why are my colleagues here tonight only being given 10 minutes to stand up and deal with the issue?
It comes down to jobs. It comes down to labour problems.


Peter L. McCreath: Madam Speaker, it seems to me that what is on the floor of the House right now are certain amendments. My hon. friend who is concerned about time perhaps should confine himself to the subject that is before the House, which are these amendments.


An hon. member:: That is not a point of order.


Jerry Pickard: Government members are very upset when people point out that low tactics are being used to stop debate in this House of Commons, to shut up democracy. That is what is happening here. We are being told debate is being limited. That is shutting up democracy.
It is very unfortunate when we look at the policies that are coming in we are going to have to deal with job losses by the thousands. We are talking about people in Canada that are going to be replaced in the job market.
Madam Speaker, I am glad they are having their side debate. Not only are they showing a lack of respect in this House but they are showing a lack of respect for anyone trying to speak as well. I find that rather appalling by three people who just walked into the House. I find it appalling that they are trying to stop people from saying what in fact is happening.
Pay scales in the United States can be as low as $2, $3, $4 an hour and pay scales in Mexico $1 an hour. I know that many Canadian jobs are going to be put up in comparison. All I have to do is look at below what a corporate entity will do.
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If you or I are managing a large corporation our job is to look at profits. If I can hire people for $3, $5, $7 an hour less in Mexico than they would work in Canada, I am certainly going to do what is going to make my corporation the most profits.
We see that occurring time after time. Corporations are paying Mexican workers very low wages. They are pumping their waste products into the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. As a result the environmental concerns are not being looked after. The Maquiladora corridor is something that has been a bone of contention with environmentalists for years. However nothing has been done on the big business side to clean that up.
We are putting workers at very low wages against Canadian workers. We are putting the environmental standards of Mexico against Canadian standards. Corporations are going to start putting Canadian jobs in Mexico and in other areas. NAFTA certainly is leading in that direction.
We are going to end up with a major problem. I am very pleased that my colleague put forward this motion. What will happen to these workers who are being displaced? My colleague has suggested that when this many workers lose their jobs they must be given an opportunity for retraining. They must be given an opportunity to seek other types of skills so that they can become part of our labour force again.
In my own area of Windsor and Essex county we have lost over 5,000 manufacturing jobs since NAFTA was signed. I perceive that we are going to lose many more manufacturing jobs because of this government's policies and direction.
The government is not putting forward funds or providing retraining opportunities for those people who are out of work. I am talking about 5,000 jobs in Essex county but I could well be talking about 300,000 jobs in Ontario. I could well be talking about the potential for as many as a million people to be replaced, their potential to be shifted from one area to another. We are talking about very large numbers of people who will certainly be in a position to seek other kinds of training or employment without those positions being placed.
I also could refer to the agrifood industry which has been very hard hit. The benefactors of the free trade agreement were supposed to be many people in agriculture. Certainly those people have lost hundreds of jobs. The largest employer in my riding, Heinz Corporation,
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has lost hundreds of jobs since the implementation of this agreement. Other small producers have just been totally wiped out.
We saw plants in our area close one a day for many days. That went on for months. Now we are sitting in one of the highest unemployment areas in the country where before it was very prosperous. I am afraid that this North American free trade agreement is going to bring further devastation to my area.


Mr. Joe Comuzzi (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to make a few comments with respect to this trade agreement.
I just returned from my riding a few moments ago. Without any contradiction and without fear of compromising those people I spoke with over this past weekend, they are dedicated to protecting the integrity of Canada's trade and to protecting the integrity of Canada's ability to deal fairly in the marketplace.
The people I represent in Thunder Bay-Nipigon were unequivocal in their position. Until we can get an agreement such as we are considering entering into now and some side agreements on the environment and the labour movement this is a completely unacceptable piece of legislation which this government has placed before this House today, tomorrow and the next day in order to be passed.
This legislation with whom to be a bit redundant. We have already heard over this past weekend that our friends in the United States, with whom we entered into a trade agreement in 1988, are absolutely opposed to the type of agreement that is being proposed now. We are debating a trade agreement that proposes we deal with the United States in harmony with the free trade agreement and also proposes we deal with Mexico in harmony with the trade agreement. It proposes that we consolidate the free trade agreement, as my friends across the aisle call it although I prefer to call it something else, harmonize the free trade agreement with what is being proposed now and add Mexico into the agreement.
Just recently we had the privilege and the occasion to meet with my colleague who is sitting in front of me at the Canada and United States interparliamentary session. In that session we had the opportunity to discuss with several United States senators and congressmen their thoughts with respect to the North American free

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trade agreement. It goes without saying that the consensus of opinion arrived at out of that meeting is that unless there were some substantial changes with respect to those two particular areas, the side agreements on the environment and labour, there would be no agreement with the United States and Mexico. If we take the United States out of the equation then there can be no agreement.
I proposed at that meeting that barging into a new agreement, as is being proposed in this House tonight, that does not solve some of the problems we find in the present trade agreement would be folly. We should be applying our minds to remedying those areas of conflict that presently exist in the trade we are now experiencing between Canada and the United States. I am talking particularly about those issues that are aggravating to Canadian people.
On the aeroplane today I read in one of the periodicals that we have lost so many jobs and companies in Canada. Nine in total have decided to move their manufacturing enterprises to the United States with a further loss of about 200,000 jobs.
Over this past weekend I proposed that we should try to get one trade agreement operating thoroughly, efficiently and to the benefit of the two countries and the labour movement in the two countries rather than bring in a third country that would cause extreme havoc and cause us to further delay those items in the trade agreement that are so important for its success.
Specifically I am referring to the problem we still have not addressed with respect to what is a subsidy. Let me veer off the point for a moment in talking about subsidies. Subsidies are those things that are irritants in the trade agreement because we have not been able to define them.
We have had several issues that are very important. One issue that is extremely important to the riding I represent concerns the softwood lumber industry. It has been in a precarious position for the last four and a half years since the trade agreement was entered into. That was the one issue in the trade agreement with the United States that lived beyond the agreement entered
into by former Minister Carney and the United States in 1987. I believe it was on December 10, 1987.
It has been a continuing irritant between the two countries. At first it was a 15 per cent export tax on all lumber we were shipping to the United States. They found that was unfair. This happened regardless of the fact that we went through two tribunal hearings which assessed Canadian lumber as not being unfairly subsidized. Yet the policy groups and lobbying groups, particularly in the Pacific northwest, chose to bring another action against Canadian lumber producers which further delayed the ability of Canadian lumber manufacturers to participate fairly and equally in the United States market. That 15 per cent export tax was then reduced to something like 5.5 per cent or 6 per cent for a short period of time and then it was raised to 14.68 per cent.
Those of us on this side of the House and those of us who are particularly interested in this type of legislation know full well that legislation was only because the American producers in the Pacific northwest wanted the raw logs, the huge 18, 22, and 24-inch diameter logs, that were being harvested in British Columbia and Alberta to flow into the United States untouched, without any value being added so the Americans could produce the logs themselves.
That tariff hurt our industry for another eight or nine months because the 14.68 per cent tariff on the softwood lumber industry further enhanced the ability of the American producers to gain a stronger foothold in the market. As a result of the fact the section 18 and 19 dispute settlement mechanism was not operating effectively they finally realized the position they had taken at 14.68 per cent was not a tenable position. The moment it got before a tribunal they withdrew and reduced the tax from 14.68 per cent to what it is today, something like 5.8 per cent or 6 per cent.
In the past 14 days a decision was rendered by the dispute settlement mechanism that is in place. It said: "Look, we are going to give you another 90 days in order to reconcile your differences". In essence the dispute settlement mechanism was saying that this tariff could no longer exist. It gave our counterparts in the United States another 90 days to get their house in order and reduce that tariff.
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I mention that because that is the type of irritant that we have been experiencing not only in softwood lumber but in pork, steel and some mining resources. Those are the types of things we as a trading country have to get away from.
In order for us to even consider a trade agreement with another country we have to make the trade agreement that we presently have in place better suited to Canadian needs and the Canadian working person and enhance our position so we can be more competitive.
That lumber deal was strictly a stall on the part of our American friends so they could gain a better market share than they already have. At one time we were selling almost 30 per cent of the lumber used in the United States. That share dropped to something like 18 per cent and now it is starting to gradually increase.
One would think that is the type of agreement in which we would want to remedy those inconsistencies in order to make it compatible between the two countries. I do not see that this agreement the government has proposed today goes anywhere near settling the incompatibility we would find between Canada, the United States and Mexico.
Coming back to my main theme, without the two ancillary conditions, which are that their environmental standards meet our environmental standards and their labour conditions meet our labour conditions, we cannot even put our initials on any type of a contract. A little thing like the Occupational Health and Safety Act which we have in our country must be reconciled.
My time is up. Let me say in conclusion that this may eventually be something that we should be looking at not under a free trade but a fair trade proposal. For the interest of all Canadians, we must look at those two areas very specifically and settle those other areas that are still causing problems between Canadians and Americans in the trade deal they entered into in 1988.


Mr. Ross Harvey (Edmonton East):: Madam Speaker, back in 1988 in the period leading into the general federal election there was a great deal of debate to and fro about the merits of free trade for the nation as a whole and for various parts of the nation in particular.
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During the course of that debate back and forth one thing was almost always held generally to be correct. It was thought that regardless of what happened in the rest of the country Alberta would surely profit from free trade. If we brought free trade to Alberta then by gosh, the sun would rise, the birds would sing, the crops would grow higher, the red meat animals would grow fatter, and the oil would come shooting out of the ground in unheard of quantities and the prices would recall those of the early 1980s. The sad fact of the matter is that this has not proven to be the case.


Mr. Blenkarn:: You're going to be defeated boy. You're gone.


Ross Harvey: There is a great deal of noise coming from across the way, Madam Speaker, from an hon. member who seems not to wish to hear the sorry truth. Many times in life we are confronted with unfortunate truths that we have to listen to.
Among the unfortunate truths I would like to present tonight to demonstrate the experience of free trade in Alberta is the following: From December 1988 to December 1992, the first date being the date immediately preceding the commencement of the free trade agreement with the United States and the last being the corresponding month for which we have the most recent figures, manufacturing jobs in Alberta declined by 5,300, 6.1 per cent of the total. Of the province's manufacturing jobs 6.1 per cent are gone. In the province that was to be the big winner from free trade 5,300 people who had jobs in 1988 do not have them now.
Non-manufacturing jobs in the resource, construction, transportation and communication sectors dropped by 9,500 or 7.6 per cent. That is another tremendous victory for free trade in the province that could not lose. In Alberta 9,500 people who had jobs before free trade do not have them now.
It is true that the service industry increased by .3 per cent for a total of 1,900 jobs. When we total all of the job gains, and there were some, and losses, and there were more, that can be found published in Statistics Canada's employment earnings and hours, catalogue number 72-002, we come up with a net loss of 12,900 jobs in Alberta from December 1988 to December 1992. "O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!" The free trade deal is in

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effect and Alberta cannot lose. Well Alberta lost and in particular 12,900 Albertans lost.
Now let us examine a couple of industries that were supposed to be the big winners and in some senses were. Let us first turn our attention to mining, quarrying and oil wells. As we all know, and I will be addressing this subject in a little more detail as we consider other amendments tonight, the petroleum industiy in Alberta, oil and natural gas, has seen its exports to the United States go through a steep curve.
Good news you would think, Madam Speaker. Maybe so, but from December 1988 to December 1992 in the mining, quarrying and oil well industries 9,800 jobs or 15 per cent of the total disappeared. They are gone. Families that relied on those jobs, some of whom live in the constituency of Edmonton East, were on UI and then on welfare.
The Government of Alberta estimates it is going to spend over $1 billion on what it euphemistically refers to as supports for independences this year, and this despite a new regime of Draconian cuts in that administration. Among those being ill-served by supports for independences are many of the families represented by that cold statistic: 9,800 jobs lost in the mining, quarrying and oil well industries.
Perhaps more distressing for the future is that the machinery industiy in Alberta over the same period from December 1988 to December 1992 lost 1,200 jobs or 20 per cent of the total of December 1988, 20 per cent of every manufacturing job in Alberta. At the commencement of free trade one in five is now gone.
A lot of those people live in Edmonton East too and they are hurting. They are not hurting because of recession. They are not hurting because of poor management by their corporate employers. They are not hurting because somehow the workers themselves have been stupid or inept or inadequate. They are hurting because this government put in place a trade regime that guarantees the rationalization of production and hence employment on a continental basis. When that happens the jobs disappear in Canada because we cannot employ people as cheaply as can the Americans and soon to come, far from the neighbourhood near you, Madam Speaker, the Mexicans.
People will say: "Well God knows Ontario has been hit pretty hard by free trade". "Guess Quebec has been hit pretty hard by free trade", "Lord knows the maritimes are not doing too well" or "God help Saskatchewan and Manitoba". However when it comes to Alberta people will say: "There is a winning province. There is a province that knew what it wanted out of free trade, set out to get it and by God it got it". It certainly did get it. It got a net job loss of 12,900 people. That is the winner.
How these people across the aisle can possibly point to Alberta as the success story and on the basis of this success now propose to march further down this ill-starred aisle is a mystery to me. I suspect it comes as a mystery to most Canadians. The people in Edmonton East whom I have the honour to represent know what has been going on. They each have two good eyes and two good ears. They can see the effects of free trade not just in Ontario but in Alberta as well. That is why they want none of it. What they have now they want gone and they sure as heck do not want any more.
That is why no one in the House ought to vote for this rancid little bill. God knows that I as the representative for the people of Edmonton East will not.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Madam Speaker, we have heard a great deal of drivel tonight from the other side. They would have us turn the clock of history back maybe 50 years or 100 years. They would have us go back to the policies of Sir John A. Macdonald. John A. Macdonald's national policies were important for the country 50 years ago or 100 years ago but they are not policies for today.
Today we live in a world where goods are produced with fewer and fewer people. The economies of mass production, the computer and robotics changed the production of goods and services to such an extent that tariff barriers are no longer barriers. The old policy of high tariffs to protect the domestic industries of Canada and keep the domestic employment up will no longer work.
If we had to go back to a high tariff policy we would have to go back to a policy of 100 per cent tariffs and 200 per cent tariffs. We would have to go back to a controlled policy that prevented goods from coming into the coun-
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try and services from coming into the countiy based on nationality or based on whatever we might have. Such a policy would drive the standard of living in Canada down beyond all belief. Yet that is the policy recommended by the New Democrats or the new dinosaurs, to get down to the proper name for that party, or the Liberal Party.
The fact of the matter is that we are in a world economy. We have to produce our goods to world standards of quality and price. If we are not prepared to do that we are not going to be able to maintain our standard of living. We must organize ourselves to produce things efficiently and effectively at prices that beat anybody in the world.


An hon. member:: Lay everybody off.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: My friend says: "Lay everybody off". Lie is right. Anybody who cannot work to produce to the world standard is going to have to learn how to produce to the world standard or lower his or her standard of living. The fact of the matter is that we will have to learn in this country how to live at a world standard.


An hon. member:: At a Mexican standard.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: My friend says: "At a Mexican standard". I want to tell him right now that I have just come back from the Far East. I talked with a number of entrepreneurs in Hong Kong who are hiring labour in south China, Bangladesh and Vietnam at 50 cents an hour. Mexican labour in their terms is just four times too expensive.
The fact of the matter is that Mexico is expensive compared to the world cost of labour. What we have to do is win and we have to win by using our intelligence, our confidence and our basic understanding of how things work to beat world competition. We cannot expect the world to give to us because we happen to be Canadians. We have to win our place in this world. Until opposition members understand that we will never get any sense out of them. They believe we can go back to the days of Sir John A., put up a big tariff barrier, make sure all sorts of uneconomic production exists in Canada and therefore people are employed in Canada to produce uneconomic results.
I am sorry. It will not work any more. The world is not like that any longer. That is not the world we live in. I am soriy we cannot have what we used to have. We used to
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have a situation in Canada where we could have a whole series of manufacturers producing only for the Canadian market. We could sell as Canadians our raw resources to the world and make a profit. Raw resources today do not win. Any countiy that tries to win and create on raw resources will go nowhere.
We have a situation where the parties in opposition advocate a policy of not just yesterday, a month ago, a year ago, seven years ago, but 50 years ago. They are advocating a 50-year old policy. That is what they are, a dinosaur party of a long time ago.
Whatever we heard from the other side tonight it is the kind of thing that no longer works in the world. It certainly will not work in Canada. We cannot have a policy based on the new dinosaur concept that we can protect every job by a higher tariff, that we can protect every occupation with a high stone wall against the world.
We have to sell our manufacturers to the world. We have to sell our technology to the world. We have to sell our resources to the world. We have to sell them at prices the world will find competitive. If we do not we will not have the standard of living we have.
Until we are prepared to deal on a world economy basis then we had better understand there is no protection for any job, any position or any occupation in this country. We have to be competitive. Until we are competitive we have no future. The free trade agreement we have with the United States helps us dramatically in terms of our competition. It has given us the opportunity to be competitive with large American corporations on a world basis.
As we expand that free trade agreement with Mexico and hopefully Chile and Argentina, hopefully with all South America, we will be able to have a bloc of free trade countries in the world in which we can sell our expertise, our telephones, our commuter aircraft and our high-tech stuff. That makes sense. As long as we can do that we will be successful.
On the other hand we could go back. We could follow the New Democratic Party. It would keep policy tariffs up. It would make sure that we are a little country with little minds. We would have a lower and lower standard of living. The fact of the matter is that the objectives of the other side are such that they are a denial of where the countiy is going in the world. They deny globaliza-

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tion. They deny the fact that people have changed and the productive systems in the world have changed.
We have to refute that denial. We have to support this bill. We have to deny the various foolish amendments that have been put before us at report stage. I think the amendments before us must be denied.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Madam Speaker, boy, what a bunch of fantasy we just heard from the member for Mississauga South.


Sheila Maureen Copps: The retiring member.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Yes, the retiring member, says the member from Hamilton East. He has nothing to lose in standing there and taking 10 or 15 minutes of House time to gloat about what the government that he has been a part of for so many years has done to this country first with the free trade agreement and now with the proposed NAFTA deal.
This country was never competitive until today, implies the member for Mississauga South. Never competitive until today. We were lost in the wilderness. We would have been in the dark for decades if not for the actions of the member for Mississauga South and the government which he so eloquently represents, and that is a compliment for that man, right? Let us look at the record. He eloquently represents this government and look at the record he has achieved for us.
First I must address the amendment moved by my colleague, the member for Kenora-Rainy River, to "respect the freedom of association and affirm the role that free and independent, public and private sector unions play in the conduct of democratic governance, honour the rights of all working people to organize, to bargain collectively and to strike, encourage an open dialogue between management and labour on all decisions affecting the future of the work force as a result of the agreement, and implement retraining and adjustment programs for workers displaced as a result of the agreement, including support for those wishing to become self-employed".
Now, what do the government people say about such matters? I will quote from the government document on Mexican labour laws and their practices. "Labour abuses
are widespread in Mexico. Weak enforcement of Mexico's labour laws has been cited as a strong argument against freer U.S. trade with the country. Mexican resources for enforcement are scarce. Work place inspections are infrequent, particularly for the Maquiladora operations and only in rare cases are sanctions applied by inspectors. Inadequate safe conditions contribute to industrial accidents in smaller firms and at construction sites".
This is a hell of a record we are going to associate ourselves with, is it not? How about child labour laws? This government document says that taxable child laws are observed in large and medium sized manufacturing and commercial establishments in Mexico. They are not well observed in the small shops and factories. They are virtually ignored in the informal sector.
The statutory minimum age for employment is 14 years. Mexican children between 14 and 16 years of age may work but are subject to special legal protection and shorter working hours. Thank goodness for that. They will not be working 21-hour days. According to a study by the Cato Institute, an estimated 10 million children work at least part-time in Mexico. Ten million children work part-time in Mexico, supplementing an adult labour force of about 30 million. The huge number of child workers reflects generalized poverty and inadequate enforcement of child labour laws. Is that not incredible?
I have two daughters. Many of the members here this evening have children. I cannot imagine for a second that my daughter, age 10, is going to have to go out and work in order to supplement the food we try to put on the table and that my daughter, age 7, is going to have to help my daughter, age 10, who is helping the family to make enough money so that we can put food on the table. That is outrageous.
Is that the concept that we as Canadians are trying to develop? Is that what we are trying to show the rest of the world what we stand for as Canadians? I think not. For the last two, three, four decades Canada has come forward and said: "This is what we are all about. We are a very generous country. We invite all kinds of immigration. We have people living here celebrating their heritage and the diversity of their cultures. We have a wonderful democracy, fairness, free speech".
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Then along comes the Tory Party. Free speech. Boy, free speech tonight? While members of this House were busy in committee-I was in the transport committee along with my colleague from Thunder Bay-Atikokan from 9 a.m. this morning until just now, but at 4.30 this afternoon the government House leader sneaks in-sorry, I apologize. I will take that back, Madam Speaker. He did not sneak in. He walked in proudly to his seat and said: "This is it. Once again we are invoking closure and limiting the debate on this bill". The largest and most complex piece of legislation to be tabled in this House, some 4,000-plus pages.
Many of my constituents know the disastrous effects of the Canada-U.S. free trade deal and what effect it has had on our country. When I was first elected to this House, when the House was called into session in 1988 we did not have much time. It did not even have time for orientation as a person who had never been here before. My colleagues from Haldimand-Norfolk and Kenora- Rainy River, many of us were first-timers. We walked right in to the free trade debate here in the House of Commons, sitting in our offices, no staff yet, writing our free trade speeches with a pencil and paper, putting it all together.
We discussed the free trade deal. We said there were not enough standards for Canadian workers at that time. We are saying it again today. There are not enough standards for Canadian workers.
The government estimated an increase of 250,000 jobs over 10 years. That was in 1988. Well, five years later half the time has elapsed and what do we have? Over 1.6 million Canadians without jobs. Hundreds of thousands of Canadians have lost their jobs in the manufacturing sector, jobs which perhaps have gone for good as Canada is gradually deindustrialized under the failed economic policies of this government, such as the Canada-U.S. free trade deal. And now we have free trade II: NAFTA.
My constituents have been asking me why the government is rushing to pass NAFTA legislation this week when the Americans are not even convinced that it meets their own objectives, that it does not yet meet their standards for dispute resolutions and environmental codes. The so-called side agreements which the Americans are intent upon agreeing to before they ratify
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NAFTA have yet to be agreed upon by our government in its haste, ramming the NAFTA through this House before Canadians have had a chance to even examine the legislation and the impact it will have on their lives and their jobs.
Jobs of course are a top priority for Canadians and my constituents. I sent out a householder at the beginning of this month. I asked the constituents in my riding of Hamilton West to rank their priority in creating jobs, putting retraining programs into place, and controlling the deficit. So far I have received 300 householders and they are still coming in. Seventy-five per cent of those 300 householders put the creation of jobs as the number one priority.
Why? Well, maybe it is because over 10,000 jobs have been lost in the steel industry in our home town of Hamilton alone. The steel industry where our production is superior to any other in the country should have been in boom times. Except now under the mis-negotiated Canada-U.S. trade deal it is a bust.
These constituents, like the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have lost their jobs because of the free trade deal, remember the Prime Minister promising in 1988 that Canadian workers who were laid off because of the free trade deal would receive the most generous retraining programs anywhere in order to get them back to work. That promise of course was a farce. Canadians were hopeful of having their jobs protected. Of course, the Prime Minister turned around and promised jobs, jobs, jobs. That is another broken promise.
In closing, Canadians want to see the fine print. They want to see this legislation debated and debated fairly. They are fed up with this type of legislative heartlessness and they want the jobs and retraining programs they were promised. Canadians also want the environment to be protected under this deal. This deal does not meet the objectives of our constituents.


Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in this House and speak against the North American free trade bill but in favour of the amendments put forward by one of my next-door neighbours, the member for Kenora-Rainy River, and a member from my caucus, the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca.

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I think it is important, eight hours into the debate on report stage amendments that I remind those who are watching of the actual text of these motions that have been grouped for debate. I gather that these will be voted on separately, whenever that time comes. It may or may not come soon if anyone is wondering how things are going to progress.
Motion No. 1 would add the following words:
respect the freedom of association and affirm the role that free and independent, public and private sector unions play in the conduct of democratic governance,
honour the rights of all working people to organize, to bargain collectively and to strike,
encourage an open dialogue between management and labour on all decisions affecting the future of the work force as a result of the Agreement,
Actually, that might apply to some places in Canada as well.
implement retraining and adjustment programs for workers displaced as a result of the Agreement, including support for those wishing to become self-employed; and
That is the motion in the name of the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River. Also my colleague from Esquimau-Juan de Fuca has put forward that:
"7.1 Nothing in this Act or the Agreement shall be interpreted so as to prevent or limit a Party to the Agreement-
-that is any one of the three countries-
- from establishing a tax on any good imported from the territory of another Party to the Agreement to fund any labour adjustment program or environmental program made necessary by reason of the Party's trade with that other Party or as a result of the production of that other Party.
Motion No. 27 again by my colleague from Esquimau-Juan de Fuca adds that:
(a)	unless the Governor in Council is satisfied that the Government of the United Mexican States and the Government of the United States of America have taken satisfactory steps to implement the Agreement;
(b)	unless the legislative bodies of the NAFTA countries have adopted a Charter of Fundamental Social Rights for North America modelled on the items 2 through 12 of the Charter of the European Community.
Motion No. 30 adds the following:
(a) unless the Governor in Council is satisfied that the Government of the United Mexican States and the Government of the United States of America have taken satisfactory steps to implement the Agreement; and
(b) until the Secretariat of the International Labour Organization states, in writing, that it is satisfied that the United Mexican States and every state in the United States of America is complying fully with the following conventions of that Organization:
(i)	Convention number eighty-seven guaranteeing the freedom of association and the protection of the right to organize;
(ii)	Convention number one hundred and five abolishing forced labour;
(iii)	Convention number one hundred guaranteeing equal remuneration for men and women workers for work of equal value;
(iv)	Convention number one hundred and eleven abolishing discrimination in employment.
Finally in terms of the words that my colleagues are attempting to add to the legislation enacting NAFTA there is the following:
(a)	unless the Governor in Council is satisfied that the Government of the United Mexican States and the Government of the United States of America have taken satisfactory steps to implement the Agreement; and
(b)	until the United Nations Human Rights Committee Against Torture has expressed, in writing, that it is satisfied that human rights violations are no longer commonplace in Mexico, that torture is no longer systematic in Mexico and that human rights violations in Mexico will be prosecuted by the Mexican government.
If we are to have an economic constitution for North America it is only appropriate that these kinds of measures are put in place. Without them it is quite realistic to anticipate that companies which for whatever reason locate in Mexico will not meet the high ideals, the high standards that have developed in this country of ours over the years, standards that have been developed through the sweat, talk, negotiations and yes, sometimes the blood of trade unionists who have fought for the right to bargain freely, to bargain collectively, fought for the right to have safe and healthy work places. It has not been an easy struggle. It has taken decades.
This past weekend I had the honour, as all of us have had in this House, to present to distinguished Canadians medals in honour of Canada's 125th anniversary as a country. One of those medals that I presented on Friday night was to a former staff rep for the United Steel Workers of America, Henry Gareau, who was one of the first individuals in Ontario to have a nation wide effect in developing the first silicosis committee. For those who
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are unaware, silicosis is the resulting disease obtained by miners because of exposure to the elements in the mines. That committee was formed decades ago by this individual as part of his job and part of his training and understanding of the needs of workers and the things that affect them.
The work of that one man and that committee eventually developed into protection for widows of those miners who lost their lives because of the silicosis that they obtained because of their work.
If we do not have these kinds of provisions in the enabling legislation the work that Henry Gareau and others have done over the years will be lost. Whether it is a mining company or a manufacturing company or a service company, they will be able to locate in Mexico. Unless we have some assurance that our high standards will be applied, workers there will suffer the same ill effects from their working conditions suffered here in Canada decades ago.
We are not against trading with Mexico. We are not against trading with the United States. We believe in fair trade, we believe in managed trade. We recognize that North America is a major market for us and we can do a lot there. It is a question of what rules we do it under. Do we do it under a free-for-all system that allows for the lowest common denominator? Or, do we put in place specific agreements that are managed agreements that ensure that Mexico is not allowed to undermine the United States which is not allowed to undermine Canada in terms of its workers?
We need an agreement that deals with those things. We are trying to amend this legislation to include the expertise, the gains that were made in Europe through its social charter which ensures that jobs cannot be stolen from one country to benefit another. Those are the kinds of provisions we need in a fair trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico, not this free for all that has been brought before us, indeed rushed before us in an attempt to rush it through the House.
It boggles my mind to think back in terms of how second reading was rushed. My colleague from Esquimau-Juan de Fuca will remember how the Tories rammed second reading through this House and they sat on their duffs. They did not call the committee together to meet. They did not give it the opportunity to hear
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from Canadians in all parts of Canada. They did not take the committee to the heartland of Ontario where the highest number of jobs have been lost since the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement came into being. Certainly southern Ontario was devastated. The industrial heartland of Canada was devastated as we saw the direct results of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement come into being.
We are again being told that the government wants report stage in and out of this House quickly. It wants third reading, which is the final reading in this House, done in a day. That is why we took the option that we had earlier today to extend the sitting of this House. It is not normal at 9.10 on a Tuesday evening for this House to be sitting.


An hon. member:: This is not a normal House.


Iain Francis Angus: My colleague says this is not a normal House and I cannot dispute that.
We felt it was important to provide time for members who represent Canadians, members on this side of the House, to get up and explain why we want this legislation changed and why we oppose the concept in its entirety because we have not had that chance. Debate has been very, very limited. Even now I am limited to only 10 minutes on this particular package. I will be back to speak on the other aspects of the amendments put forward by my colleagues in this House because it is my duty, my responsibility and my right to do so.


Ms. Joy Langan (Mission-Coquitlam):: Madam Speaker, I am almost lost for words about the situation in which we find ourselves in this House of Commons talking about this thick piece of legislation in 10-minute components.
We are talking about a piece of legislation where two speakers from my party were given the opportunity to speak on second reading. Two of our speakers were given the opportunity to speak on a bill that is going to change Canada as we know it in every way. Many of us ran on this issue in the last federal election. Many of us ran with the commitment that we would speak out loudly and strongly about why and how this bill would affect us as Canadians. Suddenly we find ourselves in the situation after all of this time of finally getting a document this

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thick and being told that it must go through and it must be rammed through quickly.
When we talk today about this piece of legislation and these amendments we are talking about the environmental and social conditions that this bill places before us. The New Democrats put forward several amendments under this section. One of the amendments was to talk about the interpretation so as to prevent or limit a party to the agreement from establishing a tax on any good imported from the territory of another party to the agreement, to find any labour adjustment program or environmental program made necessary by reason of the party's trade with that other party, or as a result of the product of that other party. That was put forward by my colleague, the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca.
That is a very important amendment because the question becomes where will the money come from in this country to pay for labour adjustment and environmental clean-up due to dislocations and pollution caused by the trade and goods production. Think about it. Here we are in 1993 and we do not have the money, according to the finance minister of this country, to enter into the adjustment programs that were promised to us under the free trade agreement. Now we are going into a North American free trade agreement and we have nothing, no commitment to show us how we will be able to protect Canadian workers through adjustment for jobs lost under this North American free trade agreement. What happens to particularly those workers? Younger workers are going to be hurt but they are young in the work force and they will have an opportunity to recover.
What happens to the workers who are 40, 45, 50 or, 55 years of age? They have worked all of their lives in this country, and planned their working lives toward retire-men. Many of them have pension plans that rely on the best five years, and they find themselves out of work because of this North American free trade agreement. What happens to those workers?
They lose their opportunity. The best five years are often the last five years of their working lives. They find
themselves displaced. They find themselves out of the labour market, no retraining programs in place, no real thought having been given to what we do about these workers. They find themselves at the age of 45, 50, 55 being disenfranchised by Canada, being left in a situation where no one wants them, no one is prepared to retrain them. It is too costly to retrain them. Why would an employer retrain them if they only have 5, 10, 15 years left in the work force? What have we done in this country to ensure that those workers will be protected by adjustment programs? What promises has this government not given the workers of Canada? They have given them no promises other than to say: "Trust us".
The Canadian people trusted this government in the last federal election and the trust has been betrayed by this country. Hundreds of thousands of Canadian workers were disenfranchised under the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. They have been left high and dry. We have seen the unemployment insurance program savaged under the guise of providing training programs for workers who have been disenfranchised. Not only do we have a non-program of retraining for those workers, we now have a less than adequate unemployment insurance program.
Without the option under this bill to tax imports a Tory or Liberal government could claim that there is simply no money. There is no money for retraining. There is no money for labour adjustment. There is no money for environmental clean-up. This amendment must be passed and I think it is absolutely critical that we support this amendment to this bill.
Under Motion No. 27 which has also been put forward by my caucus there is a request to amend this bill in clause 242. Essentially this amendment is that legislative counsel has added the citing of clause 242 at page 193 but in fact it is not found on page 193. It deals with trade marks. It is inappropriate for this amendment.
Legislative counsel may have intended this amendment to change part III coming into force which is clause 247 of the first reading version but I think it is absolutely critical that we recognize that free trade by itself brings enormous hardships to workers and communities.
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To achieve the benefits of increased trade without the concomitant hardships being addressed leaves us in a situation where workers are just going to be abandoned.
All workers should feel secure in this country in the knowledge that not only are they free to choose and engage in an occupation but that all employment will be fairly remunerated.
I want to talk a little bit about the impact of this bill on British Columbia and on my riding of Mission-Coquitlam. There is no doubt in my mind and in the minds of many of my colleagues that British Columbians will be hurt by the NAFTA. Our resource processing sector, domestic manufacturing and the service sector will likely see numerous job losses. More women, children, people of the First Nations and recent immigrants will live in poverty in British Columbia. We will be less in control of the protection of our environment. We will find ourselves in British Columbia in a situation where some will profit but the majority will be less well off as a result of this agreement.
In my riding the forest industry is an important part of the economy. Workers in our forest industry see the NAFTA as a further threat not only to their jobs but to a way of life. They have seen this government renege on the promise of workers adjustment programs, as I have already stated, under the free trade agreement. They have never seen the adjustment programs.
They have already seen some plants move across the Canada-U.S. border taking their jobs with them. Forest companies are already moving to Mexico.
In British Columbia we are familiar with the Louisiana Pacific. That company has built a state of the art sawmill in Jaurez, Mexico, 60 miles south of San Diego. American raw logs and unfinished lumber are being barged to this manufacturing plant where they are processed and returned to the U.S. The Mexican workers are paid a pitiful $1 to $1.60 U.S. an hour with no benefits. Mexican environmental and safety regulations, which are weak to begin with, are not enforced. This is the kind of future the people in my community face under NAFTA.
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As we move into the next number of amendments I will be back to cover some of the other areas that are affecting my community.
Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George-Bulkley
Valley): Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to have an opportunity to enter into debate at report stage on Bill C-115. The legislation, as most Canadians will quickly come to know, is to implement the North American free trade agreement.
Tonight we will be debating until all hours the nature of the legislation that this government is attempting to ram through this Parliament, legislation some 4,000 pages long and, as some have said, the largest piece of legislation ever introduced in the Canadian Parliament, to implement the North American free trade agreement.
It is important that all members of Parliament in this House use this opportunity to really debate and discuss the impact of this treaty on the economy not just of Canada but in particular of our constituencies and of our provinces.
It is important to note, to put tonight's debate into context, just how important it seems to be to the government of the day to get this legislation through. We have just learned on some news reports that the Prime Minister has called back all Conservative Party leadership candidates to be in the House of Commons for the vote on this legislation this week. I am glad that they are coming back, if they do show up. Kim, Jean, Jim, wherever you are, I am glad that you are coming back to be in the House and to be accountable so that Canadians will get a chance to see just how the next leader of the Progressive Conservative Party votes on this legislation. Wherever you are, in northern Ontario or travelling to round up those Tory delegates for the convention, you are welcome to come back. We will be here ready to vote on this legislation.
This legislation is particularly important for a province like British Columbia where when we debate trade it is all about subsidies and countervails. I just have to mention the softwood lumber tariff dispute as a perfect example of the mess that this government has gotten our forest sector into under both the free trade agreement and the North American free trade agreement.

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What are some of our concerns? Anyone who represents a riding where we have the forest sector with exports to the United States, I suggest that there is at least one part of the North American free trade agreement that is reason enough to defeat this legislation in Parliament. That is the whole provision surrounding the determination of what is a subsidy.
If you are from northern British Columbia and you work in the forest industry that is what trade is all about. One of the criticisms of the free trade agreement was the lack of a definition of a subsidy so that we could determine once and for all what is fair trading policy between our country and the United States.
You will recall the legitimate criticism we levelled at the government when it said it would have some five to seven years to deal with this issue to resolve the question of a subsidy so we would not have the debates we are having over magnesium, raspberries, softwood and salmon, you name it.
What does the North American free trade agreement do? It lifts that requirement so that we will never have a settlement on the whole question about what trade disputes are all about. I would say that if you are from a constituency or province that is heavily dependent on resources and resource extraction for export, that is reason enough to question this legislation and this treaty.
I say that with a great deal of concern about what the future holds for the trade legislation between our two countries because we do not have free trade. Madam Speaker, you know that as well as everyone else does.
We have left in place existing countervail legislation, protectionist legislation on both sides of the border. The government of the day is touting free trade. Well the harassment will continue and we just have to take a look at the list that has developed so far.
We seem to have more trade disputes now when we have so-called free trade. Canadians wonder what direction the government is taking us in with these particular policies. I think it will be particularly interesting when the debate comes as it will later this year, be it in an election campaign or when and if this Parliament sits again, on the whole question of the parallel agreements.
It is very clear that President Clinton and his administration have blind-sided the government in terms of what it thought was to be expected out of Washington, D.C. The government is wondering what direction to go on this. Again negotiations are in secret so we cannot see what is being negotiated even in these parallel agreements.
The motions introduced by my colleague from Esqui-malt-Juan de Fuca go a long way in addressing and bringing to a public forum and debate the inadequacies of the government in its administration of the free trade agreement. You will recall the promise of the Prime Minister about the best labour adjustment programs that this country would ever see. We have seen labour adjustment all right. We have seen unemployment going up. We have seen cuts to the Unemployment Insurance Commission. That is not the kind of labour adjustment that Canadians were expecting from this government.
It is particularly important that we survey as best we can what the impact those deals will have on our country. We know they are back room deals signed once again by this government, Washington, D.C. and Mexico City.
It is remarkable in a sense that we have debated this legislation and this treaty some two hours and nine minutes at second reading.
The government is using its parliamentary muscle this week to attempt to ram the legislation through. The Prime Minister has called the Tory leadership candidates into the House to try and make sure that they go on record on another one of his proudest and finest achievements, along with the goods and services tax and a number of other issues that Canadians are all too familiar with.
Members will recall the debate, the millions of dollars that were spent last fall promoting a referendum on the Constitution. Many have suggested that what this government is bringing in is an economic constitution of Canada. Yet try to get a copy of the North American free trade agreement from anywhere. If it were not for diligent members of the House, likely on both sides, who spent the time trying to dredge up copies of the treaty to get to their libraries and elsewhere so that people have that information-I hope even members on the other
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side are doing the same thing-Canadians would not have a chance to see exactly what we are debating here.
Why is the government proceeding as it is? It is pretty clear that it views the North American free trade agreement as the big yawn and that nobody is concerned about it. Let us use this opportunity now to ram the legislation through Parliament.
Let me give as a wrap-up the results of a random survey that my office conducted in the city of Prince George. I was surprised, as most members might be, at the response from people when they were given a chance to comment privately in their own homes about the issue of free trade and the North American free trade agreement. This was not a list of the NDP members in Prince George. This was a random survey. Some 400 to 500 people were called in Prince George to find out their views on the North American free trade agreement. I take my lead from my constituents because when given an opportunity to discuss and comment on the North American free trade agreement, they say they do not like it.
They have not seen the promises that the government made during the free trade agreement debate. They have not seen the kind of information that should be available on the North American free trade agreement. I am with my constituents on this issue. We are concerned about what this government is doing in dragging us into an economy in North America where we will not be able to develop our own resources.
I implore members of the government to consider these amendments and to consider what the government is doing. Please let us defeat this legislation tonight.


Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Madam Speaker, I am delighted to be able to participate in the debate this evening. I am happy to follow my colleagues from the New Democratic Party. I am certain that they would want to join with me and members of my caucus when we extend congratulations to the Liberals in Nova Scotia that elected overwhelmingly a Liberal majority government in that province.
I make that announcement because there is a parallel in the subsequent federal election to come. I believe it reflects the quality of debate that we are having in the House of Commons as it relates to the North American free trade agreement.
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I want to say not only did the Liberals increase the number of seats from 21 to 40, Tory support decreased from an overwhelming 35 seats down to nine. Of course, the New Democratic Party, true to its values and principles, made a remarkable gain in the province of Nova Scotia in that it did not move one iota in terms of the number of seats it now holds in that province. How appropriate. I think that will be reflected as we see in the quality of debate. The quality of debate on this side is so overwhelming as it relates to the North American free trade agreement. Of course opposite it is absolutely terrible. And what do we have to the left? We get the same old status quo from the New Democratic Party.
On the amendments put forward by my colleague from Kenora-Rainy River, it is worth mentioning that Motion No. 1 contains some things which I believe are deserving of the attention of this House. For instance, paragraph 2 of Motion No. 1 says: "honour the rights of all working people to organize, to bargain collectively and to strike". The third paragraph states: "encourage an open dialogue between management and labour on all decisions affecting the future of the work force as a result of the agreement".
I am no expert on international collective agreements. I am no expert on international agreements which have been signed by sovereign states. But much has been said in this House, particularly by my colleague from Kenora-Rainy River as well as others on this side of the House, which makes it very clear, beyond a shadow of a doubt that this amendment should be accepted by the government. If not accepted by the government, I would think that most reasonable Canadians would conclude that we on this side would be forced to vote against the legislation which is now being put forward by the Government of Canada.
However, as we pursue our line of thinking and our analysis on the debate of this particular motion before the House, Canadians have to come to realize that the government opposite in proceeding in the way it has not only by forcing the legislation through, but also now in participating simultaneously with side agreements without even adjudicating as to what is in this particular bill, we as a nation have given up leverage. That leverage would have been vital in bringing the Americans and the

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Mexicans back to the table in order to renegotiate in the best interests of Canadians.
For that reason, Canadians will hold those members opposite responsible. They will do as they did in the province of Nova Scotia tonight: They will kick ass. They will turn out the Tories in the next federal election.
Madam Speaker, there would probably be unanimous consent for me to continue, but in the few moments I have remaining I do want to say that in the almost 14 years I have spent in this House, I have never seen a government display such incompetence when it comes to bargaining in the best interests of Canadians. Elementary negotiating tactics would say that one does not do what the Government of Canada has done and that is to place all of your cards on the table, give away everything in advance of the realization of what your particular goal may be.
However, this government has done the impossible. It has given away the store in these negotiations time after time after time. Now in the ninth inning, just prior to a federal election, the government wishes to ram a piece of legislation through Parliament. It hopes it will have a negative impact on the successor government of this party, that somehow when we gain the confidence of the Canadian people in the next election we will have to deal with that particular issue.
That is absolutely idiotic and stupid. Most reasonable Canadians as the debate progresses and those issues are debated in an election campaign will come to realize and fully appreciate that this approach to consummating international agreements is certainly not in the best interests of Canadians.
I have to take the government to task for proceeding in the way in which it has, for putting items on the agenda which are not in Canada's interests and for omitting those which are in our interests.
I think of the adjustment programs that Canadians were promised during the 1988 election campaign. I remember that the right hon. member for Vancouver Quadra put it to the Prime Minister of the day. The leader of the New Democratic Party was off on some safari on some other issue but it was the right hon.
member for Vancouver Quadra who carried the issue with regard to the free trade agreement and specifically the adjustment programs which were lacking.
This particular North American free trade agreement says nothing with regard to a subsidies code. It is null and void and is another major omission with regard to international trade policies. There is nothing in the North American free trade agreement dealing with the energy concept. Of course there is an intellectual argument which can be put forward by those opposite that says: "It really does not have an effect and it may not have an effect". Nevertheless when one reads the fine print, energy is an important aspect of Canadian society and the Canadian economy and it ought to have been a part of the North American free trade agreement. Again it is a substantive omission which is part and parcel of the way this government has operated.
Another major omission of this particular North American free trade agreement is the whole dumping provisions.
I hear a voice from the left, ranting and raving. I hear those voices and I hope they are going to participate in the debate. I hope they are going to say something worth while because until now, the members of the New Democratic Party have added very little to the substance of this debate. As they have done in the provincial election which was just held in Nova Scotia, they have not added one iota to the substance of the debate in this particular Chamber, nor have they added anything to the Chamber in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly as a result of tonight's election.
I want to say to my colleagues to the left: Do not stand up here and try to protect the political reputation of the former leader of the New Democratic Party, Ed Broad-bent, who ran for cover when free trade was being debated across this country in 1988. We are not the party that made the deal with the Government of Canada. It is the leader of the New Democratic Party who made the deal with the Prime Minister and we know what the golden handshake was for the former leader of the New Democratic Party. As someone has said, I believe it was the member opposite: "He is quite a dipper". I do not know if he is a double dipper. He may even be a triple dipper.
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The amendments which have been put forth by my colleagues, particularly by the member for Kenora- Rainy River, deserve the support of this House. They are reasonable and substantive. They go to the heart of working men and women in this country. I would urge all members opposite to support these amendments.


Mr. Cid Samson (Timmins-Chapleau):: Madam Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to the House leader for the Liberal Party. He was pointing fingers and making all kinds of accusations saying that the NDP was not there for the free trade debate.
I would like to ask him where his members were at second reading when the vote was taken. Thirty-nine of the Liberal members were missing and we lost by 19 votes. Where were they? We could have defeated it at that time, but they were not even here. Now they stand up, holier than thou, pointing fingers, yelling, screaming, saying that the New Democratic Party did not want to participate in the debate. He wanted something with substance.
The hon. member can yell all he wants. He can talk about all kinds of patronage appointments as he wants, but take a look in the other place. We know where all their appointments are going. Do not tell me about appointments. We know what appointments are. They are all sitting right over there. They are the chairmen of all the boards across this country. When the Liberals were in power they made those appointments. Do not point fingers at us and tell us about appointments. They are the leaders and the pros when it comes to appointments.
This evening I would like to speak on the amendments as they pertain to the North American free trade agreement.
I was on route from Timmins in my riding this evening and I got a message on the plane to call home when I landed in Toronto. There was a message to call my wife. I was very concerned because that was the entire message. I did not know whether something was wrong at home or within the family, but there was not. The message was that the government came into this House today announcing its intention to introduce closure on this debate and that our party, the New Democratic Party, not the Liberals, voted to introduce the extension of
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hours. So here we are debating this issue this evening, thanks to the New Democratic Party.
I have not heard the Liberals say tonight that they were going to abrogate the trade deal, nothing like that. When they are talking about the amendments, when they are talking about NAFTA, they are not talking about abrogating. They are talking about perhaps wanting to renegotiate it because they are in fact free traders. We know where the Liberals are. We know where they sit on this agreement.
Another thing I received when I arrived here was a notice from my riding that Kidd Creek Mines was going to lay off. I should rephrase that to be fair to Kidd Creek Mines. It was planning to cut 250 jobs and that was announced by Falconbridge Limited, the owner of Kidd Creek Mines.
The reason given was the serious downturn in price for base metal. That is what was announced today. The number of workers who could be laid off by mid-September is unknown because it is not known how many are going to take early retirement and how many are going to take a severance package and so on.
That was an announcement made by the manager at Kidd Creek Mines, Warren Holmes. I know that Mr. Holmes works extremely hard to protect the workers at the mine and at the met site. I know that he did not take this lightly and I know that this is affecting him personally because that is the kind of person he is.
What worries me is what kind of additional pressure is going to be put on Canadian workers as a result of NAFTA? What kind of pressure is going to force them to consider taking lower wages, to taking cuts in their wages as a result of companies threatening to move their operations to places in Mexico like the Maquiladora?
I know you cannot move a mine. I am not that silly. That is not what I am saying for one moment. The fact remains that our workers in general will be put into a situation where they may not have any control over negotiations affecting their working conditions. Why? Because the company or a manufacturer can simply say: "If you do not like it, fine. Walk. We will move". That has already been done.
We know that in Mexico the working conditions are somewhat less than favourable and I am being very kind. We know that workers are working under a lot of duress and a lot of stress. We know that workers have to start

May 25, 1993
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working at 14 years old in order to supplement the wages of the family. We know these things.
There are no guarantees in this agreement, there is no Canadian content protection and there is no protection for our workers.
Right from the pre-1988 election when we were campaigning against the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, we were saying very clearly what was going to happen in this country to our workers. There would be massive lay-offs, massive plant closures and massive destruction in this country and this is what is happening.
As a result of what we know already, the crime rate is up, family break-ups are up, suicides are up, job creation is down, unemployment is up and welfare is up. Nothing good has come out of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. Now we want to go into phase two. We did not complete the job with the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, now we want to go into phase two with the NAFTA and continue the debate. We want to continue the destruction.
What we want to do in these amendments is offer some protection for our workers. The motion of the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, Motion No. 30, read in part:
That Bill C-115 be amended in Clause 242 by striking out lines
20 to 24 at page 193 and substituting the following therefore:
(i) Convention number eighty-seven guaranteeing the freedom of association and the protection of the right to organize;
Why do we want to give workers the right to organize? Everybody knows that the unions only exist to go on strike. That is what a lot of the members are trying to make us believe. Unions do not do anything, but it sure is nice to see them there when you look at the agreement book and you see the kind of protection that workers have in terms of health and safety in the work place.
Workers have the right to organize and there is a reason people organize. It is not just to go on strike. It is to protect their rights, their freedoms and to protect them in the work place. It is thanks to unions that we have Bill 70 which is a provincial bill in Ontario that gives workers the right to refuse unsafe working conditions. What is wrong with those rights?
The motion goes on to state:
(ii) Convention number one hundred and five abolishing forced labour;
Nobody should be a slave. Nobody should be a forced labourer. We should have the freedom to choose, to move, to work and to gain a living.
When we saw Bill C-113 which was in part the Unemployment Insurance Act restricted in Canada the ability of workers to move. Now you cannot just up and leave your job because you want to go on to something better unless you can prove unequivocally that what you are doing is an upward move. You cannot do a lateral move, it has to be an upward move.
I notice that my time is coming to an end. My point is that we cannot restrict people from moving from one job to another when in the opinion of that worker it is an improvement for himself or herself.
Finally, the last part of the motion, as was put forward by the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, reads:
(iv) Convention number one hundred and eleven abolishing discrimination in employment;
We have to eliminate discrimination in the work place, discrimination that we know exists in Mexico. We know from a study that is being done right now under the UN there is not one country that has equality for women in the work place, none.
This is a very important amendment. This is a very important issue. There is only one solution to all of this and that is to defeat the whole bill. If we cannot do that, at least pass these amendments which will make it a little more palatable.


Mrs. Coline Campbell (South West Nova):: Madam Speaker, it is a privilege for me to rise tonight and speak. It is probably the last time I will have the opportunity to speak in this House. I think it is also a privilege that it is on the North American free trade agreement. I think it shows exactly what has gone wrong with this government's approach to Canada.
As I have only a few minutes I want to speak mainly on behalf of my constituents in South West Nova and I want to speak on behalf of a lot of Canadians who will not
May 25, 1993

have had an opportunity to say what is wrong with this North American free trade agreement.
My colleague and others in my party have already spoken on most of what is wrong as far as the Liberal Party is concerned. That is in relation to the environmental standards, the labour codes, the subsidies, the energy protection given to Mexico and not to Canada, the anti-dumping code and a more effective dispute resolution mechanism.
I want to speak on an area that I have felt very strongly about, and that is on the subsidies. Under the free trade agreement we were to have a seven-year period to look at and define what was a subsidy mainly so that it would protect some of the institutions that Americans have tried to say are subsidies. In a lot of the disputes we have seen with the U.S. with regard to lumber, pork and fish, they have tried to claim that some of our institutions have provided a subsidy to Canadians that Americans did not have.
It became a very costly process over the last few years for Canadians to fight under the trade dispute mechanism. In the past generally speaking a country would take those disputes to the GATT. I have seen the government take a trade dispute on behalf of a group. However the pork producers have had to pay the cost. Coming from an area where the pork producers have a very substantial economic effect in the southern end of Nova Scotia, I know what the cost has been. I am sure it has been the same in other areas under the trade dispute mechanism.
Under the free trade agreement at least Canadians were given seven years to define these subsidies. I have been told that under the North American free trade agreement, and I know it is true, that seven-year process is gone. Subsidies are not even in it. Coming from an area that has different programs to attract business into the east, it has to be a very wrong approach by this government to totally ignore subsidies. It will encumber the whole process of any trade agreement that is reached among Canada, the United States and Mexico.
The object of a good trading balance is that the rights of the people in a country trading with another country are respected. I do not think this trade agreement or the free trade agreement respect what we hold dear here in Canada.
I talk about farming, fishing and forestry, three basic industries in the southern end of Nova Scotia. Since this
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government has been in power, we no longer finish our fish. We do not have a lumber industry in our area that is of value to the local people. We do not have a farming base to speak of because we have been scared with the different decisions under the free trade deal concerning the protection of the further finishing of products, which are not protected here, and also with what is coming out of the GATT.
There are concerns. One of the major concerns I have as a politician is when I look at the United States and see what it will amend. The President of the United States says he has to have two lateral agreements. Call them what you want. There have to be two major changes to the NAFTA that was signed by former President Bush, our Prime Minister and the President of Mexico or he will not sign. One is on the environment and one is on labour.
We do not even put that in as a basic concern on behalf of Canadians. Every day we see the jobs that should be staying here in Canada going to the United States and Mexico. One big company, Magna International, announced that it is going to Mexico. Why? Because labour is cheaper. We will buy back the product. Should we not be protected?
The member opposite looks at me as if to say, with a smile, that it does not matter. It does not matter. If I were in southern Ontario I would be worried. I am from southern Nova Scotia and I am worried that we have not got programs. We have not facilitated the use of the finished product here in Canada. You just have to look at a small territorial country like Japan. In area it is the size of New Brunswick maybe, I am not sure, that exports to every country in the world. There is a restriction for imports of any kind coming into Japan.
This government has declared: "Canada, you are on your own. Let the resources go with the big companies into the United States or into Mexico. We are not going to worry about the environment. We are not going to worry about labour. We are not going to worry about subsidies".
Maybe the government is rushing it through today, tomorrow and Thursday because it is scared of its leadership race being a leadership race where everybody wants to run away from whoever the leader is supposed to be.

May 25, 1993
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That is no reason to do it to the Canadian people. In three days the most important piece of legislation at the hardest of economic times is being rushed through the House. Is it 10 hours that we have had of full debate? Six hours. Whatever. There should be an election and we are not having it because the Tories are scared. They want this done before the leadership convention on June 12.
Our side has said that we want trade. I have been around since 1974 and I know what a Liberal government can do. It is not just one trading partner. We should be all over. We have the expertise and a skilled labour force that could be going around the world helping others. We have the natural resources that we are giving away or not even developing. If we give assistance to a company in the east or somewhere, they say: "Oh, oh, watch the Americans". It may be a subsidy and it will have to be decided if it is a subsidy. At least under the free trade agreement, I can remember having this debate with the minister of fisheries at one time, and he said: "Oh, in seven years we will know what all the subsidies are". We are not going to know what the subsidies are.


An hon. member:: We do not know what any of them are.


Coline M. Campbell: I can just see a day when the Mexican government decides it has the cheap labour and cheap environmental regulations and starts saying that we have a subsidy with health care and unemployment insurance. That has been tried by the U.S.
I have one minute left. There is not one Tory here except yourself, Mr. Speaker. In my last minute speaking on such an important item I want to say that I come from an area where we have to finish our product. If we give assistance it should not be looked upon as a subsidy in violation of the free trade agreement. Our fish are not being finished. Our people are unemployed. They want to work. We have the lowest interest rates and yet this government has not instilled in people the knowledge that we have a great country. It has let them down. It is time that the government should be gone. It is time that we had an election, that we wait for a leadership race
that is not going to produce anything more than what we have had and then go into an election.


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, I am trying to find a speech that was given here about two weeks ago. I know the members from the New Democratic Party will be interested in this because they are closer to Japan, most of them being from B.C. or Alberta which are the closest to Japan of our provinces. I would like to quote from an article in the October 26 edition of The Nikkei Weekly. The member for Edmonton East will be interested in this.
The sub-heading in that article says: "Sixty-two per cent of subsidiaries in the U.S. are attracted to Mexico, survey shows".
The article continues: "More than 60 per cent of Japanese companies operating in the U.S. believe that the North American free trade agreement increases Mexico's appeal as an investment site".
They went out and surveyed 269 business executives in Japan who indicated that they expected NAFTA to have a major impact on their North American business strategies. More than half of the respondents said yes to the question: "Do you think NAFTA promotes regionalism or protectionism?"
I might add that a former deputy minister of MITI was in this building about two and a half weeks ago and indicated that the Japanese have profound concerns about NAFTA. They are concerned that it will create another bloc to deal with like the bloc in Europe which will create problems for Japan in trading with our continent.


David Barrett: The Liberals in Alberta support that.


David Kilgour: I am aware of that and they are also doing very well at the polls.


An hon. member:: Do they do it because of the polls?


David Kilgour: No, they do it because they believe in it.


An hon. member:: What does the Liberal Party stand for? What it is saying in Alberta or what it is saying here.


David Kilgour: We do not all speak like robots. I do not think that the member wants me to proceed with my speech.
May 25, 1993

The bottom line is that most people surveyed in Mexico, at least a number of them, indicated they were likely to close up their plants in the United States or Canada and move their manufacturing plants or at least new ones to Mexico. I do not think that will be very good for Canadians from Nova Scotia, British Columbia or any part of this country. This party, as has been pointed out by others, has traditionally been the free trade party in this country.
It was in the 1911 election. I understand Mr. King made some attempts in that direction after the Second World War. The Liberal Party has stood for freer trade. We do not think that those opposite have the intelligence, determination or concern about Canadians to negotiate a trade agreement with anybody. They have already shown with the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement that they were simply taken to the cleaners by the United States, by Peter Murphy and so on. It would appear they are now determined to show in NAFTA that they are going to take Canadians to the cleaners again. How stupid does the Conservative Party think Canadians are?
This very day that we are told that the international trade minister is calling for changes in trade sanctions and for changes in the way trade law is administered by the U.S. we are being told we have to pass this bill immediately if not sooner. How stupid do they think Canadians are? How naive do they think Canadians are? The government wants to get this bill and NAFTA as is passed immediately.
The new American administration is smart enough to know there are going to be side agreements on important matters like the environment and labour standards. There are other matters that may be discussed as well. This House is treated as if we had no backbone, no brains, and no constituents. We are told we have to ram this thing through immediately.
We have had six hours of debate. We have said, Mr. Speaker, and I am sure you have heard this ad nauseam all day today, that we are going to insist on renegotiating the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and NAFTA. Certainly in NAFTA we are going to insist on a subsidies code, an anti-dumping code, and a more effective
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dispute resolution mechanism. I heard the Deputy Prime Minister say today that he was not pleased with the dispute settlement mechanism.
We are going to work hard for labour standards that will treat Canadians with some dignity and respect. We have heard a great deal about environmental standards and we heard from the member who just spoke about having the same energy protection for Canada as for Mexico.
We have made it clear that we know that Canada is a trading nation. We know that one in five Canadian jobs are dependent upon trade. Particularly in my part of the country, and the member from British Columbia is part of the country, trade is supremely important.
We recognize that the fastest growing part of the world is in the Asia-Pacific Rim. By setting up another regional trading bloc without the things we consider to be essential we may be doing irreparable harm to Canada's ability to trade with those giants and tigers of Asia.
We are going to ask for changes in this agreement as soon as those opposite can screw up their courage and call an election. I have no doubt whatsoever that Canadians from Nanaimo to St. John's to Yellowknife will vote for a Liberal government. When that happens our leader has said on repeated occasions, as has every member including our trade critic, that with the determination to protect Canadians, with intelligence and the knowledge of Canada's history, including the fact that the GATT has served this country splendidly since 1945, we will negotiate a better trade agreement or we will cancel the agreement that is being rammed through this House today.
I do not know how we can make our position any clearer. We cannot live in a vacuum as the New Democratic Party wants to. We cannot say that Canada is hermetically sealed off from the world and we will have no trade agreements and no trade, that we will take in each other's laundry, flip hamburgers for each other and think we are going to maintain our standard of living and create jobs for our children. It is not going to work.
Mr. Speaker, perhaps you can get it across to the members of the New Democratic Party that the I hate America, I hate Mexico, and I hate Asia-Pacific strategy is not going to work.

May 25, 1993
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I hope the person who gets up right after I sit down will tell us what their version is because as far as I can understand their opinion they just do not like business people.


David Barrett: Go back and do your history. Former Prime Minister Trudeau had the guts to have a national energy policy that you opposed as a Tory in Alberta.


David Kilgour: Thank you for giving me a chance to have a glass of water.
The member from British Columbia should know better. I hope that as soon as I finish one of the New Democrats will get up and tell us precisely what their policy is on trade. We do not want to hear what they are against. We want to hear what they are for. We know that they are against NAFTA and anything like it. We know they are against the free trade agreement and anything like it. I hope one of them will get up and tell us what they are for.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The question is on Motion No. 1. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: In my opinion the yeas have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), a recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred.

The next vote is on motion No. 7. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: In my opinion the yeas have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the motion stands deferred.
The next vote is on Motion No. 27. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: In my opinion the yeas have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the motion stands deferred.
The next vote is on Motion No. 30. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.
May 25, 1993


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the motion stands deferred.
The next vote is on Motion No. 31. Is it the pleasure of the Etouse to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: In my opinion the yeas have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the motion stands deferred.
The next vote is on Motion No. 32. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the motion stands deferred.
The next vote is on Motion No. 33. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the motion stands deferred.
We will now proceed to the second group of motions. [English]


David Barrett: Motion No. 2.
That Bill C-115 be amended by adding immediately after line 45,
at page 3, the following new clause:
"3.1 Canadian Laws to Prevail in Conflict. No provision of the Agreement, nor the application of any such provision to any person or circumstances, which is in conflict with any law of Canada shall have effect."
Motion No. 4.
That Bill C-115 be amended by adding immediately after line 45,
at page 3, the following new clause:
"3.1 Nothing in this Act or the Agreement shall be interpreted so as to prohibit a Party to the Agreement from requiring another Party to the Agreement to process raw materials or raw resources before exporting such materials or resources."

May 25, 1993
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Motion No. 5.
That Bill C-115 be amended by adding immediately after line 45,
at page 3 the following new clause:
"3.1 Nothing in this Act or the Agreement shall be interpreted so as to prevent citizens of Canada, either individually or in groups, from appearing before any dispute settlement body established pursuant to the Agreement where that individual or group wishes to do so."
Motion No. 6.
That Bill C-115 be amended in Clause 7 be adding immediately
after line 9 at page 5 the following:
"(2) Notwithstanding subsection (1), nothing in this Act or the Agreement applies to any water transported by a pipeline or diverted by reason of the diversion of a river."
He said: Mr. Speaker, I thank the House for moving so quickly through these important amendments and gathering so much support. I even seconded a motion by a Conservative member. I suppose that no one on the Conservative side would support his amendment. Nonetheless it was done.
I was interested in the comments made by the Liberal speaker saying that we need motions of substance such as presented by the Liberals. Ninety per cent of the motions we just dealt with were presented by the NDP, so we might tell the Liberal House leader that when it comes to substance we just spent four hours on the substance offered by the New Democratic Party.


Sheila Finestone: Excuse me, David. Who is Bob Nault that we just spent the last three hours discussing?


David Barrett: He had one motion and the rest were mine.


Sheila Finestone: Really.


David Barrett: Yes. They do not know what they are debating. I understand the Liberal position and I welcome it as long as they are supporting me even though they do not know what they are doing.
Before I go any further, in case I do not get a chance to do so again I want to thank my staff, particularly Tom O'Brien for the great amount of work he did on these amendments.
I have 10 minutes to deal with the four amendments in front of us. All four of them are sponsored by me on behalf of my party. I hope they will enjoy the continued support of my Liberal colleagues and perhaps one or two Conservative members.
However I want to concentrate on one motion because it typifies exactly what we are all trying to get at in debating this bill and answers the question of a former Conservative member who is now a Liberal member from Alberta.
After we signed the free trade agreement the United States implemented its legislation on the free trade agreement. This is what was written in its legislation, and I want the member to listen very closely to what the American law is today under the FTA, the American version of the act to implement the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement, the United States-Canada Free Trade Implementation Act, 1988, title I, section 102, Relationship of the agreement to the United States law at page 1853. I want the member to listen very closely to understand exactly why there is some anger on my part about what this government has led us into and what the Liberals talk about renegotiating. This is what the American law says that we are now bound to and we are moving into it with NAFTA as well.
The Americans say in their law they have passed that we are subservient to the following: "The United States law is to prevail in conflict. No provision of the agreement nor the application of any such provision to any person or any circumstances which is in conflict with any law of the United States of America shall have any effect". There is no other known trade deal anywhere in the world where one sovereign nation has abandoned all its laws to another partner in that trade agreement except this one with the United States.
My good friend says the New Democratic Party is against it. How do we clean it up? We are against it simply because it says that no matter what the Canadians think, no matter what beef they have, or even if there is a subsidies code under the law, the Americans have said American law will prevail. If my friend thinks for one minute that I could face any Canadian audience anywhere from coast to coast in this nation, stand and say that I have to go along with it, he is wrong. I do not think that deep down inside his own gut he believes it is right. Yet the Liberal Party has stated time and time again that it wants to renegotiate. The Americans will not give this up. There is nothing to renegotiate. We have abandoned Canada in that one clause. If we strip away every other argument we come back to this crass grab of power by the United States of America.
May 25, 1993

We cannot deny it. My friend shakes his head in agreement. Any lawyer, any law student, any trade unionist, any shop clerk, any grade 3 student would understand that if one side says its law prevails no matter what we do we have not got a good deal.
Now I want to address the one point my colleague in the Liberal Party said that I agreed with. How can we possibly deal with NAFTA when all the negotiations are not complete and we have not yet seen the parallel accords or the draft of the U.S. legislation?
At the very moment we are debating this matter there is not a parallel discussion in the U.S. Congress, the House of Representatives or the Senate on the draft treaty the American version is going to be. The Americans must be laughing up their sleeves at the behaviour of this government in rushing to sign a deal before they have even put their draft to their own Congress.
Rug merchants would love to have these Tories show up at their stores or used car dealers would love to have these Tories show up at their lots. Any insurance agent would love to have these fellows show up and not read the fine print because their position is even stupider. Not only do they not read the fine print, they do not even want to know the fine print whatever it may be.
I proposed the amendment we are debating now along with three others. I think it is a very clever amendment:
That Bill C-115 be amended by adding immediately after line 45,
at page 3, the following new clause:
"3.1 Canadian Laws to Prevail in Conflict. No provision of the Agreement, nor the application of any such provision to any person or circumstances, which is in conflict with any law of Canada shall have effect".
What I am saying is that if it is good enough for the United States of America to say its laws prevail above all in the free trade agreement, it is good enough for Canada to have its laws prevail in every other dispute with the Americans.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


David Barrett: The government has yet to justify to the Canadian people why it permitted the Americans without complaint to pass that amendment to the FTA. The
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Liberal Party has gone around this country saying: "We are responsible in opposition. We are going to renegotiate". How do we renegotiate the American position that their law will prevail?


Robert Daniel Nault: How do you know until you ask them?


David Barrett: You do not know until you ask them. Write them a letter. They will tell you where to stick it. Write them a letter. They will tell you where to stick your ideas, right down you know where.
I understand the Liberal heckling. The minister of trade has nailed the Liberals better than I have. The minister of trade of this government has nailed the Liberals better than I have when he asked across the floor of the Liberals: "What are you prepared to give up?" Do you think the Americans are waiting for the Liberals to get elected and to say: "Oh, my goodness. Of course, Canada, we will take this away. Of course we just waited for you Liberals to get elected". Even the Minister for International Trade has exposed the stupidity of the Liberal position. I find it incredible that the Liberal Party is attempting to go right down the middle and is on both sides of the fence on this issue.
I ask every person in this House who loves Canada and is prepared to fight for his or her constituencies to vote for this amendment and demand the American condition that exists on the FTA be withdrawn. This is not a level playing-field. This is a sell-out. The former leader of the Liberal Party, the right hon. member for Vancouver Quadra, said to the Prime Minister: "This is a sell-out". He is gone and so is his position. The Liberals are now selling us out. There is no other way to interpret it.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. friend for Esquimau-Juan de Fuca. I must say it is getting late and I do not want to wake up my hon. friends opposite after this very energetic speech by my hon. friend. Rather than try to arouse them from their slumber I will simply deal one by one with the amendments.
Quite frankly in beginning I can tell him that if the concerns he raised were in fact not already covered in the NAFTA I would suggest they were valid. However none of these four amendments is necessary and I will

May 25, 1993
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provide the factual information to back it up. I commend to my hon. friend that he hang on to his copy of the NAFTA and not rip it up like his hon. colleague did. I suggest to him that he read his copy of the NAFTA and he will find that the proposals he made are not really necessary.
I point out there is no need under Canadian law for provisions such as that proposed in Motion No. 2. Under international law an agreement entered into between states is binding as between those states. It is then incumbent on those states to implement the obligations under the agreement in its domestic law.
Canada's system of constitutional law however does not recognize an international agreement as part of its domestic law. Parliament must enact statutes to address these obligations and it is supreme in this respect. Only those statutes have the force of law domestically. In other words, quite simply, the laws of Canada prevail and that is the way it is. We do not need an amendment to this bill to provide what is in fact already constitutionally a reality.
If Parliament fails to take steps to implement an international agreement, then there may be consequences in the international arena, but the agreement does not prevail over domestic legislation and an international tribunal cannot strike down domestic legislation. Only domestic courts can do that. Nothing in the NAFTA has been agreed to that would change this situation. Moreover the bill makes clear in clause 6 that no domestic cause of action is available under the agreement itself. So much for the first motion.
Motion No. 4 that my hon. friend brings forward is again with respect to the processing of raw materials. I will say this with respect to Motion No. 4. The proposed amendment is not necessary. The agreement explicitly preserves Canada's right to maintain log export controls. Annex 30.3 and existing provisions of the Export and Import Permits Act already give the government adequate authority to maintain or impose the requirements contemplated by this motion.
There we have it once again. The motion put forward by my hon. friend is in fact not necessary. Flad he in fact
read the bill, he would have seen that it already anticipates the concern and deals with it.
With respect to Motion No. 5, NAFTA article 1904 and the bill, the Special Import Measures Act and rules thereunder in clause 218 already guarantee the right of persons with proper standing to appear before binational panels in anti-dumping and countervailing duty matters. Other dispute settlement panels created by the agreement are for the resolution of govemment-to-govern-ment disputes. As is the case before the International Court of Justice or before panels created under the GATT or the FTA, it is for the Government of Canada only to represent the interests of the country.
It can be noted however that all NAFTA dispute settlement panels are authorized to obtain information from outside experts in appropriate circumstances. Nothing in the bill prevents a panel from doing this.
Once again, quite clearly and unequivocally the concern raised by my hon. friend is not well taken because that point is very adequately covered in the legislation now before the House.
The last of the four is one that we hear time and again from New Democrats and time and again we invite them to read the NAFTA. They will find what NAFTA says with respect to water and the concern that they raise day after day in this place is simply not valid. That is with respect to water.
There is no need for a provision such as this. There is absolutely nothing in NAFTA or any other trade agreement that forces Canada to export water by any means including pipe line. Pipe line operators from the United States and Mexico must be treated in a non-discriminatory manner under the NAFTA. However they would be subject to the same domestic water rules as Canadians governing export shipments of water, rules laid down by this government in 1987. Diversions of rivers are simply not the subject of any trade agreement.
Water in a river is in its natural state. Water in its natural state is not a product or a good capable of being traded any more than trees in the ground or oil and gas in the subsoil. Water in its natural state is therefore not covered under international trade agreements such as the NAFTA. Only when it is exploited by taking it out of its natural state and allowing it to enter commerce by bottling it or shipping it in tanks for example does it
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become a good subject to the rules regarding non-discrimination, et cetera, set out in trade agreements.
In other words, if one takes that water and manufactures a product from it, whether that product be whisky, beer, rum or just straight pure Canadian bottled water, then it becomes a manufactured good. Then it is covered under NAFTA. Otherwise it is not.
I say to members of the NDP, read my lips. It is not covered under the NAFTA. Diversions of rivers and other interbasin transfers of water do not involve trade of water as a good but rather the diversion of water in its natural state from its existing course. They are therefore not covered in any respect by international trade agreements and Canada's 1987 federal water policy in fact prohibits large scale exports of water by interbasin diversion or transfer.
The government will vote against these four amendments quite simply because they are clearly not necessary in terms of the problems that are put forward by my hon. friends opposite.
I know we are now probably going to hear 10, 15, who knows, 20 speeches from the NDP saying that all the water resources of Canada are being given away. We have heard it time and again in this House. The problem that they have not really cottoned on to, the reality that they have not cottoned on to, is that nobody is listening. People stopped listening to this nonsense a long time ago. People who have a genuine interest in this trade agreement have taken the time to study and read it.
It is a complex document. There is absolutely no question about that. The fact of the matter is this great storm they are trying to create across the land, this great uprising against this government and all these tyrannous and villainous accusations that we have heard in this House today can be written down as so much nonsense by a desperate political party, struggling to survive as it disintegrates.
All we have to do is observe the economic policies and positions of the New Democrats, the many that they are. Who speaks for the NDP? I cannot figure it out. We have done a little probing here in search of their economic policy. I guess one of the reasons they want to talk about
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trade policy is they prefer to rip up the NAFTA rather than read it. They could all stand together and say they are all against it because none of them know what is in it. We listen to them day after day in this place attacking the government for all these heinous and villainous things that are supposedly in there. In actual fact if somebody in the NDP, maybe somebody in NDP research, would take the time to read this document they would have some understanding of what it actually is. Maybe they would have some opportunity to understand the potential it offers for economic growth, the opportunities for attracting investment to Canada, creating jobs for Canadians, through export of Canadian goods and services.
If time permitted I would be pleased to go on at great length and list the very many Canadian companies that have already signed opportunities for growing business with the Mexicans in anticipation of this deal. Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, what will happen when the deal is finally in place? But that is for another day and another time. We are here today debating these proposed amendments and we are happy to be here debating these amendments.
My hon. friends in the NDP only seem to want to debate process. Tonight we are here to debate. We are happy to be here all night to debate because we believe in what we are doing. It is right for Canada and we will be here to do it with or without the NDP support.


Mr. Francis G. LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands- Canso):: Mr. Speaker, I am not going to try to match the bombast and rhetoric of our two previous speakers because I feel that the Canadian people are demonstrating in opinion poll after opinion poll just where those parties are headed in terms of electoral support.
I do not think Canadians want the idle rhetoric of the NDP or the tactics of the government in refusing to allow meaningful debate or meaningful opportunity for Parliament to consider this bill. It has got to be one of the most complicated pieces of legislation that has ever come before this House if one combines the bill and the agreement and considers the amount of time that has been given this House to consider this legislation and the implication that the agreement will have on Canada. I am not going to try to match the noise or the rhetoric level that my colleague opposite or my NDP friend has attempted to raise in their remarks.

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I consider the motions by my colleague from the NDP to be reasonable amendments, given they are amendments to the legislation implementing the NAFTA and do not touch the NAFTA itself. That is what this debate is all about.
However when the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca launched into his tirade against the Liberals for being willing during the whole course of this debate to actually consider the substance of the NAFTA, the substance of trade, to understand it in its broader context and dismissed all of that, I am questioning the motives of a member who earlier today was lauded for his sincere attempt to represent his party's position on the NAFTA. I have to question where they are coming from.
However one thing is for sure. The legislation that has been brought before us today and over the last two or three weeks is not only premature, it has been hastily drafted. There is very much that is incomplete and not fully understood about it. We discovered in committee the extent to which this government had poorly prepared the implementing legislation to the NAFTA.
One of my Liberal colleagues poked holes in a whole section of this bill, a section dealing with one of the major acts which will have to be modified by this bill. In the limited time that was available to the committee, two weeks at three sittings per week, we found that one of the 29 consequential acts that will be amended by this legislation to be full of flaws and holes. We did not have a chance to consider all of the other potential holes and gaps and errors in the drafting of this hastily constructed bill.
The government is attempting to ram through this House very complex legislation implementing a very complex agreement in the dying stages of a mandate which it does not have to do this. It is putting legislation through this House which is flawed, incomplete and subject to all sorts of misinterpretations. It does not even mention what the NAFTA is about. It just speaks to the legislation itself.
The four amendments that we are debating have been introduced by the NDP. As I read them-and I am confining my remarks to the subject of our debate which are the amendments that are before us-they basically clarify one small part of this legislation. One of them deals with the fact that Canadian laws should have effect
in the event of any conflict. Another one is an amendment to add greater assurances to satisfy the legitimate concerns of Canadians over the export of water and other natural resources and the provision that Canadians should not be required to export in its raw form our natural resources by another country. That is eminently reasonable and we should not have any problem with that.
However, this government which is hell bent on ramming this legislation through is not interested in hearing reasonable questions or reasonable debate on this legislation. It has not given us the time to properly add these additional provisions or to seriously question the provisions that are in this bill.
That is why we are debating this legislation at this hour and at this late stage in this Parliament. It is the only way we can get a message across to this government which refuses to listen to any form of opposition.
Turning toward the NDP, it left its own position open to question a long time ago when it declared in an opposition day in December of last year that it was ideologically opposed to any form of a North American agreement. There was no further discussion necessary. There was no further debate required. The NDP without looking at the merits, pro or con, of any kind of a broader trade agreement between Canada and other countries in North America declared that the books were closed and it was not interested in any agreement.


Ross Harvey: What is wrong with GATT?


Francis G. LeBlanc: What
is wrong with GATT?


Ross Harvey: Why do you need a separate North American deal?


Francis G. LeBlanc: Any
North American agreement including the GATT is what you are opposed to.
We had a committee that was considering the NAFTA. That committee's work had barely begun. It had uncovered many flaws and many aspects of the trade issues raised by this NAFTA deal. Those issues had just barely been explored when this committee was forced to terminate its work without having visited many of the cities
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and towns in Canada which have been seriously affected by the implementation of the free trade agreement.
For example, we were not able to go to Toronto. We were not able to go to Hamilton. We were not able to go to Windsor. We were not able to go to Montreal. Those cities have very legitimate industrial-


Sheila Maureen Copps: You know what the Minister for International Trade just said? "Where is Hamilton"? He has been saying that for four years.


Francis G. LeBlanc: As a
result of his policies-


Michael Holcombe Wilson: No, that is wrong. Wrong facts, Sheila.


Francis G. LeBlanc: Mr. Speaker, I have one minute left. I will conclude because it is late. It is not possible to open up another point by saying that this legislation beyond its other flaws has been introduced in a hasty, extremely premature fashion. We are discovering with all of the flaws that we have been able to find in the short time that we have had to consider this bill adequate reasons for it to be thrown out, for it to be pulled back, for it to be subjected to much more additional scrutiny by a future Parliament and not by this government which has lost all legitimacy and right to govern.
That is the issue before us. That is why we are here at this late hour.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, the Minister for International Trade just said: "Where the hell is Hamilton?" I guess our response to that has got to be where the hell is the Minister for International Trade? In the last four years since the introduction of the free trade agreement which his party rammed through Parliament following the election of 1988, we have seen literally tens of thousands of jobs in my community disappear as a direct result of the fact that he signed an agreement which has a dispute settlement mechanism that is not working.
It is not working because first of all we do not have a definition of what constitutes a subsidy. We do not have a definition of dumping. Second, the current free trade agreement is structured in such a way as to simply refer
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to the binational panel questions about the law of each country.
I will give a case in point. Recently Bethlehem Steel was aided and abetted by the United Steelworkers of America. The union people in my riding are paying dues to the United Steelworkers of America who saw their union dues go to finance a co-operative effort with Bethlehem Steel to try and prevent the Canadian steel industry from trading fairly into the United States. I think that is a disgrace on the part of the U.S. steel industry and I think it is a further disgrace on the part of the United Steelworkers of America. I wish Leo Gerard would start to stand up and once and for all speak for Canadian steelworkers and start fighting for some Canadian jobs instead of continually sending money to the United Steelworkers of America who are fighting to prevent Canadian steelworkers from working.
If the minister was responsible about the steel dossier he would understand that when he put forth his document in 1988 where he predicted all kinds of gains in the steel industry, it was contingent upon an integrated steel market. It was contingent upon a managed trade agreement similar to the trade agreement that we as Liberals signed in the 1960s to deal with the auto pact. It was contingent upon an integrated market that said to the Steel Company in Hamilton: "You are fair traders, you are free traders, and you can go into the American marketplace and compete with them just as they can compete with you".
Instead of having that integrated steel market, what we have is the situation where-I do not want to do a disservice to the scouting and guiding movement, Mr. Speaker, because I was a girl guide-we Canadians are the boy scouts of the trade world when it comes to our trade laws. Bethlehem Steel co-signs with the United Steelworkers of America a complaint against Canadian companies for dumping. Steel Company of Canada is included as one of the potential companies allegedly responsible for dumping.
When they go to Washington to present their case, they get 15 minutes of time to put their case as to why they are not trading unfairly. They get 15 minutes of time. All of the force of the U.S. Department of Commerce and all of the force of the U.S. trade experts

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is at the beck and call of Bethlehem Steel to aid and abet it in sustaining its complaint against the Steel Company of Canada.
The American complaint comes forward and Stelco gets nailed with a 60 per cent tariff on certain cold rolled products-


Michael Holcombe Wilson: If you want to know, that is wrong. Wrong facts, Sheila.


Sheila Maureen Copps: -and the Canadian government in response comes forward with a complaint-64.5 per cent. I will correct it. It is 64.5 per cent. If you would like to give me a percentage or two I will grant you that.
The Canadian government came back under the auspices of this minister who has done nothing to fight for Canadian jobs. When I heard him in the House defending the decision of the Steel Company of Canada to set up a new mini mill in Kentucky, he sounded like the president of the Chamber of Commerce of Kentucky. If he is not here to fight for Canadian jobs, he should pack it in now.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: You got burned at home and you got upset about it.


Sheila Maureen Copps: He says I got burned at home. I got burned at home. No way. The steelworkers in my riding know that I tell the truth. The steelworkers in my riding know that when I made a prediction on Firestone that within five years Firestone was going to be gone, it was gone.
The minister says that the member for Hamilton East got burned. I want to lay out how unfair this scenario is and how ridiculous it is that he can claim that this is fair trading. When we Canadians go to Washington we get 15 minutes. The Americans do the world in a day for steel. The company, the government, the cabinet and the unions are all there fighting in favour of the American case. Bethlehem comes to Canada and the boy scouts of Mr. Wilson and Mr. Mulroney and Mr. Charest and Madam Campbell come forward. Do you know what they did, Mr. Speaker? In the Canadian department of industry they said: "Here are our books, they are open to you for three weeks". For three weeks the Canadian officials in our department of trade opened the books so Bethlehem Steel could come in and look at our trading practices when the Americans gave us 15 minutes.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Once again the wrong facts.


Sheila Maureen Copps: When the law is applied it is not the same law across the board. The Americans apply their trade law for themselves, the Canadians apply our trade law. We come up with the ruling. Once again, before Washington has even ruled on the American complaint, we come up with a wonderful ruling. Oh, yes, the Americans are dumping but it is not causing injury. All of the other countries cited in the Canadian complaint caused injury except the Americans. The boy scouts of Canada come out and say no, Bethlehem is not causing injury, no the other American companies, the mini mills are not causing injury. They are dumping their product into Canada but they are not causing injury.
The binational panel can merely read the application and if your law is not fair it does not matter. Stelco can show that its administrative costs of production come in at under 4 per cent. It can show you chapter and verse of how its administrative costs are under 4 per cent.
That does not matter. U.S. trade law says whatever your cost of administration you are automatically assessed a minimum of 10 per cent. Even though you are being competitive, you are bringing in your administrative costs at 4 per cent, it does not matter to the Americans because their trade law basically says you are covered at a minimum of 10 per cent.
The minister sits and chatters and natters from his seat. I suspect he will not have the guts to stand up and debate me on this issue at the University of Guelph. He was invited to come and debate me on the NAFTA but he does not have the guts to do so. Come to Hamilton. Come to the Steel Company. Come to the workers and find out what they think about the decision of the Government of Canada that sits in the House of Commons and defends a decision of a Canadian company to set up a subsidiary in Kentucky. The minister was not hired by the people of Canada to fight for jobs in Kentucky. He was hired to fight for jobs in Canada.
I realize, Mr. Speaker, I am getting a little overwrought. I am getting overwrought because for four years we have been trying to get through to this minister that the current free trade agreement for steel is not working. In his secret document five years ago he said the big winner is steel in Hamilton and we have got to go after the member for Hamilton East. Those games have
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not materialized and we are losing thousands of jobs literally by the month.
We just had another announcement. The receivers came in on another Hamilton manufacturing company. The minister probably does not have the name because his files are usually two or three months out of date. I will tell him. It is Adpak.
The minister should know that Canadians are prepared to trade with the world. We have the most competitive plans in the world. The minister talked in the House last week defending the competitive spirit of the workers in Kentucky. We have the best workers in the world. We have the technology. We have the telecommunications. We have the workers and we have the will. What we do not have is a government that is prepared to fight for fair trade law.
The simple question, given the scenario for steel, is we are not getting a fair deal in terms of dispute settlement. If we cannot solve the problems of dispute settlement with the free trade agreement, why in Heaven's name should we ram through a second phase of the same agreement without cleaning up the mess that the minister left in the first deal? How can he ask us to take a second leap of faith when clearly on the steel dossier the evidence is all in. The evidence is there to show that we are bleeding Canadian jobs, we are losing Canadian jobs because this government has signed an agreement that does not give us an integrated steel market.
We are prepared to trade fairly. We do not want to be the boy scouts of North American trade law and with this minister begging on his knees "Washington, sign please". He has bought into a trade agreement that is costing literally thousands of Canadian jobs.
I hope that kiss is going to be the kiss-off for him in the next election.


Sidney James Parker: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the report stage debate of the North American free trade agreement.
As a parliamentarian I take my position very seriously. I found it very regressive when I heard the comments of the member for Edmonton Southeast with regard to the New Democratic Party and the free trade agreement
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with the Americans. That member sat on the government side of the House. He was elected as a Conservative and voted for the free trade agreement. He then stands up as a Liberal and criticizes my party for what we are doing. That is offensive and I do not particularly agree with him.
I am pleased to see that the minister of trade has finally come into the House. The parliamentary secretary to the minister of free trade says "read my lips" when he talks about the legislation. I do not think Canadian people want to read his lips. They want to read the legislation. They want to know what is in that legislation. For him to say that his party has been debating this is absolutely wrong and the Canadian people know it. Hansard will show how many Conservatives were getting up today and debating this legislation.
They are not debating it. They are afraid to debate it. They are afraid to bring out the actual facts. They are afraid to let the people know what is in the free trade agreement and the ramifications they placed there.
When the Liberal governments were in power in 1965, when Pearson was the Prime Minister, they signed the document on the Columbia River Treaty. Many ramifications have taken place there. In the last three months I have been attending meetings in Eureka, Montana and sitting in with American politicians and residents. A fight is going on between Idaho and Montana as to who is going to get our water first and how it is going to be utilized. They are fighting on the American side. There are laws on the American side that decide which state protects their fish. We do not have laws on the Canadian side so they are flushing out our reservoirs to protect their fish on the other side of the border while our fish are being caught in pools and are dying. The reservoir on the Canadian side has turned into a dust bowl. That is the kind of thing that is happening under past agreements.
For someone to tell me in this House to "read my lips" I want to tell him that people in the Kootenays and in the southeast of British Columbia are not going to accept that as an answer to what is in the agreement and what is not.

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If they are going to go ahead with this agreement they had better spell out something very concrete in it that says that diversion of water is not going to be taking place, and will not take place, in the future because those people are not going to be convinced.
I want to continue on with some of the comments I made this afternoon which I think are very important. An article in Equinox states:
-in one of the world's richest farming regions, Los Angeles has periodically imposed mandatory rationing. Arizona has taken California to court, fighting for and winning a greater share of the Colorado River. Although many Southwesterners concede that it is no longer feasible for the desert to sustain so many humans, no one seems to know how in a free society to stop the growth.
And why even try to stop the growth, when liquid salvation lies just a few states north and across the border, in the cool, ctystal-clear waters of Canada? Water export proposals with continental ambitions-some new, some reborn after decades on the shelf-are now being promoted by powerful interests on both sides of the border. Some of the proposals would remake the geographic face of North America: dams to flood the Rocky Mountain Trench, a canal to send water from Quebec to the American Midwest, a tunnel to divert a portion of the North Thompson River to California, tankers to transport glacial water fresh from the British Columbia coast. Although Ottawa insists that large scale exports to the United States or Mexico will not be negotiated, environmentalists, water experts and citizen groups believe bulk water sales and river diversions may be inevitable. With California's influential agribusiness claiming 80 per cent of the water used in that state and with the prospect of global warming undermining the southwest's ability to sustain growth.
That is precisely why the Canadian government did not put this in the agreement. It sees the possibilities for these kinds of things to take place and it is leaving that avenue open.
That is not good enough. Canadians are not going to stand by and watch these kinds of activities take place and allow this government to do them. Here is a government in the fifth year of its mandate bringing forward a policy such as this, not telling the people of Canada that it is going to bring in the NAFTA. The Conservatives have thumbed their noses at the people, saying that they are not even going to gloat. They are going to select the next Prime Minister at a convention just months before calling an election. If that is not
snubbing your nose at the Canadian people then I do not know what is.
We saw the ramifications of the free trade agreement and now we have the NAFTA with all of the things that are in it. This agreement cannot be amended. For us to even be discussing these amendments really boggles the mind because this legislation cannot be amended. This legislation must be defeated and the Canadian people know that. They know that this government has painstakingly, for the last four years, set the wheels in motion to do that.
The government has done it with the changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act. It has done it with the changes to the drug patent legislation. It has done it with changes to telecommunications and airlines. We saw the troubled airlines and their rush to bring about their connections with the American airlines. We have seen CP Rail and CN Rail talking about lifting their tracks between the Atlantic provinces and Quebec.
We spent an entire century building a railway system from east to west and this government, in less than four years, has changed the direction of our transportation policies to north to south. Now it is doing the same with the deregulation of telecommunications.
Where is it going to stop? It is time the Canadian people said: "We have had enough and we are going to put a stop to this and get rid of this government". Let us get back and start working for Canada and putting Canadians back to work doing things and setting up trade agreements that are fair and reasonable among our trading partners.


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, the amendments we are discussing are from the New Democratic Party. In speaking to Motion No. 2, the member was quite right to quote the section from the free trade agreement stating in effect that American law will apply.
In theory to say that no provision of the agreement shall be in conflict with any law of Canada sounds reasonable to me and I expect it would to most Canadians. I am not sure that under the Treaty of Rome or under other various trade agreements around the world
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we can have that provision. I hope other speakers will give us some insights on that particular provision.
Certainly the member from British Columbia is quite right that the provision in the free trade agreement is totally unacceptable to any self-respecting trading nation.
On Motion No. 4, again it sounds plausible to say that we can require the processing of our resources before exporting them. It is a tragedy that too many raw logs are still exported to Japan to be turned into plywood and so on to be exported back to Canada. But again I think that would be a matter for negotiation among a new Liberal government, the Clinton administration and the administration in Mexico, to work out something that was reasonable to all parties.
That is where those opposite do not get it because they think that whatever is acceptable to the United States and Mexico is necessarily in the interests of Canadians.
The only other motion I would make a comment on concerns this dispute settlement. Again the hon. member from British Columbia is quite right, the dispute settlement procedures, processes and jurisdiction are quite inadequate in the present free trade agreement and should be changed to give a fairer opportunity to Canadians who wish to dispute matters as well.
Whether we go to this model or something different it would have to be renegotiated, presumably by new governments in the United States and Canada, and with the Mexican government.
As for Motion No. 6, I will leave that alone. I appreciate the vehemence with which the members from British Columbia speak on that matter. As they know, Alberta is far less blessed with water than British Columbia. Somebody told me that 80 per cent of the water in British Columbia went out to sea. We are desperately short of water in parts of Alberta. I suspect many other parts of the country feel badly about that too.
What I would really like to do is pick up on a remark by the parliamentary secretary to the effect that investments and so on are already flooding into Canada as a result of the possibility of passing the NAFTA. I would like to make a couple of comments which I confess I made the other day. The House will forgive me for doing it again.
I would like to quote from an article in a Japanese newspaper. It says: "NAFTA will make Mexico a more
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attractive place to invest according to 62 per cent of respondents, largely because Mexico will have to relax its numerous restrictions on foreign investment.
Many electrical goods manufacturers have already relocated their U.S. production bases to Mexico to take advantage of the less expensive labour. Mexico now appears likely to become the strongest candidate of the three for Japanese manufacturers setting up in North America".
I would like to read a couple of quotes from the Bank of Tokyo's managing director for the Americas. The article continues: "Mexico will grow in importance as a hub for Japanese manufacturing in the wake of the North American free trade agreement according to Kaoru Hayama, Bank of Tokyo senior managing director in charge of overseas operations.
'Manufacturers that export to the U.S. market would obviously benefit by relocating in Mexico where their products crossing the border north would not be subject to tariffs', he said in a recent interview. Of course the number of new factories built in Mexico by Japanese companies will grow'. 'With NAFTA in place', Hayama said, 'the first thing that comes to mind is companies with factories in the U.S. and Canada closing them down and relocating to Mexico. He acknowledged that this would stir negative reactions in the U.S. and Canada". I think that is an understatement.
The article continues: "Another option would be to move factories in southeast Asian countries to Mexico. This trend can already be seen in the textile industry. Hayama said that companies with factories scattered throughout Latin America are likely to concentrate production in Mexico".
Since Japan is the only country that seems to be exporting its capital these days, how then does the parliamentary secretary get up and tell this House that this will somehow rebound to the advantage of Canadians. It seems to me that given the enormous differential in wages in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico it will rebound to the advantage of Mexico, at least in the case of Japan.
I sat and listened carefully when our deputy leader was speaking. The only intelligible comments I heard from the Minister for International Trade were: "Where is Hamilton?" and "Sheila got burned". I think I heard the "Sheila got burned" comment at least five times and I take it on faith that where is Hamilton was said when our

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deputy leader began. Does this sound like an intelligent, mentally alert, fighting Canadian trade minister?


Sheila Maureen Copps: He called me a little girl and he told me to go back to kindergarten.


David Kilgour: I am advised by our deputy leader that he also called her a little girl and told her to go back to kindergarten.
I know it is late and people have been out for dinner and so on, but does that really sound like the kind of minister that would be fighting for the jobs of Canadians? I want to ask how many jobs does he or do any of the members opposite think have been lost since the implementation of the CUSFTA.
I appreciate there certainly are many people in my part of the country who feel they have benefited by CUSFTA, the petroleum and gas sector, petrochemicals and so on, but what about the people in southern Ontario? I do not always speak for people in southern Ontario and Quebec. What about the thousands and thousands of jobs that have been lost in that part of Canada?
Are the people who produced one disaster now going to give us another one? How stupid and naive do they think Canadians are? The NAFTA is far from an agreed upon deal. Everybody in this House knows it has to be ratified by Mexico and the United States. The new administration, I think a forward looking and intelligent person, has said that the implementing legislation will not be introduced in the U.S. until side agreements are reached on strengthened environmental provisions, improved labour standards and improved safeguards to deal with import surges from Mexico.
How can any parliament, any government in its right mind want to ram it through now before the other two parties to the continuing negotiation are going to renegotiate these matters? What precedent can it give us? What historical precedent does it have for putting it through, as somebody said, like the boy scouts-I might say the girl guides-saying: "We passed it intact. We have not changed a jot or a tiddle, a syllable or semi-colon. We have passed it. We lead with our chins. We are
the ultimately naive party in this negotiation and now we are going to see what changes you make".
What are government members going to do? Bring us back in September? They will not be here to bring us back in September. From every indication, including tonight in Nova Scotia, the Canadian people have decided they have had enough with eight years of Tory mismanagement of the economy.
Government members have shown that except for the few thousand people who live in upper Westmount, old Forest Hill village and Rosedale, they do not care a fig about Canadians of all backgrounds and walks of life.
This, I submit, will be the epitaph on the monument of a government that could not care less about the Canadian people.


David Walker: Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend my colleague from Alberta. I was just noticing the determination of the Liberal Party and the enthusiasm of this caucus despite the hour. The House is filled with Liberal members from Montreal, Edmonton, Cape Breton, the Hamilton area and Hamilton itself, Toronto, and northwestern Ontario. It just proves there is a national feeling out there to stand up and oppose this bill. It does not matter to stay in the House and go over it clause by clause with enthusiasm. I must say that the contrast with the other caucuses is very startling.
Here is a piece of legislation that is absolutely essential to the economic ambitions of this government and its members failed to provide hour after hour in this debate a reasonable defence for a terrible piece of legislation. They sit there quietly trying to figure out how to defend this, not only in the House, but on the hustings as well. We welcome the opportunity to debate it here and we more than welcome the opportunity to debate it with enthusiasm in the coming months on the hustings.
Several points have been raised by my colleague and the particular set of amendments introduced by the NDP deserve our attention and our careful consideration. In the past couple of hours there has probably been some very determined criticism from the junior caucus about the Liberal trade strategy. The central point is that generation after generation the Liberals have produced very effective trade mechanisms for this country, build-
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ing on one agreement after another to one of the most In this round of the debate we have a series of motions successful trading arrangements with the United States presented by one of my colleagues from British Colum-of any country in the world. We have also begun to bia. The first one deals with the Canadian laws to prevail develop some very effective trade mechanisms in other in conflict. The purpose of this particular amendment is parts of the world. That was of course destroyed by the to ensure that no provision of this agreement, nor the free trade agreement with the United States. The application of any such provision to any person or NAFTA trade agreement is a further weakening of it. circumstances which is in conflict with any law of Canada
shall have effect.
However, the members of the Liberal Party are not going to crawl underneath their parliamentary seats. The Liberal Party is not going to crawl away from the fact that people made their money in this country from trading, whether it was in agricultural or energy products in the west or manufactured goods in several cities in this country. The reality is that the trading arrangements we make with the world are fundamental to helping our workers make money.
In looking at this particular agreement the Liberal Party has difficulties with this government refusing to accept the American initiative for dealing with the environment. Not only that, we have also stated again and again that the free trade agreement must have a subsidies code, an anti-dumping code, a more effective dispute resolution mechanism, an agreed upon labour standard, agreed upon environmental standards and the same protection for our own industry and our own resource base as the Americans have conceded to Mexico. Unless those basic conditions are met the deal is in fact counterproductive to effective trade.
That perspective is one on which in Question Period after Question Period, I would not be exaggerating in saying that our critic from Etobicoke has raised dozens of questions with the government on the details and the strategy behind this agreement. They have not been political points and have not been raised for the sake of a headline. They have been raised because we fundamentally do not understand the trade strategy of the Minister for International Trade, supported particularly by his Minister of Finance and by his Prime Minister. This triumvirate has not brought the Canadian position in trade forward in any of the initiatives taken since 1988. In fact, we argue that they have taken some giant steps backward, which we feel must be addressed.
The intent is very straightforward. If Canadian law, whether it be of the national government or the provinces, cannot remain sovereign, why is it that we have a nation? We all know that in the reality of trade there is a great balancing act taking place right now between the traditional notions of the state and what we are to do as a nation versus our international agreements, our working within the UN and our working within trade agreements. The reality is however that we have to ensure we have the freedom to act as a sovereign nation.
The second amendment states that where any provision of the agreement is inconsistent with any provision of an act of Parliament or of a legislature, the provision of the act of Parliament or of the legislature, as the case may be, prevails over the provision of the agreement.
Again, in a trade agreement we must assure Canadians that they remain in control of their destiny and that any new arrangement we enter into is an extension of our own particular interest as a country.
The third amendment presented in this series of amendments states that nothing in this act or the agreement shall be interpreted so as to prohibit a party to the agreement from requiring another party to the agreement to process raw materials or raw resources before exporting such materials or resources.
This is fundamental to anybody dealing in the hinterland of Canada, whether that be in northern Ontario, in Haldimand-Norfolk or in rural Manitoba. I think the key trade and industrial issue in Canada-and this is not unique to this debate and has been in debates in the academic world, the business community and in Parliament since the turn of the century-is how to build upon the national policy of the 19th century and make Canada an industrial force in the 20th century.

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We have missed the opportunity in part because we have not taken the resource base we had available to us at a relatively cheap price from the 1920s straight through to the 1980s, cheaper than other places in the world, and have not been able to provide an industrial base based on those raw resources.
Some industries, in particular the steel industry, have been much more successful than other industries, for example, the nickel industry. We have to determine in order to have a very successful national strategy that those raw resources must be somehow or other taken in the Canadian context as value added products.
The reason this is such an important issue is that if we look at how Canadians have made good money, one of the big changes we have had is that Canadians could make good money in the resource industries. For years those who worked in the resource communities made the largest incomes among working Canadians.
That has changed in the last little while simply because the whole production system has backed up and the raw resource industry is being lost to other producers. For example nickel is being lost to Indonesia. Some of the products coming out of eastern Europe are going to challenge our own export.
This particular change is to take into account what we must be doing to develop a more comprehensive and responsive trade agreement and is something we should take a look at.
In conclusion I am delighted that the Minister for International Trade has chosen to participate so extensively in this debate and to sit through some of the comments made by opposition members. I have the feeling that the fundamentals of the problems and the difficulties that are being created for Canada are becoming apparent to this government.
One can only hope that this debate will be called off later this week, that we will wait for the leadership campaign of the Conservative Party to end, that Parliament will have a chance to put an end to this foolishness, that through the House of Commons and through the Senate we will be able to stop this particular piece of legislation and we will have it on the table for the next general election. In having it on the table this government will have to face the silliness of its own particular legislation. It will also have to join with the rest of
Canadians looking back over the last five years and will have to take into account the loss of manufacturing jobs, the loss of opportunity, the loss of decisions in the trade mechanisms.
For all these reasons I call upon this government to use the opportunity of this debate tonight where a series of amendments are being presented to stand up and either defend the bill properly, amend it, or withdraw it and give Canadians a break.


David Stupich: Mr. Speaker, before I get into my remarks I wonder in view of the lateness of the hour whether the House would support a motion to allow the pages to retire.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


David Stupich: Mr. Speaker, we are well into the 14th hour since this House was called to order and I think it is time we took pity on them, if we are not ready to take pity on ourselves.
With respect to the issue before us I would like to deal with the motion which would make it quite clear that any of the parties to the agreement would have the right to insist on further processing of its raw materials before allowing them to be exported.
It is well known that it is not in the harvesting of the resource so much as it is in the processing and manufacturing of these resources that we create the kind of employment that Canada desperately needs right now to pull out of the economic mess in which it finds itself.
We have seen the better jobs, the best jobs move out of this country along with industries, along with equipment, along with whole plants. It is time to stop that and to make sure that if we are forced into the NAFTA we have the right as a nation to insist that our resources be developed and manufactured to the furthest extent possible before we export them.
There is nothing new about this concept. I can recall having an opportunity some 20 years ago to travel to Japan as a representative of the Barrett government in British Columbia. At the time I was visiting the NKK steel plant in Japan which was planning on building a steel plant in B.C. I was curious as to why it would want to come to B.C. of all places.
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I asked the manager of the establishment why it was B.C. He said: "We want to expand. Our first choice would be to build in Japan because the most important thing is a trained labour force. We have lots of them. They are well trained and they can bring others on. This would be best. However the government has said there are enough steel mills in the Tokyo area already". Its second choice would be Brazil because it was getting its iron ore from there and it was heavy to move. It needed coal and lime. However the coal it wanted to use was from British Columbia. He said: "As much as we would like to go to Brazil rather than British Columbia to get the coal, in British Columbia we are dealing with a government that believes in the value added factor".
This was the translation that came through. He was speaking Japanese and I had to speak English but there was somebody there who brought us together. That was the term that came through from the translators. It was as much as 20 years ago. Long before that but certainly 20 years ago the New Democrats knew the importance of further processing our raw materials. The Barrett government in British Columbia knew that if we were to maximize the return from our coal resource we should be using it in British Columbia to produce steel in British Columbia.
We want to have the right, in the event an NDP government anywhere in Canada wants to insist on further processing of any raw material in any province, to insist on it being done before it is exported if we want to do it without running into conflict with the NAFTA, the free trade deal or anything else. That is why this motion has been put.
This motion was moved, not entirely by coincidence, by the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, the person who was the premier of British Columbia at the time the B.C. government was moving in that direction.
It is not just coal I want to talk about. We talked about lumber before. When a delegation of New Democrat MPs went to Ottawa to talk about the softwood lumber tax, the Americans said they were quite prepared to wipe it out, to forget about it altogether, if B.C. would relax its restrictions against the export of round logs. They know that the good jobs, the well paying jobs, come from further processing and not from extracting a resource. That is why they wanted the round logs down there.
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It is not just round logs we are talking about. I understand Ontario has some legislation as well providing for further processing of some of its resources.
In British Columbia we also had provision for our fisheries. We had laws that required the salmon to be landed in British Columbia. There is one reason for doing this quite apart from creating further employment. It is for the management of the resource. A former minister of fisheries told me one day when I raised the question just how many families of salmon there were, how many runs had to be protected and from each there should be an optimum return for spawning purposes to perpetuate the resource. It was a former minister who is now Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. He said that there were 2,400 different runs every year.
We cannot manage those unless we know how many are being harvested and when they are being harvested. We must know how it is affecting each run and we cannot manage properly unless we can allow for proper escapement of each one of those families of fish. It is not quite that easy but we have to achieve as much as we are able to if we are to perpetuate the resource to the maximum extent.
We were doing that. The fish were being landed. They were being recognized and counted. We knew when they were coming. Part of it was the time. All that was being done and then along came free trade. Under GATT it was okay. We never had any problem with GATT. We were able to continue doing that as long as we were operating under the GATT.
However when the free trade act came into effect the Americans decided they wanted access to the processing jobs. They wanted access to the fish and they challenged us under the free trade act. It went to a dispute resolution panel. The panel came down with a rule to the effect that the Americans should have unrestricted access to 25 per cent of the salmon. It did not say 25 per cent each week, each month or every three months. It said 25 per cent. It could all be taken at the beginning or all at the end which would destroy who knows how many families of fish.

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It just does not work that easily. It does not work. In any case for conservation or for perpetuation of the resource we need that right. Beyond that there is employment. British Columbia canned salmon had an international reputation for quality for decades, perhaps even a century. We have had that reputation and have been able to sell our canned salmon at premium prices in world markets.
We are losing that. The Americans now have the right to 25 per cent of our fish. They said at the time they got it that it was just the beginning, that they were going to keep pushing until they got unrestricted access. When that happens the processing will move to the states first. Then it will move to Mexico. There will no longer be any B.C. quality canned salmon available in the world markets. We will have lost a tremendous slice of what is currently a billion dollar market for the province of British Columbia.
NAFTA, unless we change it, is going to destroy that industry. We must oppose it.


Robert (Bob) Speller: Mr. Speaker, I rise in this debate to show my support for the amendments put forward by my hon. colleague on the left. I read through his amendments. I think they are well thought out and address some of the concerns Canadians across this country have about trade problems.
Right off the bat I want to say I appreciate the fact the hon. minister has shown up for this debate. There is lot of confusion out there in Canada. A lot of Canadians really do not understand what this debate is about and really do not understand the issues because of misinformation.
On the one hand the government is saying that our future prosperity, jobs and growth in Canada will depend on some sort of North American free trading arrangement, without really telling Canadians how it is since the last free trade agreement in 1988 that we lost some 300,000 manufacturing jobs. The Canadian economy has been going down over the last number of years and Canadians have been losing their jobs.
Frankly many of them in my area blame it on the Canada-U.S. free trade deal. They wonder how the heck we could be signing another deal without the government first addressing some of the problems it created in the Canada-U.S. deal.
That is one of my concerns. It is one of the concerns expressed by my constituents and Canadians across the country on how a government could be hanging everything, its whole trading policy, on one deal with the Americans and Mexico, forgetting the opportunities that exist in the Pacific Rim and in the opening countries of eastern Europe.
I can say frankly that the debate to date on this issue lacks a lot of credibility. We as Canadians have had no hard facts from the government on how the deal will benefit a worker or a farmer in my area or a fisherman in Cape Breton. How will the deal this government has put so much effort into help Canadians?
That is why I support this amendment by my hon. colleague which says: "No provision of the agreement nor application of any such provision to any person or circumstances which is in conflict with any law in Canada shall have an effect".
We want to have an ability within this country, within this building, to make sure that the laws we make for Canada, for Canadians will not be undermined in some sort of international forum by trading arrangements that give a lot more help to the Americans and a greater ability for places like Mexico and Mexican companies to compete in the United States with Canadian exports.
I want to point out to Canadians who are at home that this is a deal. It is a heck of a deal. It is a big deal. Most of us have read most of it and a lot of it is pretty complicated. Unfortunately this government has not given us an opportunity to explain this to Canadians. Instead it has cut off debate in this House. Before members of Parliament had an opportunity in this House to rise and try to explain this deal to Canadians the government brought in a notice of motion that it will bring in time allocation. It is going to limit the time.
In this debate we are only going to be given three days to debate this document which affects some 28 pieces of legislation. Canadians are concerned. I have had telephone calls already in which people have said: "How can you go through all this, one of the major pieces of legislation as the Prime Minister said, and pass it in three days?"
One of the objectives in this legislation states, and I will read it: "to eliminate barriers to trade in and facilitate the cross border movement of goods and services between the territories of the parties". That is
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what they told us under the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.
As my colleague from Hamilton East has said, we did not get that in the steel industry either in her city or my area of Haldimand-Norfolk at Nanticoke. In my riding there is one of the largest and newest steel plants in the country, a plant one would think would be able to compete with any in the world. It can compete with any in the world as long as it has a level playing field on which to compete, as long as it can follow its market into the United States.
Let me explain what has happened in steel. A lot of Canadian companies have closed down because of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, the world economy, and rationalization in companies. They have gone across the border. If there is a free trade deal they would think that they could sell their products to customers as they moved across the border. That is not the case.
Canadian companies have been hit at every occasion on which they have tried to follow that market across because we did not get the access. We did not eliminate the barriers to trade. Why? Because the Americans say that we are somehow subsidizing our steel, that our products are being subsidized.
However, when the American products come across the border, when the Americans dump steel into our market, what do the government cronies do? They say that what the Americans are doing is fine. They dumped but they did not hurt our markets. That does not do anything to help the steel worker in my area keep his job or put bread on the table for his family.
As my colleague from Hamilton East said-and I am a boy scout and I have been a boy scout all my life-it is time to stop. It is time to get tough. It is time to make sure that the Americans follow the rules. It is time to have a level playing field. It is time for us to be able to compete.
Another important aspect in my area is the agriculture industry. I want to read very briefly what the National Farmers' Union stated. It said: "NAFTA promotes further corporization of Canadian agriculture by relying
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solely on market forces. It supports economic policies in agriculture which fail to measure the human and social consequences of economic change. It is based on profit maximizing mechanisms which will invariably result in the elimination of supply management and increase in the degree of predatory dumping of agricultural and non-agricultural products into the Canadian domestic market and a continuation of trade distorting export subsidies".
The minister knows that Canadian supply management is not trade distorting. Yet in this deal he claims in the same document that he is protected somehow. The fact of the matter is that he has left it open, that in fact whatever GATT decides-and he has already caved in at the GATT-he will support that initiative.
Farmers will not accept that. They do not accept that GATT is over and they will fight this deal as they will fight at the GATT to make sure that Canadian supply management is protected.


Mac Harb: Mr. Speaker, I rise again to speak on the North American free trade agreement. On this side of the House we recognize the potential that exists from any free trade agreement with any nation providing there is a level playing field. In this particular case there is no level playing field yet.
While there are in excess of 350 million consumers that one could look at as a potential market and there are in excess of $7 trillion in that particular market, the government has failed to prepare Canadian industry to enter into that market fully equipped with the tools necessary to compete and succeed.
Make no mistake about it, the whole world is forming itself into different trading blocs, whether we talk about the Pacific Rim or the European Community or whether we talk about the North American communities. However, if you look at each one of those blocs and you look at the partners who are involved in those trading blocs, you find out that the partners involved are preparing themselves before deciding to enter into those trading blocs.
Unfortunately here in Canada, thanks to the provincial governments and the federal government that we have, we have not been able to even eliminate the trading blocs that exist within Canada itself. Take for example the national capital region. On the Ontario side

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and on the Outaouais side, which is the Quebec side, believe it or not there is almost a trade war in that the industry on the Ontario side cannot work on the Quebec side and vice versa to a large extent.
Before moving to the outside and fully benefiting from anything on the outside, Canada has to prepare itself from within. Why has this government failed to take an aggressive role when it comes to free trade within Canada itself? Why has this government not moved with a national strategy, with a national plan, that will eliminate the trading blocs within Canada?
Also the action plan to prepare Canadian industry and Canadian workers to enter into this new era of globalization simply is not there. We are talking about a national objective, a national strategy. We cannot really go out and compete in the international arena when we have an illiteracy rate in our own society that exceeds 38 per cent of our population. We cannot compete in the international arena when we have over one-third of our students not finishing their high school education. We cannot compete in the international arena when we have over two-thirds of all jobs that are going to be available in our own society requiring at least a high school level of education and we just do not have it. We cannot compete in the global market when we have a shrinking population but yet, in parallel to that, we do not have a strategy in order to equip that shrinking work force with the tools necessary to compete.
Where is the government's strategy when it comes to those areas? Where is the government's strategy when it comes to a proper national education strategy that will help the Canadian youth and will equip them so they can compete in the international scene, never mind building a better life for themselves in the future? Where is the government's strategy that will deal with trying to help the industry to compete in the international market? Where is that strategy?
We have not seen much of it except thanks to a government such as the Ontario government. It has been the biggest booster to the Buffalo business sector by driving business out of Ontario by putting in place legislation that frightened the business community from one end of the province to the other and by imposing taxes day and night to the point where the small business
community as well as the medium-sized community are screaming loudly.
One would say, in the absence of a national strategy on the part of the federal government and with the regressive, oppressive strategy on the part of the provincial government in Ontario, the business communities and the workers of this country want to see some aggressive change taking place before this government moves ahead with its NAFTA deal.
We have been calling on the government to at least not proceed with this legislation until such time that the Canadian public has a chance to examine it closely, until the business communities have a chance to examine it closely and until such time that all of the disputed issues that we have on the table are dealt with. A number of disputed issues that are on the table have not been dealt with, from the anti-dumping legislation which discriminates against the businesses in this country to the unfair trading practices that are taking place to the lack of fulfilment on the part of our partners as it stands right now in the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.
As my colleagues have indicated, and I join with them, the whole idea behind a free trade agreement is to give the Canadian industry access to a market. I suggest from what we have seen in the past that access to the market we want has not been fully available. At the best of times when it was available, it was for a very short period of time and then we were discriminated against.
I will give one example. In the area of procurement it was part of the agreement between Canada and the United States that on an annual basis both governments would provide to one another a list of all of the available contracts, all of the available opportunities and also a statement of account.
From 1989 until the middle of 1993 we have yet to see the Minister of Supply and Services making public that particular account. We have yet to see a fulfilment on the part of our partners when it comes to procurement in the free trade agreement.
When we look at the Canadian side we have fulfilled our commitment on a regular basis from year one up until now. One may ask what will happen when it comes to the North American free trade agreement. Are we going to have access?
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As well, when it comes to the question of procurement, what has the government done since 1989 until now in trying to publicize to the business community across Canada and trying to inform them of the possibilities that might be available to them in the Canadian
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market in the area of procurement? I might suggest that it has been a failure on the part of the government in this area.
[Editor's Note: For continuation of proceedings see Volume B.]

Tuesday, May 25,1993
[Editor's Note: Continuation of proceedings from Volume A.)


Mac Harb: None of the businesses and sectors involved have been properly informed about those possibilities and opportunities.
If we look at it on balance the government has failed on every single issue when it comes to the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and the North American free trade agreement.
The government should withdraw this legislation and this is the perfect time for it; twelve o'clock, midnight.


An hon. member:: The witching hour.


Mac Harb: The government should wait until the United States and Mexico as well as the Canadian people have had a chance to look at it and approve it before we proceed with it. Otherwise as I have indicated clearly it is a waste of time; nothing more, nothing less.


Mr. Lyle Kristiansen (Kootenay West-Revelstoke):: Mr. Speaker, I wish the subject before us aroused more positive feelings in me, other members in the House, particularly those on the opposition side, and the majority of people in Canada.
The amendments before us, namely Motions Nos. 2,4, 5 and 6, are apparently not going to be supported by the government side. I do not imagine that comes as much of a surprise to anyone. I think this demonstrates very clearly to all of us and all Canadians that this government's agenda and the agenda of most ordinary Canadians are on diametrically opposite courses.
I would like to begin in the few minutes I have this evening by reading briefly from a letter to my constituents that I sent almost two years ago but it still seems particularly appropriate.
It said: "Summer time and the living is easy. That is what the song says and if it was not for the actions of our
federal government it could be and should be too, especially in Canada where we have more wealth, resources and fresh water per person than anywhere else on earth.
"If only we would use it and protect it ourselves instead of letting others manage it and misuse it for themselves in the name of some abstract global market doctrine that says it is wrong for a people, a nation or a community to act together in order to advance and defend their own jobs and their own interests."
The Tory Party, the Reform Party and other people right across Canada say that idea is wrong and horror of horrors it is protectionist. If a government cannot or will not act to protect its own people, their jobs and businesses, then what the devil is a government for?
Of course we have to compete in the global marketplace. Of course we have to make compromises but we do not throw away all the advantages we have. We bargain from our strength, not our weaknesses and before we start we draw our bottom line.
The Prime Minister says there is more to Canada than a few national programs, national services and national corporations. That is true but if he and his friends continue to break up or deregulate and weaken all the national services, programs and agencies that keep this country together like VTA Rail our national transport system, the CBC, medicare, Canada Post, Air Canada and Petro-Canada that could act to guarantee environmental standards and energy self-sufficiency at fair prices, what will we have left?
This government has attempted to incorporate that agenda for all time by incorporating and protecting those moves, first through the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and now by extending that to a North American free trade agreement. That is what makes this debate so important and what makes it so absolutely irresponsible for this government to attempt at this time to ram it through the House of Commons.

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More and more Canadians will ask themselves if all we get for our taxes is a flag, an anthem and an expensive government that we do not like. Is it really worth it? You tell me. We are fast on the road to becoming exactly that.
The United States, the republic to the south, is beginning to realize there is something of value in some of the institutions here north of the border. It is beginning what is going to be a very hard fought, drawn out campaign to establish some decent social services and social safety nets in that country that are good for all their people and not just some of their people. We have been and are in the process of dismantling almost every important national program that has made this country worth while and distinctive to most Canadians.
What is my bottom line and what is the bottom line of the NDP? It is Canada and it is Canadians. I hate to have to ask but I must ask the government members-and I know as individuals they believe they are good Canadians-what their bottom line is. For the life of me when I see what they have been doing for the last number of years I cannot believe their bottom line is the same as ours: Canada, Canadians and their long-term welfare.
The government signed a trade agreement that meant we had to become more competitive to survive and then followed an economic policy of deregulation, high interest rates and an artificially high dollar that seemed designed to make us less competitive and that is what happened. It is hard to believe its bottom line coincides with mine or that of my constituents.
Ross Perot, the independent candidate in the last U.S. presidential election, gave a very clear warning when he said that if the North American free trade agreement was consummated there would be a giant sucking sound as jobs were sucked south of the border from the United States into Mexico. We have already seen the truth of that in the last few years as close to half a million Canadian jobs have been sucked south into the United States.
A headline in today's Financial Post reads: "Canadian companies head to U.S." It says: "It has been a great month if you are an American looking for work at a Canadian company. Several big Canadian firms have
announced plans to expand in the U.S. Many senior executives expect more Canadian companies to move south because of lower taxes, cheaper labour and free trade." In the last few weeks it points out Jannock Ltd., Norbord Industries Inc., Metall Mining Corporation, Counsel Corporation and Interprovincial Pipe Line Systems Incorporated. The list goes on and on and it gives details.
Because they have this particular mind-set these companies say free trade was just one of about 15 factors in their decision to move south. Among the other important factors were reduced wage costs, cheaper hydro, lower taxes and better access to bigger markets. Those things are exactly what we said would be the result before the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement came into place.
Companies would be free to move to where labour costs and wages were lower and there were inadequate social services and as a result lower taxes because they did not have to provide them. There is a downward levelling that is taking place continuously on our side of the border where we used to enjoy some good social safety nets and good social programs. If that is not what is taking place then I do not know where we are at all.
That is exactly what we said would happen and we take no joy in having predicted it. Anyone who was not blind or deaf could have figured it out. I do not believe the government is deaf or blind so why has it led us down that path? Why is it continuing to lead us down that path in spite of the facts that are there for all of us to see?
Only the people of Canada can answer that question. The only answer I can think of is not a pretty one. That government has to go. That mind-set has to go. This agreement has to go. It is a bad agreement. It is bad for Canadians. It is bad for Canada.
Adopting these amendments will make it a little more liveable and a little more fair. If the government is not prepared to do that then it should give up. Call an election quickly and let us get this damn thing over with.


Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace):: Mr. Speaker, at this late hour I want to start with a few words about process.
May 25, 1993

This debate indicates once again the low level to which this Conservative government has reduced Parliament and our parliamentary system.
Here we have one of the most important pieces of legislation to come before this House since the election of 1988. It is the North American free trade agreement which is a very large, long and complex piece of legislation. It looks like many of our telephone books with 193 pages and 242 sections.
This government with its disdain for Parliament has rushed through the second reading debate in two and a half days and expects us to deal with the 32 amendments that have been presented for this report stage in one day.
Even though we have extended hours for this evening, everybody knows this debate tonight took place while a very important hockey game was going on.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


William Warren Allmand: The government members say hear, hear because they really are not interested in having the Canadian public know about this piece of legislation. The only thing I might agree with is I was happy to see the Toronto team win tonight even though I am a Canadiens fan.
We have this long complex piece of legislation and this government is trying to ram it through Parliament in a very few days. There are 242 sections and on many of those sections there are opposing views. There are questions to be raised and we have raised them. Many of them are formulated in the 32 amendments which are before this House tonight yet the government will not listen to those opposing or different views. It does not want the Canadian public to know about those views. That is why it is closing debate.
Of course this is a government that since 1984 has used the process of closure and allocation of time more than any other government going back to Confederation. This is a government that does not believe in parliamentary debate. It does not believe in allowing the Canadian public to get an insight into complex legislation.
The government's view is to rush it through as quickly as possible so Canadians will really not know. Everybody knows this is a bill about free trade among Canada, the
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United States and Mexico but they do not know the details of the bill. If you were to ask the ordinary person on the street they do not know the details of the bill. A debate like this should allow Canadians some insight into the details of the bill.
If we were allowed to debate this legislation as we should debate legislation we could go through the various clauses of the bill and raise the questions. We could raise the opposing views that do not always come from our own sources but have been picked up from the various economic associations, think tanks and economists in the country. If we were allowed to raise those in the proper way by going through the various clauses, the Canadian public listening to us and the government might agree or disagree with us. That is fair play.
At least we would have a sound debate. Canadians could listen to us and to them. Of course those members are not even participating in the debate tonight. They are not even responding to the various arguments and points that are being raised on these amendments.
It is fair play for Canadians to agree or disagree with us once they have had a chance to listen. They are not going to have that opportunity.
Furthermore, this government is ramming through this legislation before the other two partners to the agreement, the United States and Mexico, have taken steps to ratify it by legislation. President Clinton has said quite clearly that there will be no legislation to ratify NAFTA until the side agreements that he wants on environment and labour are completed.
The Liberal Party for a long time has favoured freer trade. Our history is one that has been favourable to freer trade. It was the Liberal Party that spearheaded and supported GATT from its earliest stages and before 1984 Liberal governments had supported the lowering of tariffs with the United States.
As a matter of fact in 1988 at the time of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement 80 per cent of our trade with the United States was without tariffs and trade had been reduced by Liberal governments preceding the accession of the Conservative government from an average of a 32 per cent tariff to a 6 per cent average.

May 25, 1993
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At the time of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement in 1988 with measures that had been introduced by Liberal governments we had a $20 billion trade surplus yet that Conservative government insisted on putting through its version of free trade. We maintain that this sold out Canadian interests and resources, especially energy interests. This had no subsidies code, did not serve Canadian industry well and certainly did not serve Canadian workers well.
The results are pretty evident today when we have over 11 per cent unemployment and 1.6 million Canadians unemployed. That is the result of a trade agreement that this government rammed through in a similar way in 1988. That agreement was not classical free trade but was rather an agreement for economic integration and union. It was not free trade. It called it free trade but it was really a much more demeaning type of agreement.
We said at the time that that agreement in 1988 would put pressure on our social policies to harmonize with those in the United States that were less beneficial to those citizens and which did not really do the job for those citizens as many of our social programs did.
As a matter of fact that is what happened. We predicted it in 1988. It has happened. There were changes to the unemployment insurance legislation, the generic drug legislation and the patent legislation which provided for generic drugs at a cheaper price for Canadians. Now there are attacks on our medicare programs.
We said that that would take place because the economic integration and the market integration with the United States would put pressure on Canadian companies competing with companies in the United States without tariffs to bring down those social programs for competitive reasons. That has happened.
The stated goal of the Conservative government when it pursued the original free trade agreement with the United States and now with Mexico was to get rid of the real trade barriers between our two countries but they did not accomplish that. Countervailing still remains, U.S. anti-dumping legislation still remains. It was evident. We have seen what has happened to many of our industries such as the softwood lumber industry, the steel industry and the magnesium industry.
The Conservative government in pursuing the elements of free trade let down Canadians and were poor
negotiators. It has happened again. One of the reasons that we are opposing the present agreement is that the energy provisions of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement that were not in the interests of Canada have not been changed. Furthermore the Mexicans have negotiated for their part energy provisions which are more favourable to them than the entrenched provisions in the original agreement of 1988 are to us. We said from the beginning that the NAFTA trade negotiations would be an opportunity to correct the deficiencies in the 1988 Canada-U.S. agreement. It was a great opportunity to correct the energy provisions and to provide for an anti-dumping code and a subsidies code and all those things that were not proper in the original agreement of 1988. However not only did the government not correct those things but it made it worse by ending up with uneven provisions for example with respect to energy for Mexico as compared with Canada. Those barriers remain and they remain because we had a government that did not know how to negotiate in the best interests of Canada.
We voted against this legislation at second reading. We are supporting amendments today and tonight which would improve the agreement which is seriously flawed. We have said that if we were to take power as a government we would seek changes to both the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement of 1988 and the North American free trade agreement.
We said that both need a subsidies code, an antidumping code, a more effective dispute-resolution mechanism, agreed upon labour standards, agreed upon environmental standards and the same energy protection as Mexico.
We will continue to oppose this legislation until it is made right and until legitimate Canadian interests are protected. They are not protected in this bill at the present time. Therefore we will vote for the amendments that are before the House tonight and hope that the government will see the light of day.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity you are giving me this evening. It is after midnight, at 12.20 a.m., on this fine evening in Ottawa.
May 25, 1993

The debate that we are engaged in here tonight concerns the report stage and a grouping of motions on amendments to the North American free trade agreement implementing legislation.
The amendments grouped here are ones brought forward by the New Democratic trade critic, the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, who has tried very hard in these amendments tonight to rectify some serious problems and flaws that are in the existing legislation.
That aside, Mr. Speaker, I think that you are aware as are virtually all of those people who may be watching us tonight at this hour of how fatally flawed this entire legislation is and what a change and effect this will have on our entire country if this legislation or this agreement is implemented. This is an agreement that in essence establishes an entirely new economic framework for North America. This framework takes control from the hands of Canadians and puts it into the hands of the multinational corporations.
I could not help tonight but be reminded of my very first speech in this House of Commons after being elected in 1988. It was an election that I fought on the issue of free trade with the United States. It was an issue that made the people of my constituency say to me on election day: "We cannot accept it." They have been proven right.
Those people in my constituency who supported my campaign have been proven correct. In fact the free trade agreement with the United States has been devastating for the Canadian economy. The hundreds of thousands of jobs that have been lost from this country as a result of this trade deal are just part of the the economic decline that has faced our country.
The province of Saskatchewan that is heavily dependent on agriculture has also been affected by the decline in the national economy. A very important message that the people of Saskatchewan have sent is that agribusiness cannot control the way in which payments are made to producers. It is the very backbone and the very heart of that prairie, regional, resource-based economy.
I say that I am reminded today of my veiy first speech in this House because it was on that free trade agreement with the United States. It was virtually in the middle of the night again on report stage as the govern-
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ment was pushing through that legislation without listening or caring to listen to the people of Canada.
During my very first speech in this House of Commons I was heckled by this government repeatedly about not knowing what I was talking about. What has history shown and who knew what? History has shown very strongly that the words that were spoken by those who opposed the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement were absolutely correct.
Tonight under certain similar circumstances and under closure by a government that continues to refuse to listen we are again debating very important legislation and an agreement on the economic future of Canada.
Is it any wonder Canadians are frustrated and angry with this institution? Is it any wonder that their frustration boils over? The government refuses to listen not just on the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, not just with the goods and services tax and not with agricultural legislation.
We debated in this House the whole issue of the interest-free cash advance. We said over and over again to this government that it could not remove the interest-free cash advance because of its devastating effect on western farmers. However this government barrelled ahead and removed it.
Every year since it has done that it has been forced for one year to reinstate it. It should never have changed the legislation to begin with. It is evident how the government will not listen.
There is the drought program and the GRIP. The Canadian people some of whom are my constituents have said over and over again: "Listen to us. We know what we are talking about." Each time the government has refused to listen and each time the people have been proven correct.
Once again we have the opportunity to address this veiy important issue that is the North American free trade agreement. In fact the government is refusing to listen. I know there are people out there tonight who want the government to listen. There are people out there who are watching us on their television screens who are saying: "I wish I could say something to those people. If they will not listen in the House of Commons maybe they will listen to anybody from the rest of Canada."

May 25, 1993
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If those people have pencils in their hands and write down this number 613-996-7441 they can talk to a Tory tonight today about the North American free trade agreement. The number is 613-996-7441. The phone will ring in the lobby and a Conservative member of Parliament will likely answer. The people who are watching tonight can say to a real Conservative member of Parliament: "Listen to what is being said about this agreement that is so drastically affect the way in which our country is operating."
People are frustrated now but can one imagine how frustrated they are going to be when the North American free trade agreement is implemented by this government or by the Liberal government if it forms the next government? Just think of how frustrated these people are going to be when they find out that the economic direction of this country is no longer in their hands. They can no longer hold their politicians accountable for economic decisions because the decisions are going to be made in the corporate board rooms in Washington, Mexico City or for all we know in some other capital city outside of Canada.
The economic decisions are not going to be made by the politicians who have to be accountable to the people of Canada. Those decisions are going to be made by a body that is not accountable to anyone. This government is handing that control to those corporate boardrooms as if it was a gift for some debt to be paid.
If there are debts to be paid it is to the ordinary working people and the producers of this country who have toiled for years and years and are being stepped on by the same multinational corporations.
Today the government is preparing to reward those corporations for the exploitation of Canadian workers and institute an agreement that is going to exploit not only Canadian workers but also workers in the United States and Mexico. These workers and producers are trying hard to make this a country they can be proud of and their children will be proud of when they are gone. They know their parents would be proud of them.
I have made many environment speeches in this House. The one thing I said over and over again to the members on the opposite side in government in this House is that we have a responsibility to leave this world
a better place than we found it. The North American free trade agreement and the legislation that is implementing it does just the opposite. We are making this place a poorer place than we found it. If there is nothing else we can do tonight, we must come to some realization that we have to defeat this legislation and get on with other business that is more important.


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, yes indeed, what is happening in this House tonight and this week is obscene.
We are dealing with a document that is very thick, the North American free trade agreement. We are dealing with another document that gives us a summary of the chapters in that agreement. We are dealing with a 200-page piece of legislation and a very thick book is required to explain that piece of legislation.
This government is asking us to spend less than half a good working week debating this whole mess, trying to debate all the issues involved in it and leaving the public with some clear understanding of what it is ramroding through the House this week. That is obscene, evil and not worthy of this place. It is not worthy of any government of this country.
I remember during the last election talking to seniors in my riding about the free trade agreement. The most touching comments came from elderly people, mostly women who told me their husband, brother, father, son or nephew died in a war to save this country and now these people are giving it away. The seniors in my riding of Ottawa West feel they are losing the dream they built of this country, but they are also looking at their grandchildren and saying their hopes for the future for those grandchildren are being destroyed.
The government knew this agreement would seriously disrupt the Canadian economy. It knew because it forced internal documents in its own government to be amended when they said detrimental things about the impacts of the free trade agreement. It suppressed information and forced public servants to change then-analysis of the agreement. It put in place no action plan to deal with the detrimental effects, no training programs and no economic plan to help this country through an adjustment period. We did not get access to the American markets in the free trade agreement and we are not getting access in this agreement.
May 25, 1993

Four years ago I made the then minister of international trade aware that in Ontario where half the manufacturing jobs in Canada are, municipalities are specifically prohibited from subsidising industries to locate in their communities. Yet every month millions of dollars in bribes from American communities come into this province in magazine advertisements for Canadian companies to leave Canada. That is only one measure of how urgent it is to deal with the subsidies issue which in five years this government has not dealt with. It is leaving us further at the mercy of that kind of buy-out of Canadian firms through bribery from American communities.
I want to talk for a couple of minutes about the hocus-pocus on the environment. The Minister for International Trade and the Minister of the Environment claim that somehow this free trade agreement makes great progress on the environment and ties environmental issues to trade issues as sustainable development principles would have it do.
It does not. The Minister for International Trade has claimed that he went to the bargaining table with Mexico with a proposal to protect the environment and the Americans turned it down. It is a little hard to believe that now, when a new administration in the United States has opened up the opportunity for strong provisions on environmental protection, improving environmental standards and improving the protection of the very resources that are fundamental to our economy. The minister now runs like a scared rabbit from those negotiations and does not want to put in place what he claims he wanted at the bargaining table six months ago.
I want to quote the minister's own words in an interview just a couple of weeks ago. He said: "Well, let's take the environment. We have under the NAFTA the right to establish our own standards and enforce our own standards. Now, do we want the Americans or the Mexicans coming in and telling us how to enforce our environmental standards? I would say no."
One might think from that the minister wanted to establish high standards to protect the environment, but
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that is not so. Just two minutes later the minister went on to make it quite clear that this government wants to be able to bend the environmental assessment rules and water them down, even in contravention of the Supreme Court of Canada as it did on the Oldman River dam and not be subject to any trade action by our other partners in the NAFTA.
The Minister of the Environment, one might think, would like to protect the environment and in fact want to raise environmental standards in all three trading partners. I might have believed that until last week when the Minister of the Environment refused to use his regulation-making power to ban the export of tetraethyl lead which we know is damaging, especially to the health of children. That very same minister who refused to control a poisonous substance by regulation turned around and amended the regulations so hot rod races could go ahead in Montreal because he was under pressure from a delegate for another leadership candidate.
That shows a total lack of commitment to protect the environment in trade. What was the excuse? We needed to harmonize with the United States regulations. We needed to remain competitive. We are prepared to move backward on our environmental regulations instead of moving forward. If anyone doubted the hypocrisy of both ministers when it comes to protecting the environment in trade matters, they have no reason to doubt that hypocrisy any more.
We have talked before about the energy provisions in the NAFTA and again this Minister for International Trade gave up on an issue that the Mexicans were able to get protection for in the NAFTA. In other words, we have agreed to obligations to supply our trading partners with energy even in times of shortage when Mexico stood firm and protected its right to determine who it would sell its energy to and when.
No wonder the Americans do not want Canada to have that right. They say it is okay for us to subsidize our energy. They want to ensure that they can buy our energy which is subsidized by Canadian taxpayers. In other words, it would be an indirect subsidy from Canadian taxpayers to American industry.

May 25, 1993
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I want to say a couple of words about social programs. I want to ask both the Minister of National Health and Welfare and the Minister of Finance to share with Canadians its hidden agenda to dismantle our social security system. We have already seen it with the UI system and now there is talk in the leadership campaign about user fees in the medicare system. We have seen it with the actions on prescription drugs.
I would like the Minister of Finance or the Minister of International Trade to tell the House that the recent address by the Deputy Minister of Finance to the Canadian Association of Business Economics calling for an overhaul of the public pension system was approved by the minister, approved by the government and how it is related to this NAFTA deal that is before us tonight.
What the Deputy Minister of Finance said in his remarks contains alarming and disturbing policy options including cutting public pension benefits and perhaps even eliminating the Old Age Security. This is the legacy of the free trade agreement and the NAFTA. This is harmonization with our trading partners to the south.
Is it not perhaps time for this government to tell Canadians how it plans to restructure our public pension system to bring it in line with the American social security retirement system? I know the government is going to sit there and say it has no such intention and our social safety net is a sacred trust. I think we have heard all that before and we know how much that statement by the government means.
We can only assume if we look carefully at the American pension plan and compare ours to theirs, which is purely income related, that this government plans to create a new generation of poor senior citizens.
If it goes to the American pension plan it is quite clear that we will also have increased poverty among elderly women who throughout their lifetimes have had very little opportunity to earn income on which a better pension could be based.
The real tragedy of this being forced through right now is we are in negotiations with our trading partners on parallel accords on issues that are important to them and important to us-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member's time has expired.


Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: Mr. Speaker, at this fairly late hour we are debating at report stage the bill to implement the North American free trade agreement. It is incredible to think of the immense changes this bill will mean not only for the way companies do business in Canada but also for the way Canadians act. Our whole society will be affected by these provisions.
Yet we had scarcely two and a half hours of debate at second reading when the government moved closure. In committee, the same thing. Just a few weeks ago, representatives of cities as major as Toronto and Montreal had not been able to appear before the committee.
Today, since ten o'clock this morning, or yesterday morning I should say because we are already at a quarter to one in the morning, we started debate at report stage. After just a few hours of debate the government once again wants to invoke closure. To allow us members of the opposition to debate the some 32 amendments on the OrderPaper, we get unlimited time, which means we are going to be able to debate all night long.
We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every day to televise our debates all across Canada. This costs a great deal of money. With a debate as important as this one, we have to do it at night when most Canadians are asleep. Once again we are wasting money and preventing Canadians from being part of the debate.
This bill, as I said earlier, will not just affect the way Canadians do business in Canada and on the North American continent, it will affect our whole society. We have already gone through this with the free trade agreement between Canada and the United States. We know how hard hit our workers have been by job losses. That is not over yet, it is still happening. The government during the 1988 debates promised us and promised Canadians as a whole that once the free trade agreement with the United States was in force, all the problems we were having at that time with the American states and the industrial sector would be settled by the agreement. Yet here we are today faced with all these current crises.
May 25, 1993

I would like to cite just one example, that of the furniture industry. Not long ago, the STCUM, Montreal urban community transit authority, gave a contract worth about $2 million to an American furniture manufacturer. The Quebec furniture industry is convinced that the American company is dumping.
I would like to refer to an article in the Journal de Montreal, of May 5, 1993, in which the executive vicepresident of the Association des fabricants de meubles du Quebec, Quebec furniture manufacturers' association, says:
The scandal is that they suspect the American company of dumping, in other words selling its products for less here than it would in the United States, which is an illegal trade practice, and they can't even defend themselves.
In the United States, even a presumption of dumping by another country brings an immediate reaction from Washington.
Here, the procedure to prove dumping is so drawn-out, complex and ruinous, that it's practically impossible for us to undertake it.
In the case of the STCUM contract, we would have to invest at least $500,000 to prepare our case. In Canada the government doesn't defend industry, its policy is to fold its hands and do nothing.
That is what is happening. That is a real case. It is not the opposition criticizing, it is the executive vice-president of the Association des fabricants de meubles du Quebec talking about a specific case, a contract. It would take $500,000 to defend this case while in the United States all a company has to do is pay a visit to Washington, D.C. and the wheels start to turn. Why is the Canadian government not defending Canadian industry? Why does it sit with its hands folded when this inaction is destroying our industry? That is why we are against this agreement.
The worst thing about it is the government does not understand. On the one hand invokes closure at every stage to get the bill passed quickly; on the other we see that the United States wants to negotiate parallel agreements. That was clear last week when the negotiators were here in Ottawa. It did not agree at all. The President and the congressional leaders have said that without parallel agreements they will not proceed.
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Why is the Canadian government in such a hurry, to the point of making us debate the bill in the middle of the night while Canadians sleep? It is a sign of just how completely this government has lost all moral authority. It would come into effect on January 1. We could have debated it in order to afford all members an opportunity to receive criticisms and comments from their constituents, to urge the public to understand what we are talking about, to understand all about this massive bill that we are trying to push through as fast as we can during the night.
These are the questions that Canadians are asking themselves and the government is turning a deaf ear. We have one day for report stage and one day for third reading. It is already being said that next week the Senate will be faced with closure on the bill. This bill will become law by the end of the first week in June.
I think we have to keep on fighting for Quebec's furniture industry and for many other industries such as the steel industry, and for the entire industrial sector, because we have a government whose laissez-faire policy means that they can continue to sit back and do nothing and that they can give up on our industries. Obviously, behind all this there are jobs that have been lost by the hundreds of thousands and the figure is rising. If this government goes on like this, things will get even worse.
We will continue to push for the amendments and if the government does not want to be reasonable, we will absolutely vote against the government's bill.


Philip Edmonston: Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to rise tonight at this late hour to speak on the motions that are before us.
This is the second time that I have had a chance to speak on the motions. As one knows we are dealing with the second grouping of motions. The first dealt primarily with the environment. Now we are dealing with questions of predominance of Canadian law and Bill C-115.

May 25, 1993
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I rise to push for the amendments to Bill C-115 that have been put forward by my party as well as by my colleagues, amendments that are intended to amend the bill to implement NAFTA.
For the people who are watching and listening to us tonight and who are wondering what NAFTA is, it is the North American free trade agreement. The reason why we are supporting the amendments proposed by our Liberal colleagues, as well as the ones from our party, is that we know that the bill as it now stands is imperfect. It is a bill that we cannot accept and that we thought worth while to amend, at least in substance, in order to make it less cumbersome and more acceptable for Canada.
The problem with this bill is a fundamental one. I would like to ask you to intervene-Excuse me, Mr. Speaker, but-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order please.


Sheila Finestone: I am sorry Phil. We were trying to figure out who is speaking next.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member cannot see the Chair. That is what it is.


Philip Edmonston: Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, what we have even greater need of here in Canada is a domestic free trade agreement between our provinces, rather than a free trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico. I refer to that because I worked on the committee along with my Liberal colleague who has so much experience with cultural groups in Quebec. I recall that we heard representations from several Quebec cultural groups who claimed that with Bill C-115, Quebec song writers, film makers and producers would be forced to accept less than they had already obtained under the Berne convention signed in 1971.
The Berne convention awards Quebec and Canadian artists a certain amount of protection. Following their death, their works retain a certain value and are bequeathed to their heirs.
Under the NAFTA, which we are discussing this evening, Quebec and Canadian artists will have less
protection. This is a very important point because when I speak of less protection, it means that when, for example, we speak of Quebec as a distinct society, Bill C-115 will make Quebec less distinct. Artists all across Canada will be less protected. That is unfortunate because that which they have already acquired under the Berne convention will no longer exist.
We were astonished to learn this in the course of the committee meetings into this question. This is not merely a question of vested rights. Today, as the United States wonders whether it can accept the NAFTA without sanctions, and until now, the United States has determined that it cannot endorse the NAFTA without provisions respecting the environment and worker protection, we here in Canada are not even asking ourselves the same question. We here in Quebec, in Canada and in this House are being forced to speak now at one o'clock in the morning on draft legislation which is being bulldozed through Parliament. We are being forced to vote on this bill whereas the United States has decided to apply the brakes.
As a Canadian citizen and as the member for Chambly, I am truly uncomfortable with this bill because when I chose Canada 25 years ago, I did not want to choose a country like the United States. I wanted a country that was better than the United States, a country that appreciated its artists and appreciated the value of their works.
Unfortunately, tonight, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, if we fail to stop or to substantially amend this bill, it is clear that Canada will be significantly changed in several years' time or over the next few decades, that is 20, 30 or 40 years down the road. How will Canada have changed? Canada will resemble the United States, it will be carried along by U.S. policies.
One thing about this bill surprised me. When European countries engaged in negotiations with the European Economic Community over the past 13 years, they engaged in a dispassionate, comprehensive and open debate of the various aspects of the proposed legislation before them. They wanted to achieve unity and to have as many participants and as many different viewpoints as possible to ultimately determine where everyone stood on the proposed legislation respecting the European Economic Community.
May 25, 1993

Unfortunately, the problem we have today is that we are dealing with a government that wants to accomplish in three days what it took the European Economic Community 13 years to accomplish-three days as compared to 13 years. How then can we have a dispassionate, rational, effective, intelligent debate as parliamentarians when we are being bulldozed into taking part in it? An intelligent debate is impossible under these kinds of conditions.
You can understand then why I find this process, this debating climate, unhealthy. Furthermore, given the reluctance on the part of the U.S. government to endorse NAFTA as it now stands, without sanctions and without parallel agreements on environmental protection, without parallel agreements on U.S. worker protection, I wonder why are we in such a hurry. I remind you that 24 members of the U.S. House of Representatives have already made it known-I repeat that that these Americans, these members of the U.S. House of Representatives-have already made it known that they will not endorse NAFTA, even if it contained parallel agreements on the environment and on worker protection.
I must also say that after listening to the fisheries minister, who was quoted in several newspaper articles, state that the opposition to and the dissatisfaction with NAFTA, the North American free trade agreement, came only from unions and their membership, I am truly disgusted with such a statement, because I know for a fact that many other people, not just unions and their members, are opposed to the agreement.
I would like to quote from an article published in Le Devoir because it mentions the fisheries minister and also because I find it most interesting. The article states the following: "Mr. Crosbie notes that unions in Canada have voiced their staunch opposition'' to NAFTA. The minister pointed out that unions are opposed to everything, including NAFTA. Said the minister jokingly: "Every time the unions get a pimple on their nose, they blame it on NAFTA."
NAFTA is no joking matter. It is not merely a matter for the unions or for fringe groups. Almost two thirds of the Canadian population are opposed to the agreement. Unfortunately, they are not here today, but we as parliamentarians represent them. We realize just how
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arrogant the government is when it claims that only a small, marginal group is opposed to NAFTA when in reality more than two thirds of all Canadians are opposed to this agreement and to signing it. The government is making the same stupid mistake it made in the past with the Constitution. You recall, Mr. Speaker, what they said at the time: "Come on, only marginal groups are against the Charlottetown agreement".
In conclusion, let me say that most Canadians are opposed to this bill respecting NAFTA because they are far more intelligent than this government.


Fred J. Mifflin: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on this subject at this ungodly hour because I feel motivated to make certain points.
I spoke earlier and compared the promises that were made for the free trade agreement with the United States five years ago with the promises that were made and the risks that were encountered in the situation now.
I would like to open my presentation this morning by saying that given the choice of the two by far I would much rather take the free trade agreement although it has led us down the garden path. It is a bad choice, but as bad as it is I think NAFTA is about 10 times worse. I will tell you why.
To begin with, the free trade agreement signed by the United States and Canada five years ago was supposed to give us access to the American market and bring growth and prosperity to Canada. We have never had such little growth in the history of the country. Any prosperity, considering the unemployment we have right now, has to be called at a minimum jobless prosperity. I do not accept that the promises made for free trade with the United States have come to pass.
I would liken the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement to going into a poker game where you could possibly win $50 but lose $500. Using the same comparison, the way we are going about the free trade agreement is like going into a poker game, taking every penny that you have, putting it on the table and then showing your cards and saying: "Okay, now we can start the game".

May 25, 1993
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It is absolutely incredible that we are debating this seriously following a weekend when the negotiators were in Canada and failed to come to an agreement. There are serious difficulties.
I am not going to read the presentation because I will be wasting time. Anybody can read The Toronto Star and see what it says. In any paper for the last three or four days we can read about the inability of the chief negotiators to come to agreement in the areas that are of most importance to us. That is pretty obvious.
There are other troublesome areas that I want to raise this evening. The first one is with respect to a level playing field. We know the difficulties we had with the United States and the level playing field and I referred to some of those earlier this evening.
I want to go through four areas: textiles, automotives, petrochemicals and computers and give the salary difference between Canada and Mexico. In textiles the average salary in Canada is $28,000, in Mexico it is $4,000. In automotive in Canada it is $43,000, in Mexico $5,000. In petrochemicals in Canada it is $50,000, in Mexico $6,500. In the computer field in Canada it is $36,000 average per year, in Mexico $7,500 per year. That is a wide range in salaries. I will leave that and go on to an area that concerns me more.
These are the tools of national policy. I believe if they are not disappearing now, with the implementation of the North American free trade agreement the policy controls that help keep the transnational corporate decision-making accountable to the national or the provincial priorities set by democratically elected governments will be taken away from us. In other words, we will lose the controls we now have that make our economy relative to the manufacturing and the import-export potential we have.
These include, and I see them in the agreement, performance requirements regarding such things as domestic added value, technology transfer and resource management tools such as export taxes to shape competitive advantage and compulsory licensing of patents to nurture home-grown technology. There are others but those are the ones that concern me the most because most of them actually impact in the high-tech area.
On the same subject but a slight digression, I see dangerous trends. I want to take some figures that give or take 5 per cent or 10 per cent are fairly indisputable. I am going to quote them here and then perhaps develop a trend to come up with what I consider some pretty startling statistics.
Between 1984 and 1990, the first six years of this government's mandate, the deregulation that it engendered has resulted in a rise in foreign control of Canadian manufacturing capital to 52 per cent from 48 per cent. That is an increase of almost 10 per cent in those six years. In the resource control, there was another 10 per cent increase, 43 per cent from 38 per cent. It does not sound like very much when it is said like that but it is over a relatively short period of time and in an important area.
It is predicted that if the present trend continues, by the year 2000, with the effective removal of foreign investment regulations under the free trade agreement and the NAFTA combined, foreign control of Canadian manufacturing will have jumped to 60 per cent. The foreign control of resources, which is mostly U.S., will have jumped to 50 per cent. Those figures are pretty startling, but I want to give more startling figures and a more recent period of time.
From 1987 to 1990, 799 Canadian-controlled firms were sold to foreign-controlled firms, mostly U.S. This trend has accelerated under the free trade agreement and is expected to even increase more under the NAFTA. Perhaps more frightening, the trend will accelerate even more than the trend by the 799 that were acquired in those three years for hundreds of Canadian high-tech companies.
We have a lack of confidence and increased difficulty in acquiring and developing technology under the intellectual property rules. We also have a lack of government assistance because of the free trade agreement and the NAFTA restrictions. We have continuing harassment as we have seen in the last three or four years in softwood lumber, in pork, in steel, the Honda situation. We will have continued harassment under U.S. trade laws that will force Canadian companies to sell out, causing an incalculable loss of research and development potential to say nothing of the high value-added jobs.
May 25, 1993

In the time remaining I want to make mention of the Maquiladora. We have not heard too much talk about that here this evening, but it is a concern. On the Mexican-U.S. border, there are 2,100 companies that employ approximately 500,000 Mexicans. There is nothing wrong with that per se but the difficulty I see is that they have increased by 30 per cent in the last four years and there is every indication-which is causing a great concern to Canadian labour-that these Maquiladora industries will increase in the near future, particularly if the NAFTA will permit them to be more permissive in their growth and the consequent loss of jobs, many high-tech, to the Maquiladora area.
With these trends and the figures that are undeniable, which have been put together in the last six or seven years and in some cases the last three or four years, and projecting them, given the concerns and the dangerous trends that are inherent in the NAFTA, I think these are some pretty frightening areas.
It is not surprising that Ralph Nader, an internationally recognized authority on consumer concerns, made a comment about 10 days ago to the effect that if Canadians allow the NAFTA to be signed, they are crazy. That is because what they are really doing is signing their country away. They are totally removing anything Canadian and making it American.
That is a very startling statement. It is a statement that was made by a recognized authority. Whether one agrees with it or not, combine that statement with these trends and these figures and the lack of agreement of the chief negotiators on the weekend and one wonders why we are here tonight trying to seriously convince the government not to pass this NAFTA.
It is absolutely ludicrous. It is madness. It is the maddest thing I have done since I have been here. I regret to be part of it, but I have no choice.


Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, we are now at 1:15 in the morning. Anyone who is not a night-time worker should be asleep and not paying much attention. Yet we are discussing, and I am asked to speak to and address the questions which fall within Bill C-115. That is the bill this government has brought in to apply NAFTA, the Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade agreement.
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Maybe it is past the midnight hour and maybe it is the dark of night, but I am standing here asking myself: What on earth are we doing debating at this hour? What normal, rational people should be forced into a situation like this seeming to address a major bill, a bill which is going to change the social, cultural, economic and political structure of Canada? Yet here we are discussing this vital issue at this ungodly hour.
Each political formation has the right to a difference of opinion in a democratic society such as ours where we have a great sense of pride in the way we conduct ourselves. Or we did have a great sense of pride in the way we conducted ourselves and had respect for honourable differences.
I would say with all due respect to my colleagues across the floor and I suppose I should be cutting throats at this hour, but that is not my wont and particularly at this time, I would say their point of view is their point of view. They are entitled to that thought and they can present it in a rational and a normal form but we have a different point of view. I happen to be of the belief that our point of view is better in the interest of Canadians, of the men, women and children who make up this country.
Even so, reasonable people should be able to look each other in the eye and have an intelligent discourse, an exchange with constructive points of view being put forward dealing with the concerns, founded or unfounded, that are being expressed by society.
Members of this House know that the Canadian public rightly or wrongly blames thousands and tens of thousands of job losses on the free trade agreement. Sometimes you can prove it, sometimes you cannot, but the 450,000, 500,000, 30,000, whatever the job losses, whatever the cause, whatever the reason, is one of two things. It is that ridiculously bad GST or it is the FTA.
If members opposite had any sensitivity and were listening to their constituents, and they all go back to their constituencies the same way as I do, they would know that the people are cynical. The people are disturbed. The people feel that they have been used. The people feel that there are too many hands in their pockets. They cannot afford the lifestyle they are now living and here we are discussing another change in this country's economic, social and political culture. We are doing it in the middle of the night without really having the transparency and the sense that people are listening.

May 25, 1993
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What are we saying here? We are saying that the government should not have called closure. It has called closure too often. Closure has been called over 19 times by this government. People do not understand the word closure but they certainly know that it means all debate is cut off. It cuts off the right to exchange points of view, to bring forward the necessary drafting changes and errors which are in the bill and to effect the kinds of changes that will improve even on the government's vision of what this society should be.
Not only that, there are agreements that have not been put into place. We are faced with a NAFTA accord that does not have a description of subsidies and does not define the anti-dumping code.
We know that GATT is addressing those issues but how do we know that the GATT will be in our interests? How do we know when and if that GATT agreement is going to come in? Not only are we not addressing the questions of subsidies and anti-dumping codes but the government along with the Americans has cancelled the working groups.
It has been brought to my attention by my colleague from Hamilton and I really appreciate this. The member who moved this ridiculous motion for this all-night sitting which now has me standing here at 1.21 a.m., the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, has gone home to bed. I do not think that is fair.


Mr. Rodriguez:: No he has not.


Sheila Finestone: All I can say is that I do not see him in the House. I did not see him in the lobby and I have not heard from him for a long time and I know that I have been sitting here for a long, long time. Getting back to the substance of the issue, I have no intention of raising my voice and getting into all kinds of exciting arguments.
There are side agreements that need to be defined. They should have been in the actual NAFTA. They deal with energy, environment and labour standards and were not included.
Mexico managed to do a good energy deal. It managed to protect its right to self-interest first. You feed yourself and then you can feed others. If you do not look after yourself, who shall look after you? But if you only look after yourself, then essentially what are you? That is a quote from Hillel.
We do not have the labour standards and environment defined and the kinds of side agreements that we wanted. We have ended up coming face to face with the United States President, the United States Congress and the United States Senate saying: "Until you come to your senses, until you agree that we can have trade sanctions with respect to an enforcement mechanism for the environment, we are not going to move. We are not going to pay any attention to this NAFTA bill." We can whistle Dixie according to them.
The uncertainty about enforcement and penalties on the environment negotiations, that Canada and Mexico are not in favour of the trade sanction route whereas the United States is, what the United States wants, the United States expects to get. The United States is not going to ratify until it gets what it wants.
So here we are. I do not know why we are discussing this matter when the United States is not prepared to move on it, but we have to move on it by the end of this week. Is it a present? Are we planning to give a farewell gift to the Prime Minister? Is it a farewell gift for the Minister for International Trade that this has to go through before we close down this House for the nominations and the elections of the new leader of the Conservative Party and therefore the new Prime Minister? I find this totally ludicrous and unacceptable.
Why did we not seek out in this whole process new opportunities for trade with the Pacific Rim and Europe as well as the removal of interprovincial trade barriers along with a kind of free trade agreement that would have essentially been good and fair for Canada and Canadians?
May 25, 1993

I was prepared to talk right now with respect to the implications on telecommunications and culture. Mr. Speaker, I will have to wait until later as you are indicating my time is drawing to a close.
However mistakes were in this bill that had to be amended. If there are mistakes anything like those kinds of errors and they may well be in here and we were not able to ascertain them or they may come up along the road, it would not speak well for the well-being of Canadian men, women and children.
I think it would behove this government to have allowed greater time for the kind of exchange that I have been able to see have a profitable constructive impact on changes to this bill. For that I will tell the government later why it was important for it to have been more open.


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, I like making a speech at 1.25 in the morning.
I do not mind participating in a debate on such an important issue as NAFTA, free trade or any other issue. But I always had the impression that debate was where one side got up and made its points and then the people who held the opposite view would get up and make their points. Where are the Tories? I do not mind staying here at 1.25 a.m. and making a speech in debate. However it is like shadow boxing. You make all the points and all you get is silence over there. We get silence. It is like having a debate in a graveyard. They are all over there. There is not one sound from them.


Peter L. McCreath: Not when I speak, John.


John R. Rodriguez: Folks, I heard. There is life over there. Folks, if you are watching on television right now I would suggest that you ding-a-ling a Tory. This is the psychic hotline. You can wake up a Tory. Since they will not participate meaningfully in this debate maybe you can turn their cranks. I will give you a number to call. You will get a Tory. I will not say how awake he will be, but you will get him. The number is 613-996-7441. That is 996-7441. Why not call this number? Let the Tories know how you feel. Maybe the Tories will get into this debate.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I heard the member calling for a ding-a-ling a Tory. I thought it was the wake-up call for Dave Barrett. I wonder where the critic for the NDP is. Was the ding-a-ling call a wake-up call for Dave Barrett who has gone home to sleep?
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John R. Rodriguez: I do not see why I should be here slugging it out in the trenches. Barrett is at home looking after his stone.


Sheila Maureen Copps: You have a doctor's note, too.


John R. Rodriguez: That is right.
How did we get into this problem in the first place, the whole problem of FTA and NAFTA? Do you know how it all started? It started with a Liberal. His name was Donald Macdonald. He was right over there. He had been a finance minister.


An hon. member:: The $28 million man.


An hon. member:: Speak up, John.


John R. Rodriguez: I have never been criticized for not being heard. I will turn it up. I will turn it up so I can drown out these Liberals who know when they have been poked in the ribs.
Donald Macdonald came up with this idea. He put it in the Prime Minister's head. He got his reward for it. He got the high commissioner's job in London. He did his job and he is a Liberal. Can we trust the Liberals?


Some hon. members:: No.


John R. Rodriguez: Obviously this has been very successful. The hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca is in his office. He is pretty mad and he is on his way down. We do not want to rile this guy up.
I have heard from the Liberals all night. One would think they were the greatest fighters against the FTA and the NAFTA, but in fact it was all show. As my colleague from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca said, we want a commitment from the Liberals about implementation if it passes through the House. January 1, 1994 is the important date. Will the Liberals guarantee, right here in the House, the people of Canada that they will not put into effect the free trade agreement if they become the government? They will not answer the question. It is just like their position on the GST: elect us and we will say what we will replace it with. We have heard that. I heard that.
I sat in the House and I listened to how they opposed wage and price controls. I have heard it all before. The people of Canada have heard it all before. As far as I am concerned the Liberals over here are secretly lusting to put this agreement into effect. They are no different from the Tories. They are no different. They are the opposite side of the same coin. That is all they are. They are Tories in a hurry. That is what they are.

May 25, 1993
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Sheila Maureen Copps: We are NDPers in a hurry.


John R. Rodriguez: No. They are Tories in a hurry. They are Tories in reverse. That is what they are.
Now I will deal with the amendments my colleague has put forward. They are excellent amendments, I might say, because one of the serious problems with NAFTA as with the FTA is the whole question of sovereignty. For as long as I can remember from when I became a member of this party I heard the expression hewers of wood and drawers of water.
They tell me that the lines have not been ringing, folks. You have to phone and make your pledge. The number is 613-996-7441. Let us hear a ding-a-ling for a Tory; ring a ding-a-ling for a Tory.
The amendments of my colleagues deal with the very important issue of the sovereignty of Canada. About five years ago the Tories brought in a high class guy from Flarvard. His name was Michael Porter. Between the government and the BCNI they paid him $1 million. This guy was supposed to be a high-falutin' economist. Ffe was to examine our country, our system, our competitiveness, and tell us what is wrong.


Philip Edmonston: An economic guru.


John R. Rodriguez: He was an economic guru, as my friend says. He was more than that. He was paid like an economic guru. He studied and he studied. Then he came down with a report. Does the House know what the main thrust of the report was? It was that we had to have more value added to our resources. Supposedly he was telling us something we all did not know. This million dollar man gave us a 10-cent answer. Let us look at what the Tories are doing in the House.


An hon. member:: He is standing up. Maybe he wants to speak.


John R. Rodriguez: No, he is not. He is going to answer the telephone. That telephone number, folks, is 613-996-7441.


Philip Edmonston: What was that number?


John R. Rodriguez: 613-996-7441. This is party time. If you want to meet a Tory phone him on this line.


Sheila Maureen Copps: There are no Tories in the House. I would like a quorum call, please.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member is calling for a quorum count.
And the count having been taken:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I see a quorum. The hon. member has one minute left.


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, I see they all left the phones, so Canadians who are watching can ring now. It is 613-996-7441. They are anxious to get calls. Call now, call now.
One important issue we have raised is the question of sovereignty, the ability of Canadians or any Canadian government to determine the value added to our resources. I come from a mining community. Falcon-bridge-and this was under a Tory government in the province of Ontario-is allowed to ship out the resources mined in the Sudbury basin. They go to Kristiansand, Norway, to be refined. Mining is a highly capital intensive operation and the labour intensive part of it, which is the finishing and the refining of the nickel, goes to Norway. It was not so long ago that Inco used to send it to Virginia to be refined. Of course all the R and D related to that industry was located there.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret the hon. member's time has expired.


Some hon. members:: More, more.


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I do not know if you recall but the quorum count was taken off my 10 minutes.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I gave the hon. member another minute and a half because of it. As much as I love to listen to the hon. member for Nickel Belt, it is a 10-minute debate and the hon. member for Scarborough West has the floor on debate.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: Mr. Speaker, I am very happy my socialist friends over there on the left are awake so they can hear some sense instead of the nonsense we have heard for 10 minutes. Instead of talking about the substance of this bill all we heard was phone numbers. Let us get some substance into this debate instead of some nonsense.
May 25, 1993

I was speaking with my wife at about 11.45 this evening and she asked me what I was doing in my office at that late hour. I pointed out that the House was still sitting, and she asked me why. I said very simply that we had to debate throughout the night because the government was going to close debate on the North American free trade agreement.
She asked me why, what was the hurry? I had no answer for her because there was no answer to that question. There is no hurry. There is no reason we should be here at 1.45 a.m. talking about this agreement. There is ample time for us to talk about it between now and the time it should be implemented on January 1, 1994.
I ask Canadians who are listening and who read Hansard to consider whether this is a reasonable use of the time of the House, of members of Parliament, of House management and of the pages. Is this something we need to do? Do we need to go through the night talking about issues that need a tremendous amount of study and consideration?
Why would I say that? I am not the first person to have lifted up this volume. It is the North American free trade agreement. However I am sure that constituents in Scarborough West and people across Canada would be very interested to know, if they were looking for something in the North American free trade agreement, that it has no index. It has a table of contents but it does not even have an index. We are expected to go through a document of this nature when looking for things we want to find.
For example, the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca moved three motions concerning sovereignty. If one wants to look in the North American free trade agreement to see where sovereignty is dealt with, good luck. There is no index.
If we look in the table of contents there are a few generic terms. Are we going to spend the next day and a half going through this huge agreement page by page? That is what we will have to do. Otherwise we will not be able to find out what is in the agreement. Interestingly enough that is not what we are talking about, although in reality we are. What we are talking about is Bill C-115, another hefty document. It has approximately 193
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pages, all of which is the legislation to implement this giant agreement.
We have to go through this particular piece of legislation to implement the NAFTA now because once this debate is over this evening we will be voting on all the amendments we are talking about. Then we will be into third reading and it will be over because the government has imposed closure. There will be no more debate. One of the most important pieces of legislation we have had to face in the last four and a half years will have passed through the House of Commons with virtually no debate.
Is there any precedent for it? It is typical of the Tories. They did exactly the same with Bill C-91, the drug patent legislation. They rammed that bill through with about 17 hours of debate. When we add up all the time spent debating, even with us sitting all night, it is going to amount to a negligible amount of time in comparison to the dramatic effect this agreement will have for Canadians and for Canada.
What kind of a deal are we talking about? What kind of sovereignty are we talking about in these motions? I went back to release No. 165 of the Government of Canada on August 12, 1992. I want to read two short excerpts from it to remind Canadians what the government thinks this deal does:
Canada's primary objectives at the NAFTA negotiations were to secure better access to the Mexican market, safeguard and improve the gains made in the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement and maintain Canada as an attractive investment location in North America.
"The NAFTA talks have been a success for Canada", Mr. Wilson said. "We have improved parts of the FTA without giving up any of the gains we already achieved under that agreement. This NAFTA deal is FTA plus."
This is the recommendation on which we are supposed to pass the agreement, that the NAFTA deal is the free trade agreement plus. He has the nerve to say it improves the free trade agreement.
We passed the free trade agreement in 1988, 24 hours to 36 hours before Christmas. That was four and a half years ago. We still do not have a definition of subsidy. We still do not know how anti-dumping is going to be treated. Those are two very fundamental aspects of the free trade agreement. Yet at that time the Minister for International Trade said that they had improved the gains they had made in the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement.

May 25, 1993
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I say nonsense. That is not true. That is simply not accurate because there is still no definition of subsidy.
There is still no question about what is going on with dumping. What about the clause that provides that we have to guarantee supplies? Suppose there is a national emergency in Canada and we decide we need all our natural resources for a particular time. We cannot do that under the North American free trade agreement. We have to commit a certain amount of that to our trading partners, notwithstanding what is in the best interest of our country at a particular time.
Does that make sense? Not to me. Does it make sense that we would be debating it at a quarter to two in the morning? Not to me. Does it make sense that we are ramming it through with two and a half days debate? Not to me. I dare say that it does not make much sense to most people.
What could the rationale be to do this? The deal is not going to come into force until January 1,1994, so there is no hurry there. We have lots of time. So far as I know no comparable legislation has been tabled in the United States, so there is no hurry there. We are apparently way ahead of the Americans on this yet we are still being forced to deal with it quickly.
There is one other interesting factor that is going to intervene, something that has happened in the United States. In the United States there was a general election and the people of the United States were given the opportunity to vote for their representatives before the North American free trade agreement was put to those representatives by their President. In fact it still has not been put.
We have not had that opportunity yet we know that before the implementation date of the North American free trade agreement we must and will have a federal election. Let us have the federal election. We know it is coming. It is inevitable.
This issue can be one of the issues of the election and then we will still have enough time, depending on the results of the federal election, to pass the implementing legislation and get the deal in place by January 1, 1994, if that is what the people of Canada want as expressed by their votes in a general election. Is it because the government is afraid to do so that it is imposing this undemocratic closure of debate before debate has even begun?
I have to leave that question to those people who are listening and those who are reading Hansard, but I think with great respect that the answer is clear and self-evident. There is no confidence in this government and it is trying to ram things through in an undemocratic fashion because it knows that if and when it goes to the people with these issues it will not be able to convince them that its vision is correct.


Robert Daniel Nault: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for the second time in the last eight hours or so to have the opportunity to speak on the second group of amendments on behalf of northern Ontario and members of the Liberal Party from northern Ontario.
In the 10 minutes that I have I would like to speak specifically about the resource-based industries of northern Ontario and the effects of both the past free trade agreement and the one we are talking about now, which is the NAFTA.
We really have to put this in context. One of the things I would like to do is talk to people who are still up this morning listening to this debate about the small amount of trade that Canada does with Mexico and the reason that we as a party felt very strongly that it was to our benefit as a Canadian government and a Canadian people to be present at the table to negotiate the agreement that we have before us, the NAFTA.
One of the things we have to know is that Canadian exports to Mexico in 1991 totalled a measly $440 million and imports from Mexico totalled $2,574 billion. As it stands now 80 per cent of trade between Canada and Mexico is duty free. The remaining 20 per cent has an average tariff of only 2.4 per cent. This is the average duty rate of imports from Mexico because Mexico qualifies as a less developed country and enjoys a general preferential tariff.
Based on that scenario that I have laid out the members opposite and Canadians at home would be wondering why the Liberal Party and Canadians in general would be opposed to the NAFTA agreement if the amount of trade we do with Mexico is so small that it seems to be of no consequence to our over-all trading situation, to our imports and exports as a trading nation. Our concern is that the past free trade agreement is being superseded by the NAFTA and in the past agreement there were some major concerns with the agreement that we as a party needed to have addressed in order for us to be able to support NAFTA in its entirety.
May 25, 1993

Let me give some examples of the five areas that we have earmarked for concern which Canadians should look at before they can even consider agreeing to support this legislation. The first area is that of a subsidy and anti-dumping code. We have asked for secure access to the American market. That was the Mulroney government's key objective in the free trade agreement, one that it failed to achieve. There is still no subsidy and anti-dumping code in NAFTA, making Canadian industries sitting ducks for future U.S. actions like the ones slapped on softwood lumber, steel and magnesium.
The action taken by the U.S. has cost northern Ontario hundreds and hundreds of jobs in the softwood lumber industry alone in the last few years since the 15 per cent export tax was placed on softwood lumber.
The government agreed to the memorandum of understanding but then it decided after a number of years because of the fact that it could see jobs being lost in resource based industries as fast as it could count that it would make some significant changes. It decided it would tell the government of the United States that it no longer believed that the memorandum of understanding applied and therefore it was not going to continue with that particular agreement.
We are still to this day dealing with U.S. duties on Canadian softwood lumber. We have said that we are not engaged in unfair trade practices but the Americans continue to suggest that we are.
I use softwood lumber as a perfect example. If there was a definition of subsidies, a definition of anti-dumping codes, that particular loss to a very productive industry in northern Ontario, a very productive industry in Canada as a whole, would not have happened. Almost one million jobs depend on softwood lumber and the forestry industry in Canada.
As I spoke on the first cluster and as my amendment suggested earlier this evening and now this morning, we had also asked for adjustment programs. In 1988 the present Prime Minister promised massive adjustment programs to help Canadian companies and workers adjust to the FTA. Where are they?
We have lost 400,000 jobs since the FTA came into force in 1988-89, 400,000 jobs lost in this country. Members opposite will suggest that those losses can all
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be attributed to a very deep recession and therefore none are the fault of the free trade agreement.
On the other hand, on numerous occasions the Minister of Finance, the Minister for International Trade and the Prime Minister have said in this place and outside this place that the cabinet restructured the economy with the free trade agreement and is presently preparing to restructure the economy even further with NAFTA.
Let us be quite frank in this place at 1.55 in the morning. We cannot have it both ways. If we are in the process of fundamentally restructuring our economy then we are obviously going to have some job losses because of it. If we are going to have some job losses because of it we should be prepared as a country, as a government, and as members of Parliament to understand that we need these adjustment programs in place to help those who are going to be displaced because of the new global economy we are entering into. To this day we are still waiting for adjustment programs by the present government.
We have also asked for environmental protection. As we will see with further amendments down the line at report stage this is another issue that is being looked at and asked for in order that we, who have one of the best environmental records of any country in the world, can make sure that environmental situation we now see ourselves in will still be the envy of the world after NAFTA is approved and after we continue on with the present free trade agreement.
We well know what is happening with the negotiators and the present government. They do not want any side deals on the environment. They do not want any protection, any kinds of regulations with teeth in order to make sure that other countries will adhere to the kind of environmental regulations that we as Canadians expect and have always worked very hard to try to put forward on behalf of future generations in this country.
We are also looking at a dispute settlement. For our party the dispute settlement mechanism is the ability to look at the problems that will occur in a regular negotiated collective bargaining process between two sovereign nations that have very different legislation and rules.

May 25, 1993
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We need a dispute settlement mechanism that is effective, not one which takes months and years such as the one we have had to deal with at the present time, one that was supposed to be implemented as an interim measure until the government was able to negotiate a dispute settlement mechanism that was effective and very quick for all concerned.
I think these amendments that are before us have some merit. These amendments make all of us as Canadian parliamentarians think about some of the flaws that are in the NAFTA. I would urge the members who are still awake this late in the evening to consider looking at them very seriously before they make the same mistake they made with the FTA and before they put the same flaws in the NAFTA that are in the FTA.


Lynn Hunter: Mr. Speaker, this is an historic debate in the House of Commons on the North American free trade agreement. This debate is about an attempt to display the kind of arrogance this government has demonstrated to Canadians through the invoking of closure, cutting off debate on this very important document.
The arrogance does not just extend to the debate here in the House. We have been giving out the phone number for the government lobby. It is 613-996-7441. We have heard that on numerous occasions this evening people have called and have not been treated particularly well by government members. People have called our phones to let us know.
People want to be heard on this issue, and this is their opportunity to be heard. I hope they will call the government members at 613-996-7441 and give their views on the North American free trade agreement. It may be the only chance they will get.
Debate has been constricted on this very important issue. This legislation is over 4,000 pages in length and substantive debate up to today has been limited at second reading to two hours and nine minutes.
People might wonder why members of Parliament would be debating at two o'clock in the morning. It is because we want people to have the opportunity to hear the reasons why we oppose the North American free trade agreement. It will substantially change not only any
trade arrangements we have but it will change the fabric of our country and it will change the fabric of government.
We believe that we are speaking out for the people who elected us. We are not speaking out for the transnational corporations that are behind this deal. We are speaking out for the ordinary Canadians who think that members of Parliament should be working for them no matter what the hour.
The myth that those of us who oppose the free trade agreement and now oppose the North American free trade agreement are protectionists is just that-a myth. We believe that there should be a freer trade arrangement but it should be sectoral, fairer trade which considers sustainability, human rights and and labour concerns. In short it would work for the people and not for capital and not for the corporations. It works for those people who are doing the work.
There is another aspect of the North American free trade agreement that is too little considered particularly in this part of our country. In British Columbia our major trade links are not north and south but with the Pacific rim. The Pacific rim trading partners that we enjoy in British Columbia do not see this trade agreement as trade enhancing. They see it instead as trade constricting.
How will this benefit British Columbia trade? That is what British Columbians are asking themselves because we have really found out firsthand what the Canada-U.S. Free Trade arrangement did to us.
I remember clearly the first speech that I gave as a member of Parliament in this House in the dying days of 1988 when the government was once again ramming through trade legislation. It was the Canada-U.S. trade legislation. I alluded to the farmers in my riding who would be losing their ability to make a living on their farms. Some of them are still clinging to their farms. Some of them are still selling their produce but they are doing so with the onslaught of U.S. agribusiness.
This will only be exacerbated by the North American free trade agreement. If we really believe in sustainable development as this government has espoused in some of the rhetoric that was cited in Rio last June then we had better work to that end. This does not do it with the North American free trade agreement.
May 25, 1993

My friend holds up a sign that says: "Phone a Tory." Tell them what you think of the North American free trade agreement. We have to use every-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. I would hope that the hon. member for Edmonton East would not continue this. There is no advertising in the speeches around here so I would hope that he would not hold up that sign again. Thank you.


Lynn Hunter: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That number again is area code 613-996-7441.


An hon. member:: Dial a Tory tonight.


Lynn Hunter: The Tories need to hear what Canadians think about the North American free trade agreement. We have lost over 500,000 jobs under the Canada-U.S. deal. It would be nice if some of those people could just spend a little bit of money and phone the government and tell it what they think of the North American free trade agreement.
In the U.S. it is no sure thing that this deal is going to pass. I was privileged to meet with members of Congress and the U.S. Senate both in Washington in mid-March and just last weekend in Halifax. We were told at those meetings that Congress does not have the votes to pass the North American free trade agreement. There is considerable concern within the United States for support of supplemental agreements on both the environment and labour. However, there is also considerable concern that no matter what kind of supplemental agreements are passed there is a faction within the Congress-they call it the anti-NAETA caucus-that will not pass NAFTA. They have heard what we have said about the loss of jobs, the concern for the environment and about the kind of food processing that will be done in Mexico and shipped across into the United States and then into Canada. Sustainability means that we have the ability to manage our own resources and that is not going to occur under the North American free trade agreement. It is a bad deal for Canadians. It is a bad deal for North America. We should be fighting it with all our fibre.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that after driving to Kingston earlier this evening and attending an important function there I was able to get back and find the House still sitting so I could participate in this debate at this hour of
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the morning. I am glad to see the hon. member from Mission-Coquitlam as well.
I heard a speech earlier this evening from the Liberal leader of Ontario who is the opposition leader in the Ontario legislature. She is opposing an NDP government there. It is really one of the most hopeless governments in the country. I thought this group across from us tonight was bad but it is nothing compared with the NDP government in Ontario which is a complete disaster. All the people in Ontario know it. I know that we are suffering greatly under this government and if we had any other as I have said before in this House we would be out of the recession. However we are still mired in the recession thanks to the drastically dreadful policies being pursued.


Mr. Breaugh:: Drastically dreadful?


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: It is drastically dreadful I say to the hon. member for Oshawa. That is how bad it is. These policies are being pursued both in Toronto by the socialists and here in Ottawa by the Tories and they are both equally bad. It is hard to tell which is worse. Perhaps the hon. member for Mission-Coquitlam could give us some views on which is the worst government: the socialists in Ontario or the Tories here in Ottawa. She may have some views on it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I am not going to say it anymore but I wish the hon. member for Mission- Coquitlam would keep the sign down and off her desk. That is not allowed in this House. The hon. member for Kingston and Islands has the floor.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I found the sign very distracting. I wanted to talk about this bill and the way the government has proceeded to ram this bill through the House of Commons. I know some hon. members may find this a joke because the NDP has made a great pretence of claiming that it is the only party that is opposed to this bill. I know the hon. member keeps ranting and raving. It is like the sign. It is very distracting.
However the fact is that we have opposed this bill for a very good reason. It is because the bill is bad. The government is ramming this bill through this House of Commons because somebody high up in the government-we can all guess who-has decided that after eight years and a half years in office one has to make it look as though it has done something constructive for Canadians. Somehow the government thinks this bill is constructive for Canadians.

May 25, 1993
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It has failed on every major initiative it has undertaken. The free trade deal which was supposed to be the centrepiece of its program was a disaster. It has cost Canadians hundreds of thousands of jobs. It has damaged our economy in many ways and the government of course pursued policies consequent on free trade which negatived any benefit we might have derived from that agreement. It pursued high interest rate policies and a zero inflation policy. As a result it has done untold damage to the Canadian economy and to Canadians.
Canadians are aching for an opportunity to go to the ballot box to throw this government out just as the people of Ontario are aching for an opportunity to go to the ballot box and get rid of the government they have been saddled with there for the last three years.


Robert Daniel Nault: Absolutely.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Most of the NDP members in this House are from lotus land in British Columbia. They go there and eat lotus leaves. They do not think of the suffering that their colleagues in Ontario are inflicting on my province.


Peter L. McCreath: No, they do not.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: I wish they would come to Ontario more often and visit but not Ottawa. Come to the other towns and cities in Ontario. Go to Toronto and see the suffering of the people in that city that has been inflicted by the socialist regime which has taken over our province and is destroying the whole livelihood of hundreds of thousands of Canadians.
The hon. member for Mission-Coquitlam needs a lesson in basic sociology. She should come to Toronto and learn about it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order please.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: I can hear myself, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I cannot hear you.
I know you can hear yourself but I cannot hear you. It is 2.10 a.m. and I am glad to see that there is so much energy left in the House. I would like to hear the hon. member speak, please.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I can see that you are interested in my comments because of course they make
sense. However some of the people on my left seem to be overwrought. They do not like hearing criticisms of their governments in Ontario, British Columbia or Saskatchewan for that matter. I can understand that I touched a raw point. They are very upset at hearing how rotten the government of Ontario is but it is time that they heard it because that is the kind of thing that we in Ontario have to put up with day after day. It is costing us plenty.
I was here tonight to debate the bill that is before us and to condemn the government for its approach to this bill in ramming it through Parliament. Why is it that the Canadian Parliament is being asked to pass this bill this week? We already have notice of time allocation. We all know what that means. It will have report stage over tomorrow night and third reading on Thursday night. Why are we being asked to do that when the United States is pressing for changes to this agreement?
The Minister for International Trade and his parliamentary secretary gave the silliest answers I have ever heard in this House today in Question Period.


Peter L. McCreath: Truthful, mind you.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: They were not truthful at all. They were silly and ridiculous. Any other parliamentary secretary or any member with any sense would have been embarrassed. They would have blushed purple at the answers that the parliamentary secretary gave this afternoon. The fact is that the Minister for International Trade knows that he has a deal here. The Americans want changes to it therefore he is jamming it through the federal House of Commons in Canada. He knows that if the Americans do not get the thing approved somewhere else then they are not even going to consider making concessions on the demands being made.
He knows that he has to get it through here and say that this is all we can do. He is trying to use the Canadian House of Commons as a bargaining chip in his talks. He does not stand up for Canada. He and his Prime Minister have gone-I will not use an unparliamentary expression-to the United States as waiters at the table as my former leader used to say: "Yes, Mr. President. Whatever you want, Mr. President. Where do we sign? We will get whatever you need." That is what it has done. It has given everything away in this deal. That is typical.
May 25, 1993

The Minister for International Trade does not know how to negotiate for Canada and neither does the Prime Minister of Canada. He negotiates from a position of weakness and not from a position of strength. He does not know any better. He cannot tell one from the other. That is the problem.
Here we have a deal that has been negotiated. The Americans say they have elected a government with sense. They had an election as we should have had. We should have cleared this group out and put a government in place that stands up for Canadians the way the American government is standing up for Americans. They said: "We want changes in this deal." The Canadian government says: "We do not so we will just rush the thing through Parliament and hope that that satisfies the U.S. and somehow it will work out."
What does it do to get it through Parliament? Does it come and consult with the opposition parties? Does it say: "What changes can we make to the bill to make it palatable?" No. It brings it in and says: "We are going to have closure. We do not want Canadians to hear about this bill. We will not have committee hearings across the country. We will not allow Canadians to come and express their views. We will close the committee down. We will close the House of Commons down. We will limit debate. We will shut people up."


Peter L. McCreath: Legislative committees do not travel. He should know that.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: The hon. member says that we did not let the committee travel. He knows that that committee has not been to Toronto or Montreal. Something like one-quarter of Canadians live in those cities. The hon. member should listen to the debate and control his-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands still has three minutes left in debate.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: The hon. member for South Shore should take a Valium and I say, as the hon. member for Hamilton East says, do not engage in drug abuse. He will need a lot of Valium the way he is carrying on.
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With all these distractions, Mr. Speaker, in spite of your efforts I must say it is becoming increasingly difficult to concentrate on the points I am trying to make.
What I am saying is that this government has caved in to the United States at every turn and now it is using its majority in this House to jam this bill through using closure. I do not have my chart showing the number of times it has used time allocation and closure but it is so regular it is almost a weekly occurrence in this House in spite of co-operation that can only be described as phenomenal.
I look through the list of bills that have been passed in the last month and it is quite staggering how many got through the House. Mr. Speaker, even you, a veteran of this place, must have been astounded at the number of bills that have been sailing through. In spite of that we have closure on this bill. Why can we not have more than three days' debate at report stage and third reading?
I was here and heard the speeches of my very distinguished friend, the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River. I heard from my learned colleague, the hon. member for Etobicoke North, who knows more about this bill than the Minister for International Trade, and certainly more than the hon. member for Esquimalt- Juan de Fuca. I do not know where he is but in any event I wish he were here to say more on this bill. I would like to hear him on it. I would like to hear what he could say that would-


Sheila Maureen Copps: He went home to bed.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: He went home to bed?


Sheila Maureen Copps: Yes.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: I would not know that. The hon. member for Etobicoke North clearly knows more about this than anyone else in the House. He is very learned on the subject. I see the hon. member for Mount royal is working on her next speech.
Canadians are being deprived of the opportunity to hear these speeches. You know why? The government is insisting that in order to have a few hours of debate on this bill we sit into the middle of the night. Is that reasonable? Is that what Canadians expect? Lots of Canadians want to hear the debate on this bill.

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Peter L. McCreath: They are all watching on CNN.
May 25, 1993


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: The hon. member says they are all watching CNN. They may be, but most of them will have gone to bed as most sensible people would want to do at this hour of the night. The problem is the government is insisting that if we want to have a few extra hours we sit into the late hours. I think it is unfair. I am always glad to stay here but it is unfair.
I can see my time is running out and I am very sorry about that because I feel I have a lot more to say. I shall have to sit down but I appreciate the opportunity to say something about the evils of this bill although I have not yet got to its merits.
The hon. member for Etobicoke North, the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, the hon. member for Elamilton East have all made useful contributions to the debate. I would urge Canadians when they get a chance to read them in Hansard, to follow up on these speeches and learn something of the evils of this bill.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, this is another opportunity for those of us who campaigned in the 1988 election against the free trade agreement because of its severe flaws to remind Canadians that some of the concerns we voiced during that historic debate are now once again concerns that we have when it comes to the North American free trade agreement.
I must begin by complimenting my colleague from Kenora-Rainy River. I heard from a couple of my constituents earlier this evening who had listened to him. They had not realized he had been a vice-general chairman for the United Transportation Union. It was his passion and concern for labour that have shone through in today's debate. It is not just the concerns of labour, but that of all Canadians, for the exposure that we have in this particular agreement.
I have to mention another fighter for Canada who is participating in this debate across the country this week. He is not a member of the House of Commons. He is a young author by the name of David Orchard. He wrote a book called The Fight for Canada, subtitled Four Centuries of Resistance to American Expansionism. We are debating the concerns of NAFTA. I talked to David Orchard
earlier today. He is out on the highways and the byways doing talk shows and speaking at town hall meetings.
I read David Orchard's book The Fight For Canada last week and I recommend it to all members of this House and to all Canadians. If you want to read a truly comprehensive work in tracing the various aspects of the free trade agreement and NAFTA and putting it all together in a way that really from the government side does have an over-all strategic plan, you should get a copy of this book. It is a pretty scary thing when you see what is evolving.
In fact, I am not sure that all government members understand fully all the ramifications of this deal. I think if they got hold of David Orchard's book The Fight For Canada it might twig some of their consciences.
I want to refer to a very specific concern I have which is related to the motions before us. I think it is going to come back to haunt us in this agreement in a very serious way. NAFTA does not allow countries to recognize in their regulations-I am talking about environmental regulations-harmful production processes as wrongs, unless the process is related to the nature of the problem.
What does this mean to Canadians? We would not be able to outlaw products that were made using severely ozone depleting characteristics such as CFCs or halons, or those whose production process-I am not talking about the product-generates toxic pollutants like dioxins and furans and the chlorines in paper production, or whose development involve inhumane treatment of animals. The citation for that comes from NAFTA chapter 9, as well as article 103.
Naturally we would like the government to organize the standards, which are as important as production standards. These standards should be national. There should be no way that the NAFTA could be superior to our own national standards when it comes to the environment on the process side.
What does this mean? Here is a government that for the last five years has made the green plan one of its central pieces of government policy. I have said in this House before that conceptually the government was on the right track. The implementation process is, of course, where we can see and where I am sure many of them feel terribly frustrated because they have not implemented nearly as much as they set out to do in terms of their agenda. However the green plan has become the central piece, has become the hype.
May 25, 1993

The spirit of the nation has focused on this issue of the environment. Kids in grade school, high school, universities, colleges, people who have gone on to do post-doctoral work, have really reorganized their lives around this entire environmental movement. Tens of thousands of people now and eventually hopefully there will be hundreds of thousands of people who will choose the environment as their preoccupation, as their vocation, as their hope for a job and a lifestyle in the future.
What we have done in this agreement is essentially dashed the hopes of those people who have committed to a standard for the environment. The mere fact that we are debating this bill right now while the Americans are still discussing the environment as a side deal shows that truly this government's commitment to the environment is more superficial and tactical than substantial. That is a mistake. It is truly something for which this government is going to have to pay.
We are not able to twig the conscience of this government. Let us imagine that this bill is hammered through this week. The environmental standard we have been talking about and which we have been trying to set for our nation will no longer mean as much because we are not going to be able to say to the Mexicans: "We cannot accept your product because we have certain standards on the environment and the processes that you use to make your product in Mexico do not meet the process standard that we have regulated in Canada." Under NAFTA we cannot stop goods that come into this country where the process does not meet an environmental standard, and that is wrong.
We get 10 minutes to debate such an important concern while the government for the last five years has talked about its substantial commitment to the environment. We now see that it was purely a tactical thing, purely a marketing thing. We have a substantial agreement like NAFTA and we are only given 10 minutes to talk about an important section like the environment. That is wrong. Eventually when Canadians start to realize that we have exposed ourselves to accepting
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goods where the environmental process of manufacturing is really not a national standard, then Canadians will wake up and this government will pay.


Mr. Rene Soetens (Ontario):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and participate in this debate. I find it interesting that members are complaining about not having the opportunity to debate this matter, yet we on the Conservative side have decided that we would let the members opposite have the freedom to make all their points while we handled all the phone calls that they were directing to our offices. But surprisingly, Mr. Speaker, as you may know if you have walked into the government lobby, a lot of the callers are asking for the opposition phone number. So as part of the service I would like to provide it. I would like the public to know that if they would like to call the opposition lobby the number is 613-996-7446. I will repeat that toward the end.
Earlier this evening comments were made by a member of the opposition with regard to the various training programs that were promised by the free trade agreement, and of course he indicated in his presentation that they were not there. I would like to very briefly run through the programs he was talking about that are not there.
We established a labour force development strategy program which has a budget of $3.8 billion for 1993-94. That is an 80 per cent increase over the funds that went into that program in 1989 with an estimated target of some 950,000 people who will take advantage of the program. It offers re-employment assistance to UI recipients, counselling services, assistance in relocating to more favourable labour markets, skill training and academic upgrading and job search skills development. That is just one of the programs that have been augmented since the free trade agreement came into effect.
There is another one called the Industrial Adjustment Service. It has a budget of $22 million and works with firms and labour to provide technical advice and financial incentives on adjustments, to negotiate labour agreements, to identify market issues and so on.

May 25, 1993
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There is also another one, in case he missed the first two I mentioned, called the National Sectoral Partnerships Initiative. With a recent funding increase of some $250 million over the next five years, it brings together employers, workers and stakeholders to look at adjustments, the issues facing particular sectors or particular occupations.
The Community Futures Program is also available to most single employer communities across Canada. The unemployment insurance fund itself is an extremely generous fund when compared to the similar program in the United States. In fairness, that is paid for by contributions from both the workers and the employers, but a portion of that fund is committed to skills upgrading which has increased fourfold since 1990 and now amounts to $2.2 billion.
Of course there is the Canadian Jobs Strategy program with a budget in 1992-93 of $1.6 billion. It provides employment programs and services to non-UI recipients whose benefits may have expired or for one reason or another they may not have qualified for it in the first place.
Our programs are substantially more comprehensive than those in the United States. Canada spends 2.3 times more per capita on training and active labour adjustment measures and three and a half times per capita more for unemployment insurance benefits than the U.S.
For the opposition to suggest there are no programs is a disservice to the very good programs that are in place. One can always argue that we need more and there ought to be other programs, but then that is a typical approach of the opposition. When it demands more, it is not accountable to the taxpayers where that money will come from. However, if the government should stand up and say it found that extra $2 billion or $4 billion or $6 billion and unfortunately the deficit has to go up by that $6 billion, the opposition members would then be up on their feet crying "Foul, shame. How can you let the deficit go up the way you have? It must be mismanagement of the economy" or whatever argument they would like to use.
I thought I would just share some of that information with you and, again, in case the viewing audience did not catch the number, the phone number is 613-996-


David Walker: Mr. Speaker, a point of order. We have just had a very serious phone call from a voter in Vancouver Centre, Jeanette Raincourt. I think that is represented by-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: That is not a point of order. The hon. member for Ontario has the floor on debate.


René John Soetens: Mr. Speaker, the phone number I was giving out is 613-996-7446 which is the opposition lobby. Ask for the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca. He is the leader of the opposition on this debate.
I would like to carry on with another point which is significant with regard to the free trade agreement and relates to the impact of the FTA on the automotive industry.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member's time has expired. A point of order.


Robert (Bob) Speller: Mr. Speaker, the hon. members across the floor were giving out telephone numbers-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: That is not a point of order.


Sheila Maureen Copps: The reason it is a legitimate point of order is because the member was putting forth a number.


An hon. member:: A wrong number. They were hanging up on people. I just had a phone call from a woman in Vancouver. She called the government lobby. They hung up on her without even answering the phone.


Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George-Bulkley Valley):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate in the debate tonight.
Obviously the late hour is having some effect on some members in the House but we respect your ruling, Mr. Speaker. In fact, we have heard some of the same comments passed on to our lobby that when people are getting their pencils ready and marking down the telephone number, area code 613-996-7441, and phoning to try to wake the Conservatives up to the concerns in this country, some people have been hung up on. Shame on the Conservatives for that. In fact, as you know, that would encourage even more Canadians to phone and register their concerns with the Conservatives at area code 613-996-7441.
May 25, 1993

The reason, of course, for calling the Conservatives is to try to wake them up to the concern that Canadians have over the lack of time and opportunity given to this Parliament to debate and talk about the North American free trade agreement which is a vital and important issue to this country. Some have said it is the development of the economic constitution of Canada. It is of particular concern when you take a look at the size of the treaty.


René John Soetens: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to advise you on the comments of the member that in fact the pages have made reference to his comments. They are not hanging up on anybody. I have just been back to confirm that very point.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Prince George-Bulkley Valley has the floor.


Brian L. Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, Canadians have obviously made a point with the members opposite by phoning and expressing their concerns. We can see by the reactions and attitude of the members opposite how disappointed they are when Canadians phone them to ask for information about the North American free trade agreement. Shame on the Conservatives for that.
There are two important amendments before us in this group of amendments that we are currently debating. They are both in the name of the member for Esquimau-Juan de Fuca who has led the debate on this particular issue. They cover two areas that I would like to spend just a bit of time on.
The first refers to the whole question of how water relates to the North American free trade agreement.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I will listen to the hon. member for Flamilton East on a point of order.
Ms Copps: Mr. Speaker, the previous point of order made by the government side claimed-


William Warren Allmand: Ontario.


Sheila Maureen Copps: -by the member for Ontario claimed that nobody had been hung up on. Not three minutes ago I spoke to Janet Rancourt from the riding of Vancouver Centre who said she called the government lobby three times and was hung up on.
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I do not know what these telephone calls have to do with the debate here in the House, but I do not want to hear any more about who hung up on whom. I wish the House would come to its senses at 2.40 a.m. This is ridiculous. We are debating an important bill and all you are doing is exchanging telephone numbers. High school students do that and intermediate school students do that but not here in the House of Commons, please.


Brian L. Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, I will continue and comment on the amendments to the legislation we have before us today. There are two issues. The first is on the question of water in the North American free trade agreement and the second is on the question of raw resources covered by Motions. Nos. 6 and 4.
I did not write it down but I think I paraphrased some of the comments from one of the members on the other side about dismissing a great deal of the concerns many Canadians have about water-related issues in the North American free trade agreement and of course other issues. These kinds of headlines are why Canadians are so concerned about water issues in this country. "Kema-no decision called illegal", that is from today's Prince George Citizen. It was a parliamentary committee that studied the decisions by this government to exclude that project from an environmental review. It is just part of the package of water issues that Canadians are concerned about and I suggest it should not be dismissed so quickly and readily by the government.
Arguments have been made about how the North American free trade agreement deals with water in particular. We just ask for greater certainty that the government will agree to pass the motion in the name of the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, Motion No. 6, which would make it very clear exactly what the members opposite are saying.
If they are so confident and believe the treaty does not deal with water in terms of the export and diversion of water like we have now on the North Thompson River in northern B.C. just south of Valemount in my riding, then why will they not agree with this amendment? Why not give it unanimous agreement in this House for greater

May 25, 1993
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certainty so water will be excluded from the North American free trade agreement?
I refer members in the Elouse to an excellent paper that is being prepared by my colleague for Okanagan- Shuswap. He has done an excellent job laying out the entire question of how it relates to water in the free trade agreement.
The other motion, Motion No. 4, again in the name of the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, is perhaps the most important amendment to this legislation that we will debate tonight. One of the most important concerns that I think all of us have in Canada in resource exporting provinces and areas is the whole question of how we add value to our exports to the United States.
This particular motion amending the legislation would ensure that Canada will continue to have the authority to require value added processing for products like raw fish, raw logs, et cetera. We have had the recent example of just what kind of trouble we get into on the trade disputes on raw logs.
The recent panel ruling on the whole softwood lumber issue is seen as a partial victory for Canada about how we determine membership on the panel and the investigative team but the smoking gun in that decision is a very serious one. It was the split decision in the United States' favour that basically ruled and determined that when a jurisdiction like the B.C. government and the Canadian government impose restrictions on raw logs it constitutes a subsidy to an industry in Canada. It is appropriate and fair under the free trade agreement and the North American free trade agreement to impose a countervail and tariffs on that particular industry. We can draw the conclusion that in other sectors we could have the same problem.
Motion No. 6 clarifies the whole question of how water relates to the North American free trade agreement. Motion No. 4 is perhaps in the long run the most important part of the debate and the amendments tonight. It should go a long way toward ensuring that we have some confidence in our government's ability to impose restrictions and when we do export our raw resources that we develop them here at home in Canada to ensure Canadian jobs for Canadians.
Those two amendments alone are important and again we appeal to Canadians for their help and participation
in the debate tonight. We urge them to call the Conservatives and wake them up to their concerns about Canada. They should call area code 613-996-7441 to express their concerns about the North American free trade agreement.


David Walker: Mr. Speaker, I just do not understand something and I seek your clarification. When we are dealing with an amendment is it necessary for the person who moved the amendments to be here for the debate or not?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It would be nice if he was here.


David Walker: That is what I thought. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.


Joseph Frank (Joe) Fontana: Mr. Speaker, this is reminiscent of my maiden speech in this House when I was first elected.


Dennis Joseph Mills: You were better looking then.


Joseph Frank (Joe) Fontana: That is right. A little darker and a little slimmer. In fact, it was around the same hour, 2 a.m. or 2:30 a.m. in December 1988. This House was again debating a very important policy matter. It had to do with the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. Here we are approximately four and one-half years later discussing once again an important trade matter. One would have thought that this government would have learned from its mistakes.
First, I want to congratulate some of my colleagues who are here. People must wonder why their elected members of Parliament are here at 2:45 this morning debating this bill. It is important for them to know that we are here at this hour debating this bill because this government forces people who oppose any of its stupid and irresponsible policies to get up in the middle of the night to debate those issues because it cannot be done during normal hours.
This government over and over has forced this House and its committees either to close or shut down for limited debate on very substantial and important issues to this country. It has forced opposition members to talk about these issues when we can and have the time to do so.
May 25, 1993

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Sheila Maureen Copps: Under the cover of darkness.


Joseph Frank (Joe) Fontana: As my colleague for Hamilton East says, it has to be under the cover of darkness because the government knows what it is it is trying to hide. It is trying to fool people as to what the real agenda for this country is.
There is a lot to talk with respect to NAFTA but I want to talk a little bit about the process. It is essential for Canadians to understand the process this government is putting Canadians and us as their elected representatives through.
It makes one wonder. Every time our Prime Minister went to the United States on a fishing expedition, Canada ended up being the bait. In fact, our Prime Minister has come back to this country with his marching orders from an American President and is trying to put an American agenda in Canada. The NAFTA is something that really is repugnant to Canadians.


Peter L. McCreath: If it is an American agenda, why is it having problems there but not here?


Joseph Frank (Joe) Fontana: The process is one that does not respect the rights and the privileges of Canadians. The hon. member from the government side talks about why Canadians are not reacting like the Americans. At least the American administration wants to hear from the public. It wants in fact to put positive side agreements in place to protect its workers and its industries. Yet this government does not care about side agreements. It does not care about Canadian interests. All it wants is to draw up a big business agenda.
Canadians understand and would want their elected representatives, no matter what party, to take their time to study the issues in order to made the right decisions for their country. Bill C-115, the NAFTA, essentially does not give us an opportunity to debate this issue. The government introduced it and invoked closure at second reading. It hardly gave the committee time to hear from Canadians, from business and from labour because it denied Canadians access to that committee.
Now we are back in the House discussing this bill at report stage. The government in less than 24 hours, more like 12 hours, will invoke closure. That means we will have 24 hours more until Thursday at five o'clock to debate a very important issue which is going to affect the lives of many Canadians.
People should understand and should be told that this is typical of this government in terms of its process and its contempt for this House, its contempt for any Canadian that disagrees with it. It even has a leadership candidate now that has branded all Canadians who do not agree with the government position or her position as enemies of Canada or calls them SOBs because they bother to disagree with the government.
I heard the member for the riding of Ontario make some pronouncements about how wonderfully this government has dealt with the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and he talked about the labour force development strategy. If that was one of the government's raving accomplishments, why is it that this country has over 1.6 million unemployed? Why is it this country has over two million people on social assistance? Why is it that 20 per cent of our work force is underemployed or working part time?
If in fact that policy was working, one would think that those unemployment numbers would be down. One would think that Canadian industrial capacity would be up, but it is not. Therefore, the government should not use that as an example of adjustment programs that are really dealing with the lives of people when the fact is that 400,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in this country. It is not that we have made 400,000 manufacturing jobs in this country, we have lost 400,000 industrial jobs in this country.
The hon. member talked about an industrial adjustment service yet we are losing plants. In southwestern Ontario we have lost auto parts plants and auto plants. A number of small businesses have been shut down because of this government's economic policies. Yet the member opposite talked about the government's raving accomplishment of adjustment programs, about pro-

May 25, 1993
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grams to help small business and workers. We all know that it has been an abysmal failure.
Then the hon. member talked about UI. Look what the government has done to the UI fund. Now that it is only funded by employers and employees it has cut the benefits. It has cut the length of time that people can receive benefits and has cut their benefits to about 56 per cent. That is the government way of dealing with people who have been dislocated because of its economic policies, its made-in-Canada recession and a free trade agreement that is not working.
The hon. member talked about the deficit, that we would be crying if the deficit went up $6 billion. Government members seem to suffer from collective amnesia. Since they have come into power, the deficit continues at $30 billion a year, the debt is at $480 billion and he talks as if this government has really had some great accomplishments.
This government has run this country into the ground. Canadians understand that. Canadians know that and they will show this government what they think of the policies in exactly the same way as the people of Nova Scotia said it tonight. That is to give the Liberal Party an opportunity to govern this country, a party that at least has some compassion, has a vision, wants to create jobs, has growth to create wealth, to create jobs, to put people back to work. That is what it is all about in this country, not slashing and burning this country by unemployment and by putting small businesses out of business as this government has done.
Let me just conclude with this. The government missed a tremendous opportunity with respect to the North American free trade agreement. That is the policy of our party to correct the errors of the FLA. It should have taken the opportunity of analysing and assessing what this country has gone through with the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and the deficiencies of that agreement and used the NAFTA as an opportunity to get a better deal for Canada. It has failed to do so. The NAFTA exacerbates the problems of the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement. There are no anti-dumping provisions, no subsidies definition, no provisions to protect our energy like those given to the Mexicans.
More important, we are a trading nation and yes, we have to trade. But Canadians want a fair trade deal so that there is a level playing field.
Look what the Americans have done with this so-called great Canada-U.S. free trade agreement. They have harassed us on autos. They have harassed us on steel. They have harassed us on softwood lumber. They have-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member's time has expired.


Mrs. Edna Anderson (Simcoe Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to say a few words tonight on this very important subject. First I would just like to reply to the previous member who mentioned that we did not cover the environment or labour in the other agreement. That was discussed over a year ago. We put it in and it is there. It is at least a year-


An hon. member:: Where?


Edna Anderson: This was before the States brought it in, so we have it.


An hon. member:: Where is it?


Edna Anderson: We are discussing that very thing. We are discussing it. We raised it and the Americans are agreeing that, yes, they should have the side agreements so this is what happened.


An hon. member:: Absolutely. Keep going, you are doing great.


Edna Anderson: The other thing which I want to-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. This is not a question or a comment period. Let the hon. member finish her debate, please.


Edna Anderson: We talked about the number of people who had lost their jobs and I agree. Nobody is happy with job losses, but we must also remember that more people have come into the labour force as a result of the economic policies of this government. We must also remember that we created a tremendous number of jobs. That was when there were jobs, jobs, jobs creations.


An hon. member:: Jobs have been lost.
May 25, 1993


Edna Anderson: All right, but you have forgotten another thing. Yes, we have lost some, but we have also had more people come into the labour market.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Edna Anderson: Yes, a lot more have come in. At any rate-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. The hon. member for Simcoe Centre has some thoughts on this debate which she would like to put forward. Please, would you let her speak.


Edna Anderson: Being on the government side, I would like to state the policy on water regarding NAFTA because I have heard many members on the opposite side giving their rendition of what the water policy is.


An hon. member:: It is fiction over there.


Edna Anderson: Water, in its natural state, is not covered by the NAFTA, the FTA, the GATT or any other trade agreement. Lakes and rivers are aquifers and simply not goods or products.


Nelson Andrew Riis: What evidence do you have of that?


Edna Anderson: Trade agreements only cover it as a good, that is, only when water has entered into commerce as a product.
Canada's growing export of water products benefits from such coverage. There is absolutely nothing in the NAFTA or any other trade agreement which forces Canada either to exploit its water for commercial use or to export its water.


Dave Worthy: You are confusing them with facts, Edna.


Edna Anderson: I know, but I would like to have the real facts on the table.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Edna Anderson: Mr. Speaker, would you like me to wait until I can get the floor?
Water is in the NAFTA. It is the right to restrict or to prohibit exported water products when necessary to safeguard the environment or to protect human, animal or plant life or health. No proportionality requirement applies in these cases.


An hon. member:: It says it like it is.
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Edna Anderson: The proportionality rule applies when governments restrict exports to conserve a resource or to relieve a critical shortage of the resource.
For example, if the Americans decided to conserve their coal resources by restricting coal exports, the proportionality rule would oblige them to maintain the traditional proportion of total United States coal shipments going to Stelco, Dofasco and Algoma Steel, thus protecting thousands of Canadian jobs.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Edna Anderson: There is nothing wrong with this.


An hon. member:: It is good stuff, Edna. Keep going.


Edna Anderson: Besides, since we do not-


An hon. member:: Keep going. We want it all on the record.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order please. It is three o'clock in the morning. Please allow the hon. member to finish her speech. You have five minutes left.


Edna Anderson: Since we do not engage in large scale exports of water in any form, the proportionality requirement would have no real impact on Canada. A proportion of zero is zero.


An hon. member:: Even they can understand that.


Edna Anderson: Under the NAFTA the United States, Mexican investors and service providers will be subject to the same domestic laws and regulations as Canadians. The NAFTA creates absolutely no new obligations or right for anyone to exploit or export water as a good.
Interbasin transfers of water are something completely different as they do not involve the trade of water as a good but rather the diversion of water in its natural state from its existing course. I am reading this so that it is very clear.
Canada's 1987 federal water policy prohibits large scale exports of water by interbasin transfer or diversion. That the NAFTA avoids an explicit exemption for water is intentional and certainly no cause for concern. It is not in our interest to insert an exemption from obligations that do not exist. To do so would imply that other natural resources in their natural state are subject to NAFTA obligations unless specifically exempted-

May 25, 1993
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An hon. member:: I think they have finally got it over there.


Edna Anderson: -for example trees in the ground or oxygen in the air whereas in the case of water clearly no obligations exist either.


An hon. member:: Write that down, Nelson.


Edna Anderson: The bottom line is that Canadian governments both now and under the NAFTA have the freedom of action required to regulate the exportation of our water resources. Until it is exploited from its natural state and entered into commerce as a good, water is not covered by the NAFTA or any other trade agreement. I do hope that is clear.


An hon. member:: Precisely. Right on.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think all of us have interest and there are many key points. I missed the last two or three points. I wonder if there would be unanimous consent to have the hon. member repeat the last half of that presentation.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is there unanimous consent of the House?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Edna Anderson: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to say it again and I hope you will all read it once again in Hansard so you will see it four times. If you like I shall start again and you can all relax.


An hon. member:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I hear a no. There is not agreement.


Ross Harvey: Mr. Speaker, I tremble to follow that.


Peter L. McCreath: We tremble to listen.


Ross Harvey: Yes, but the reasons are different.
Mr. Speaker, I think the entire House is indebted to the hon. member who just spoke and I would like to offer her a hand. You do not get a performance like that very often. Be generous.
We should not forget what we are doing here tonight. We are debating the North American free trade agreement. In fact what we have tonight is one of the few opportunities in which we can actually do that given the imposition of closure and time allocation that the government has been strewing about like confetti in the House.
I would remind those still viewing these proceedings on television tonight that they still have the opportunity to call the Conservatives at area code 613-996-7741. Dial a Tory and let them know how you feel about the North American free trade agreement. You might ask for further explanations about water, air, muskrat, trees and whatever.
I should note however that some should be prepared for a bit of frustration in this regard. We had a call on this side of the House from a women named Stacey, a single mom from Vancouver who called at 1.40 a.m. and again at 2.30 a.m. The phone was answered both times and both times a message was taken. She was assured that someone would get back to her but as of several minutes ago nobody had. Whoever over there has Stacey's number please get back to her as quickly as possible and please do answer the other messages you have been getting.
Among the provisions of the North American free trade agreement which we are debating tonight is a very crucial provision found in article 1102, national treatment, which reads: "Each party shall accord to investors of another party treatment no less favourable than it accords in like circumstances to its own investors with respect to the establishment, acquisition, expansion, management, conduct, operation, and sale or other disposition of investments."
For greater certainty paragraph 4 of article 1102 reads: "No party may impose on an investor of another party a requirement that a minimum level of equity in an enterprise in the territory of the party be held by its nationals other than nominal qualifying shares for directors or incorporators of corporations."
What it all boils down to is that under the conditions of the North American free trade agreement Canada will no longer be able to require that, for example in oil and gas industries, a certain amount of Canadian ownership be required for exploration, development, and production on the Canada lands. Those are the lands that the federal government controls. Those are the lands that are not within provincial jurisdiction.
In fact the Canadian negotiators went so far as to insert in annex page l(c)23 a reservation dealing with this very point where the reservation applies to production licences issued with respect to frontier lands and offshore areas which are areas not under provincial jurisdiction having to do with oil and gas.
May 25, 1993

What it means is that when the North American free trade agreement was signed Canada specifically exempted the national treatment provisions from operations in the oil and gas industry on the Canada lands. It meant that we could maintain the Canadian ownership requirement for so long as we want it.
Earlier tonight we gave second reading to a bill that will eradicate the Canadian ownership requirement on the Canada lands. It will bring our oil and gas provisions into complete-


Peter L. McCreath: Point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am not sure but I might be helpful to my hon. friend opposite who seems to be confused about the subject matter at the moment. I would remind him it is Motions Nos. 2, 4,
5 and 6. I am sure, Mr. Speaker, you would encourage him to speak to those.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I know the hon. member is coming to those motions.


Ross Harvey: By the way, Mr. Speaker, let us not forget dial-a-Tory, area code 613-996-7441.
Mr. Speaker, you had best know the provisions of the agreement if you are to consider properly the merits of the amendments before the House tonight. Among those provisions is the national treatment clause and with direct bearing on that is the vote we had in the House earlier today when finally and for all time, at least for so long as the North American free trade agreement remains in effect, this House voted to do away with the Canadian ownership requirement on the Canada lands.
Do you know what, Mr. Speaker? The Liberals voted for it. On a NAFTA bill in this House, the Liberals voted with the government to eradicate the Canadian ownership requirement on the Canada lands. What the heck is happening to the party of Pearson, to the party of Trudeau, to the party of the late lamented John Timer? Whatever shred of nationalist fig leaf they have left has been torn away tonight and they tore it away themselves.
Let me move from that sad subject back to the matter of free trade and Alberta. One of the things that has been said over and over again in this House is that
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Alberta was a big winner from free trade and will win even bigger with free trade with Mexico.
It is not true. As I noted earlier this evening in this House in terms of employment in fact Alberta has been a loser. Like every other province in this country Alberta has been hurt by free trade but some hold that industry and commerce in Alberta has in fact done fabulously well under the free trade regime.
An interesting document was produced earlier this year by the Western Centre for Economic Research of the University of Alberta. It is called "Western Canada and the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement". It examines a number of the goods in the harmonized system of classification, goods Nos. 1 through 99, which is basically the entire system. It totals up growth in exports from 1988 to 1992.
What it shows is that in fact Alberta has done extremely well in exports. In fact total exports to the United States grew from $9 billion to almost $14 billion in that period.
However what you find if you look more closely is that three-quarters of that, 79 per cent, is accounted for by oil and gas. Oil and gas exports were already deregulated. They were freed up in 1984 and 1985. Regulation was removed from those industries and exports of oil and gas across the border have been free since that time. Therefore you cannot attribute that to the free trade agreement. Remove the oil and gas even though oil and gas has grown by almost $4 billion.
In the United States oil and gas has gone up by a factor of almost 60 per cent. In fact employment in the oil and gas sector has declined, royalty receipts by the provincial government have declined.
All we have achieved in this huge increase in the dollar value of exports is to make a few companies rich and to give consumers in the United States some really cheap oil and gas. However when we factor that out we find that the actual growth in Alberta exports to the United States was about 11.15 per cent. That is less than the growth in inflation over that period. This says nothing about the increase in the labour force of 6.3 per cent.

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In fact if you put inflation together with the increase in the labour force, Alberta exports to the United States have declined under free trade in dollar terms.
Let us go beyond that because this document also helpfully examines exports to the rest of the world as well. They call it the ROW. The fascinating thing we find there is that once we factor out oil and gas and what is called special transactions, which is stuff that is kept secret-they will not tell the statistics compilers what it is they are trading in-we find that of the top six growth areas in Alberta exports three are to the rest of the world, not to the United States. We do not have free trade agreements with the rest of the world.
For example, cereal exports which grew to the United States by $54 million.-


David Walker: Mr. Speaker, another member already brought up that we are having a very long and sometimes intelligent debate and I just do not have any idea of the relationship between this discussion and what is in front of us. Could you just help us clarify the situation.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I believe the hon. member is getting to the point of the motions. He will be finished very shortly.


Ross Harvey: Mr. Speaker, I realize that dealing with empirical data is a difficult thing for Liberals to do. One cannot manipulate them quite as well as one can pliable principles.


Sheila Maureen Copps: You're starting to sound like Kimmie.


Ross Harvey: In any event, we find that cereals have increased by $150 million to the rest of the world, pulps of wood, cellulose matte and waste declined in exports to the United States by $108 million ' but grew by $307 million to the rest of the world. This is most interesting, machinery, boilers, mechanical appliances, engines, in other words manufacturing, growth to the U.S. was $42 million and to the rest of the world it was $115 million.
To the degree that we are enjoying a diversification of the Alberta economy, it is in our trade with the rest of the world not with the United States. That is the story of free trade.


Steve Butland: Mr. Speaker, this is kind of unexpected.


Sheila Maureen Copps: They are trying to wake Dave Barrett up.


Steve Butland: No, he is awake. It is 3.15 a.m. and it is almost exciting to finally get into this debate. I was in it about 12 hours ago so I am glad to revisit. It was so long ago I have forgotten and I am growing a beard.
I do not want to cite the phone number for the Conservative side because I know they are being a little bit rude to the callers. If anybody in Sault Ste. Marie happens to be watching and wants to talk free trade why do they not call the office and we will discuss it in the morning. In fact it is already morning.
I do not think we should belittle the very important bill before us. This debate is important. The hour has made some of us a bit frivolous, including myself. I would hope that things would take a more serious tone for the rest of the morning until we adjourn a little later from now.
I want to talk about something that was mentioned earlier today by my friend from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca about the drug trade that goes with NAFTA. It has now been proven by supposedly secret documents that people are fronting Maquiladora enterprises merely to be able to smuggle drugs into the United States and Canada.
There are 1,700 trucks per day that line up at the border and they are waved through. Five minutes waiting time is too long. If people are part of a trade agreement they do not feel they should inspect them whatsoever. Through deregulation in trucking by 1996 trucks will be able to go from Mexico to Canada unimpeded. They will not only be delivering television sets and other things. The drug trade will escalate.
As for the side accords that the three countries are presently discussing, at least the Americans are proffering suggestions as to what should be in them. The Canadian side said: "They are of no import to us. We will only be at the table to see what the other two countries are discussing." As they were obligated to get to the table they later said: "We think that labour and environment are an important part of this trade bill and we will ensure that there is something there that has teeth in it."
May 25, 1993

Now when the United States has come forward with side accords that have some stringent regulations in them the Canadian side says: "Oh no, no, we do not want these. It will offer another area for the Americans to harass us under the guise of protectionism." What could be any worse than what we have now? What we have now is trade harassment.
When we go to the panel that is much touted by the government that panel decides whether American law has been applied appropriately, not Canadian law or a neutral law. It decides whether American law has been applied. The rulings of the panel demonstrate that it is very difficult if not impossible to win a ruling.
I cite one paragraph which says: "Thus the panel cannot reverse the ITA's finding merely because it would have come to a contrary factual conclusion or interpreted a statute differently so long as the ITA acted reasonably. If the panel concludes that the ITA reasonably interpreted the statutes and the evidence it must affirm the determination under review."
It has to act reasonably. There are de minimis rules within the trade panels. De minimis means we will lump everyone together. We will put all the steel companies together whether they are in Regina, Hamilton or Sault Ste. Marie. If one of them is guilty of dumping, they are all guilty of dumping. They are guilty by association. They are guilty by virtue of the fact that they are in the steel industry.
Today my office spoke to Congressman Bonior who is the chief whip of the Democratic Party. He gave us some insight into what is in the side accords. That is useful information to Canadians that they have probably not heard about up to this point in time.
The Americans are going to make us an offer that we will be able to refuse. I suggest we will want to refuse it because we will quickly find out that there are no teeth. The American negotiators will try to put a great face on this and say: "These are very stringent regulations, very stringent side accords that do have teeth. They do protect labour and the environment, and protect against trade surges."
The bottom line is that there will be a definition of non-enforcement. If this tripartite council agrees that there is a persistent non-justifiable pattern of non-enforcement of environment or labour laws then they can
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bring it to this council. It will operate on consensus only. A country does not have to follow the side accords on labour and environment if it is going to cost it too much money.
We know that Mexico has great environmental laws. It does not enforce any of them because it does not have the money. Just recently it said to Canada that we should pay for its environmental clean-up. That is going to be a part of the negotiation.
These side accords are going to bring absolutely nothing to the three countries. It is going to be a sham. Therefore it is important that Canadians find out about this and that the government knows about this, because certainly to this point in time it has no idea what is off the table, no idea what the Americans are proposing to our side. It does not care. It says: "What side accords? They really do not matter, we have to get this legislation through." It is very, very important.
Who is our chief negotiator? Recently at least we have seen his face and we know his name. His name is John Weekes. Not all that long ago he made a speech in Mexico. He would not make it in Canada. He said: "It is evident that Canadian firms can benefit from the lower cost inputs of the Mexican marketplace." He is saying that there is no doubt that exploitation of labour is a valuable instrument for industry.
To say that we are going to raise the state of Mexican workers by this trade deal is an absolute fallacy. The average Maquiladora worker has to work 45 minutes for a quart of milk or a pound of chicken, 20 hours for sneakers-and it is sneaker day today, that is very appropriate-and 125 hours for a double mattress. The government has said: "We have to help the Mexicans. We will not give them aid so we will benefit them through trade."
I was in Mexico and I toured the Maquiladora. The Maquiladora has been there for a number of years. It is not a new phenomenon and the wages have not increased. They will not increase because the people who run the Maquiladora will ensure they do not increase. They said to those of us who were down there, not knowing that we were politicians: "Do not worry, we can look after these people. There is no labour problem here. We can bribe them. We can prevent turnover at that 80 cents an hour. We can give them a free lunch every day. We can pick them up in a bus at home and bring them to work." A little bit of bribery, but it still boils down to worker exploitation.

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The government has said that Mexicans are going to buy our products. What products does it anticipate the Mexicans will be buying from us if their wages are at that level?
How interested is Mexico in this deal? It is extremely interested. In fact, it has mounted a massive lobbying campaign to sell the North American trade accord in the United States. It has spent $16 million to this point in time on congressional lobbying, trade strategy, public relations, business lobbying, legal trade strategy, raising public support and other efforts. It has $16 million to lobby in the United States for a Mexico-Canada-U.S. trade agreement.
The amendments are laudable. We obviously think they are not going anywhere and we think that the deal is so flawed that the amendments will not make the deal acceptable at any rate.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to speak to the amendments which basically concern a whole series of issues that really relate to Canadian sovereignty.
The first amendment sets it out very clearly. The issue is that in the agreement proposed by my colleague from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca the Canadian law shall prevail which is the reverse of the NAFTA in which it says that American law will prevail.
Motion No. 4 deals with the question of the export of raw materials. I want to spend my time basically talking about those two proposed amendments. There are other amendments that are equally important, but those two have particular significance to my riding of Surrey North.
Most Canadians wish to live under Canadian law. We have a significant immigrant population and those people have come to Canada and have chosen Canada as their home in order to live under Canadian law, under Canadian sovereignty. A number of them have been quite shocked to find that we are entering into an agreement under which the ultimate authority is no
longer going to be Canadian law but American law, or agreements dictated by the North American free trade agreement.
I do not think the government and even the cabinet ministers understand the significance of this measure. I want to refer to an exchange that took place in the House this morning between myself and the minister of health. I asked him about generic drugs and their relationship to the NAFTA. He responded by saying that there was no relationship. He did not see any relationship between NAFTA and generic drugs and Bill C-91.
If he had read the NAFTA he would find out under intellectual property-I believe it is section 1709-that the NAFTA directs Canada and will prevent future governments in Canada from passing legislation limiting the patent protection for multinational drug companies. It not only binds the current government but it prevents future governments from exercising sovereignty over our own laws. It prevents us from passing legislation bringing back compulsory licensing or the licensing of generic drugs. It frightens me when the minister of health, who is responsible for our health care system and for drugs, does not know that within the NAFTA there is a clause that would prevent the return of generic drugs and that the whole implementation of Bill C-91 was to comply in advance with the NAFTA.
If that minister of the Crown does not understand what is in the bill and NAFTA and the devastating impact that it will have on Canadians and the Canadian health care system, I wonder how many other things are also in that bill which other ministers do not understand that will have an impact on Canadians and Canadian sovereignty.
One of the other reasons I am particularly interested in Motion No. 4 is that it deals with the export of raw materials. British Columbians know that the export of raw materials means the export of logs. Raw logs are one of the raw materials that the United States has repeatedly been attempting to get its hands on. The whole issue of the tariff against softwood lumber is in fact a dispute over the export of raw logs to the United States.
May 25, 1993

The United States is now in a critical position in which it has a shortage of wood. When a number of New Democrat MPs went to Washington to meet with congressmen about the softwood lumber tariffs they were told bluntly and up front that the way to get rid of the lumber tariff was simply to allow the export of raw logs.
In the recent ruling that was brought down on the softwood lumber tariff the government stood up and claimed a victory. It was one of those victories where one may have won the battle but lost the war. In that judgment also was a statement that showed that it considered the fact that Canada refuses to export raw logs to the United States a trade restriction and a trade barrier.
Forty-seven per cent of our exports to the United States in 1992 was raw materials. The largest group of these, 12 per cent, were wood, pulp and paper. This is going to grow as the populations in Canada and the United States grow and particularly with the fact that in the northwestern United States there has been overcutting of timber and there is a dramatic shortage. There is increasing pressure on Canada to continue to export material.
Surrey North is situated on the Fraser River. It has a number of small and medium sized lumber mills on its own shores. Adjacent to it in New Westminster and on other parts of the Fraser River are some of the biggest historical wood and plywood mills in Canada. There has been a dramatic drop in the last few years in employment within the IWA, the International Woodworkers, and within the forest industry. One of the things that is causing that is of course increased technology but also there is the whole issue of the export of raw materials. We have had problems with exporting raw logs to the Orient and of course there is still the pressure increasing from the United States.
I want to also talk about the notion that we are going to enter into a two-way trade street with the United Stales and Mexico, particularly with Mexico. Mexicans are all of a sudden going to start buying goods manufactured in Canada or value added goods made in Canada.
Let me say that only 10 per cent or eight million Mexicans have anywhere near the buying power to buy any goods manufactured in Canada. We are talking about a population that is very small and there is no possibility in the foreseeable future of us expanding our
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trade in terms of hard, durable, manufactured goods into Mexico. The Mexicans simply do not have the buying power.
While we and this government are spending all of our time and energy trying to enter into a North American free trade agreement with the United States and Mexico, we are not putting the energy that we should be into expanding trade on the Pacific Rim. We in British Columbia know how important that is. In most of Canada 80 per cent of the trade is with the United States. In British Columbia only 50 per cent of our trade is with the United States. The other 50 per cent is taken up basically with the Pacific Rim countries. The trade opportunities in the Pacific Rim countries are much greater.
Mr. Speaker, I see that you are signalling that I am done. I am pleased at being able to speak on these amendments and I hope that the government comes to its senses and at least passes these amendments.


Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, we have had a little bit of levity in this House tonight. We have flashed phone numbers. We have tried to convey to Canadians that if they are concerned about this North American free trade agreement then they should dial a Tory at 613-996-7441. However I really am quite sad to say that those people who called and left a number because all the lines were full are not getting called back. I think that it is a shame. A previous speaker asked the Tory-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order please. I would hope that the hon. member would get on with the motions please.


Joy Langan: This is leading up to the lack of interest by this government to the response of Canadians to this North American free trade agreement.
If referring to people who have phoned the Tory government in response to requests from us in this House is not getting to the point concerning a lack of response of the government to the attitude of Canadians about the North American free trade, then I think I am missing something because I think it is absolutely critical. What we are doing and talking about here tonight is that we are trying to impress upon the government and on Canadians the importance of this free trade agreement and why it needs full debate.

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I spoke earlier on the last amendments and I was talking about the situation in my riding of Mission-Coquitlam and the impact of this deal on that riding and in fact on British Columbians. I found it interesting when I reflected a little bit. I was elected in 1988 along with a whole host of members in this House of Commons when the election issue was the free trade agreement. Our introduction to Parliament in fact was the debate on legislation implementing the free trade agreement and we sat late into the night just as we are here.
Since then we have witnessed the implementation of a government agenda that paves the way for the NAFTA; the end of universal social programs with the clawback of Old Age Security and family allowance and later the death of universal family allowance, Bill C-21; the first attack on the Unemployment Insurance Act and most recently the passage of C-113 which further dismantled unemployment insurance; successive budgets and legislation which capped the transfer of payments to the provinces used to pay for social assistance and higher education and the decline in corporate tax rates while middle income earners have seen their tax bill increase.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I still do not know. The hon. member is speaking on Motions 2, 4, 5 and 6 and I do not see where she is connecting here. Could she please advise the Chair?


Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, I am attempting to show that sovereignty, which is a very important part of what we feel is being abandoned by this agreement and very important in the amendments that are put forward by the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, is in fact being not only abrogated by the agreement but is in fact being abrogated by a whole host of pieces of legislation that have led up to this agreement.
Could I continue on that vein? I spoke about successive budgets and legislation which capped the transfer payments to the provinces used to pay for social assistance and higher education; the declining corporate tax rate while middle income earners have seen their tax bills increase; the goods and services tax; the passage of Bill C-91 by which Canadians will pay higher costs for prescription drugs as a direct result of the demands of the North American free trade agreement; and finally the NAFTA legislation itself that had limited committee hearings beginning a couple of weeks ago in Ottawa and
where the first order of business was the deadline for completing the committee. Here we are in the House having, as another speaker said earlier, to debate under the cover of darkness because it is not important enough to be debated during regular House hours.
I think it is absolutely critical, when we think about the line-up of legislation in this Parliament over the last couple of years, how we have abandoned our sovereignty under the free trade agreement and embraced clauses in this agreement which will allow the American government to in fact determine under its legislation how we will be governed in this economic charter of rights.
We have abandoned piece after piece of legislation in this country giving up our right to determine how we will run Canada and giving up the rights of our provinces to determine how they will overcome and create a new economy in Canada. Our provincial governments have their hands tied by this trade agreement when it comes to renewing the economy.
I would like to give some examples in my own riding. I spoke earlier about the transfer of raw logs to Mexico that is giving up our right to create value-added products in the pulp and paper industry. Even if we do not export raw logs the pulp and paper companies may choose to establish state of the art paper mills in Mexico to process B.C. pulp which would then be sent to the major markets across the border in the U.S. or on to Europe. Then they ask for barges of pulp chips to Mexico that will totally bypass B.C. for those value-added jobs.
The B.C. fishing industry has been adversely affected by the free trade agreement and we know the situation will not improve under the NAFTA. We have been hit with a GATT ruling which found that Canada did not have the right-this is again the abrogation of sovereignty-to legislate the use of our raw fish resources. The ruling found that foreign and Canadian interests could exploit our unprocessed species of salmon or herring. Our right to respond to the GATT ruling has been removed by the FTA because we are banned from placing an export tax on our raw products shipped to the United States. A free trade panel ruled against Canada when we demanded that our fish be landed, inspected and counted in Canada and we were ordered to allow up to 25 per cent of our fish to be shipped or processed at sea.
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Cheap labour is the lure and there is nothing in the North American free trade agreement to ensure that once the fish are iced or frozen they will not stop in Mexico for processing en route to markets in Europe, Africa, or South America.
The more fish processed outside British Columbia, the fewer jobs and tax dollars we will have and the incentive to protect the industry will be lost.
Agriculture and supply management is being threatened by the North American free trade agreement. At a time when the GATT talks have yet to settle the issue of supply management through marketing boards the government move to the NAFTA may well make any GATT decision redundant. Marketing boards will be seen as trade distorting measures under the NAFTA and that will spell the end of our supply management system in a range of agricultural products.
Included will be dairy, eggs and poultry farming that are all dependent on supply management and are all important industries in my riding of Mission-Coquitlam.
Already farming in the Fraser Valley ol British Columbia is suffering the effects of cross-border shopping, U.S. dumping of soft fruits and vegetables and now the attack on supply management.
If the NAFTA turns the control of our food system to those with financial capital we truly doom the family farm in Canada. For Canada to turn its basic food production over to international agribusiness is to turn over its sovereignty. History has taught us many lessons about national sovereignty lost with the loss over the control over food production. If we do not learn from our history then we are doomed to repeat the mistakes ol the past.
I briefly want to mention water because we have some very interesting remarks from the hon. member across the way about water. Water is considered a good under the NAFTA. The annex to the NAFTA is categorical in stating that any attempt to limit the export of water would be in violation of the agreement. It does not say bottled water. It simply says water.
Even in the lower mainland where I live we have felt the effects already of water shortages. There are residents at the other end of Mission-Coquitlam and all through Mission-Coquitlam who in the past five years
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in a rain forest have found their wells going dry. We all know of the huge demand for potable water in North America and we know that North American water diversion projects have been on the drawing boards for years. If there is a Canadian who believes what this government says, that water is not in that agreement, they are in for a big surprise.


Peter L. McCreath: Read the agreement.


Mr. Raymond Skelly (North Island -Powell River):: Mr. Speaker, I am not particularly pleased to have an opportunity to once again debate in this House the North American trade agreement. I would rather that the people of Canada make the final decision on this odious and destructive trade agreement. The impact on Canada of the North American free trade agreement and the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement will be totally destructive to Canada's economy and to Canadian sovereignty. The people of Canada must make the final decision about these trade agreements in a federal election. The people must be allowed in the next federal election to make the decision on implementation and/or abrogation of these Tory trade agreements.
In the next federal election the people of Canada have three clear choices in relation to the trade agreement. The people of Canada have a choice between the position of the New Democratic Party, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party. The New Democratic Party believes that the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement and the North American free trade agreement will as I say destroy Canada's economy and destroy Canadian sovereignty. These trade agreements will irreversibly integrate Canada into a U.S. dominated North American economic union but Canada with these trade agreements will have the same status as Puerto Rico.
The New Democratic Party believes that the trade agreements are so flawed and so destructive to Canada's interests that they cannot be salvaged, they cannot be renegotiated and they must be scrapped. A New Democratic Party government would abrogate the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement and would not implement a North American free trade agreement. This is the position that the New Democratic Party will lay before the people of Canada in the next federal election. The position of the New Democratic Party is clear and unequivocal.

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The second position before the Canadian people for the next federal election concerning the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement and the North America free trade agreement is the position of the Conservative Party.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. We are now debating Motions Nos. 2, 4, 5 and 6.1 know that he is going to come to these motions eventually but he only has 10 minutes. I would like to know where the connection is right now with the beginning of his debate. I would appreciate if he would stick with the motions. Otherwise we will be here until all hours.


Raymond John Skelly: We are going to be here all hours, Mr. Speaker, and I am sure that you will be able to follow the train of this on the motions at hand. If you have any other concerns or problems, I would be more than pleased to explain them to you. The position of the Conservative Party on these trade agreements is crystal clear and unequivocal.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I do not have any problems but I do not see where the hon. member's speech is relevant to Motions Nos. 2, 4, 5 and 6. That is all I am asking the hon. member.


Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, it strikes me that this is a deliberate interruption on the part of the Chair to disrupt this presentation. I could be mistaken and in fact given an opportunity to reach some points on sovereignty and the effect of this trade agreement if the Chair were to allow me the kind of latitude that it has allowed to virtually every other member of this House, including the difficulties of-
I imagine we are on a point of order, are we not?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Yes, we are.


Raymond John Skelly: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I pointed out, the position of the Conservative Party on the trade agreement is also crystal clear as is indicated in the response to the amendments today. The Conservative Party is the author of these two sell-out agreements. They clearly state that they will implement them if they are re-elected in the next
federal election. The North American free trade agreement and the Conservative position is absolutely clear.
The third position is the position of the Liberal Party which we have considered at length on the amendments tonight in this House and on many other occasions while it is being debated across the country. The position of the Liberal Party in trade agreements is the same position as the Conservative Party with a few exceptions.
First, in the House of Commons the Liberals will vote against these amendments and the bill to implement the North American trade agreement because the bill is flawed. The Liberals know that the Conservative Party will use its majority government to pass the amendments we are considering right now and to pass the trade bill in total.
During the next federal election when the people of Canada ask Liberal candidates where they stand on the North American free trade agreement, the Liberals will say: "We voted against NAFTA in the House of Commons, but the Conservative government used its majority to pass it."
The question to ask these Liberals candidates is if they form the government after the next election, will they ratify the North American trade agreement. If a Liberal government does not ratify the NAFTA agreement after the next election-


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I must say that if the New Democratic Party wants to get on with third reading debate, because clearly that is the speech that my hon. friend is giving, he should allow us to proceed with the amendments so that we can reach third reading.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I knew this was going to come up. I think the hon. member will get to the motions.


Raymond John Skelly: Thank you Mr. Speaker. The Liberals have indicated that they will try and renegotiate some of the provisions of the North American free trade agreement and that the Americans
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will refuse to renegotiate the agreement and basically tell the Liberals to take it or leave it.
The people of Canada must make the final decision on these so-called free trade agreements. The choices before the people in the next election are clear. If the people wish to reject the North American free trade agreement and if people wish to abrogate it, they must vote for the New Democratic Party. But if people wish to implement the North American free trade agreement, they can vote for either the Liberals or the Conservatives because basically both of them support this agreement.
In the next federal election, the Liberal Party will not promise to abrogate the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement and the Liberal Party will promise to ratify and to implement the North American free trade agreement. The Conservative Party will ratify and implement the North American free trade agreement but the New Democratic Party in the next federal election is committed to the rejection of this North American trade agreement and to the abrogation of the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement. I look forward to debating this issue in the federal election and allowing the people to decide this issue.
There is one other point on the Liberal Party position. The Liberal Party position on this particular trade agreement and of course on the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement is one that they have reached with the utmost difficulty. That is trying to span both sides of the issue at the same time. Of course the reason for that is the transnational corporations which support this proposition which are being sought by the Liberal Party to bankroll their next election campaign. The transnationals support the trade agreement, therefore the Liberals will not oppose it.
On the other side of the coin, the Liberals know that it is going to be a very destructive election campaign for them if they do not in fact oppose the agreement. Here we find them in the House trying to span both sides of the issues and of course they are going to be exposed in the next federal election.
Again the final conclusion on this item is that the people of Canada in the next federal election must be the ones to make the decision not the the House of Commons. We have exercised enough debate on this issue. It is time that we moved this issue forward into the
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next federal election and allowed the three clear choices to be put before the people of Canada.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, I want to deal particularly with Motions Nos. 2 and 5 in this debate, a debate in which the New Democratic Party is the only party solidly opposing the North American free trade agreement.
I want to point out that Motion No. 2 in the name of the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca would have us insert into the law a protection of Canadian law. The protection is there in American law. It is already there in the North American free trade agreement which is carried forward. In the North American free trade agreement it says: "No provision of this agreement nor the application of any such provision to any person or circumstance which is in conflict with any law of the United States shall have effect." We want the same provision, an equal provision to say that no provisions of this agreement nor the application of any such provision to any person or circumstance which is in conflict with any law of Canada shall have effect.
It is very important that this kind of amendment be put forward and adopted. Any act of Parliament or any act of the Ontario legislature or any other legislature in Canada or any decision of a city council or even of a hospital board under the North American free trade agreement can be struck down or made of no effect if it is in conflict with some act of any legislature in the United States. We want the same right to be applied to any act of any legislative body in Canada.
We should have the right to acquire food quality. Food imported from the United States or food imported from Mexico should meet Canadian food standards. We should have the right to control the entry of food into Canada in which there is undue presence, for example, of pesticide residue. We have the right to make those laws now without the interference of the North American free agreement. When this is put into effect, if Canada says you cannot import vegetables that have been poisoned by the pollution of the land and the water that is used to produce those vegetables in Mexico or in parts of the United States, the producers of those would be able to use the North American free trade agreement to strike down that prohibition.

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In the same way if we said, as for example Toronto city council does, that we will not accept a certain product because it is produced by child labour or because it is produced by labour which is not free to organize a union as is required by the International Labour Organization in its conventions, we have the right as a sovereign nation to prohibit the entry of that product into Canada. If we want to have production of goods produced under fair labour conditions or goods that are produced under healthy environmental conditions, we have that right as a sovereign nation. That right will be endangered or even destroyed by this North American free trade agreement because it does not respect laws of Canada as it respects laws of the United States.
If we let this North American free trade agreement go through without this amendment, we are destroying the chance for Canadian producers of food or Canadian producers of equipment for our hospitals, Canadian producers of bed sheets for our publicly owned and publicly operated senior citizens homes, anything like that. If they are produced under unfair or unsanitary conditions we would lose the right to prohibit their import into Canada.


Peter L. McCreath: What clause? That is not true.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: The hon. member says that is not true, but the fact is the American law prevails. They can put up any law they want to to prohibit Canadian imports. We cannot put up the same sort of law to prohibit American imports.
The North American free trade agreement is going to be an attack on our general sovereignty as well as an attack on the quality of our food and working relations. Producers and owners of industry in Canada will prefer to produce in a country where they are not required to produce healthy food. They will be allowed to produce food poisoned by the violation of what would be Canadian food quality standards.
Contaminated fruit and vegetables will be imported into Canada. We will not have the right to inspect them fully because they will strike down a Canadian law that would ensure that right. Therefore Motion No. 2 is absolutely necessary to protect us if this North American free trade agreement goes through.
Motion No. 5 is an amendment by the same hon. member and our trade critic.
Nothing in this act or the agreement shall be interpreted so as to prevent citizens of Canada, either individually or in groups, from appearing before any dispute settlement body established pursuant to the agreement where that individual or group wishes to do so.
The original amendment as put forward by the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca also included the words: "nothing in this agreement shall be interpreted so as to prevent citizens of Canada, either individually or in groups, from initiating a dispute settlement before any dispute settlement body established pursuant to the agreement."
In other words we need the right to both initiate a dispute and appear before the body that is handling that dispute because this is a right we have now in Canada. If people feel they are being wronged, have bad goods, are being offered bad goods, or bad goods are being brought into the country in violation of Canadian standards and competing unfairly with Canadian produced goods, we have the right to appear before the appropriate bodies in Canada.
We have a right to hear how that dispute is conducted. We have a right to participate in and initiate arguments before these regulative bodies in Canada and that is a right we have to preserve. It is our sovereign right as a sovereign nation.
If this amendment is not adopted Canadians will find that decisions are being made about the quality of our food, much of which is imported from the United States or Mexico, and we will not be able to control the quality of our food. We will not be able to attend the bodies which are making the regulatory decisions.
Those meetings are going to be held in secret behind closed doors. They will not have to even publish their reasons. They will just agree or disagree with a proposal. The argumentation used will not be made public. There will be no possibility of an appeal to a Canadian body, a Canadian regulator or a Canadian legislative body operating according to Canadian custom and Canadian law with the right to know what is being said.
These secret agreements will be used to constrict or destroy any attempt by Canada to prevent the importation of goods that are either harmful to be consumed or produced by unfair competition through violation of basic human rights.
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In Mexico, 5 million to 10 million children under the age of 15 are being forced to work in the factories. They are paid less than the adults and even the adults are badly paid by our standards. It is in violation of a basic principle of Canadian law that children should be forced to work in factories. That children should be forced to leave school to work is in violation of Canadian law.
Canadians should not have to accept on equal competition goods that are produced in violation of that fundamental human right of children. The only way to protect our right to refuse such goods is to pass this amendment, Motion No. 5. It would give citizens of Canada not only the right to object to a certain import or to appear to initiate the dispute but also the right to speak in the dispute, hear everything that is said and appeal to a higher court.


Ralph Ferguson: Mr. Speaker, this debate this evening is typical of what we have seen from this government since it came to power in 1984. There has been excessive use of closure to stifle debate on issues that will affect the long term prosperity of this nation. Decisions have been made that will undermine our workers, the long term stability of our resource sector, and the ability of this nation to make its own decisions. This debate will go down in history.
It is sad that closure is being used again. It has been used more by this government than at any time in the history of this nation to stifle debate in this House. I just have to point out that at 4.07 in the morning on May 26, it is a sad commentary in the last days of this government that it should be taking action such as this.
This important issue has not yet been resolved by the United States or Mexico and is being opposed by many of the members of their governments because they see the fallacy in the reasons that have been given to us.
This North American free trade agreement cannot benefit Canada in the way it is presented. I am speaking here at report stage of this debate that is covering Motions Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. I just want to deal with a couple of these tonight.
Under the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement the U.S. people were assured by their former secretary of
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trade that in the event of a dispute United States laws shall prevail. This was in an address given by the secretary of trade to members of their Congress at the time. Yet in our Canada-U.S. free trade agreement we had a whole multitude of changes to legislation that effectively gutted our ability to make decisions here in Canada that affect this nation and the way we continue to build it.
This amendment simply spells out that under the North American free trade agreement Canadian law shall apply in the event of a dispute. This motion would allow us to put in place provisions to ensure that Canadians would be able to protect their country and their resources from further plundering by interests outside of Canada.
It is interesting to note that in the North American free trade agreement energy was not placed on the table by the Mexican negotiators. However, here in the North American free trade agreement the Americans have equal access to our resources and in particular our energy in the event of a dispute.
We recognize that we have tremendous reserves of oil, particularly in the tar sands in Canada but our conventional reserves are being depleted much quicker than they are replaced or new reserves are being discovered.
It may seem logical to sell off what we have when we have such huge reserves in the tar sands or Hibernia, but we are selling off our cheaper energy and Canadians will have to pay the piper for the more expensive energy after we have spent money on research and developed the technology to make it available. We are going to be paying the high price and again we will be placed out of competition in terms of the cost of production. Whether it is in manufacturing or the resource sector our input costs, as they already are now, will be much higher than they are in the countries to the south of us.
I am further shocked that this government saw fit to take away the amount of reserves that can be held in abeyance to protect the future interests of this country. The National Energy Board used to require a 15-year supply of natural gas reserves before we exported any. I was reading the other day in one of the media papers that another new natural gas contract has been signed with the country to the south of us.

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I was quite shocked one day when I was approached by an American senator who asked me why Canadians were selling off their natural resources. He said that natural gas going to California was being pumped back into the ground to replenish natural gas fields that have been depleted. Twenty years from now the Americans will have the natural gas and we will not. What are we going to do? That is a question that is only fair to put to this government. What is it going to do after our reserves are depleted and what about the future generations of Canadians?
Motion No. 6 is simply a safeguard against the U.S. or Mexico demanding access to our water. The government did not spell out water under a separate section but disguised it in the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement as one of the goods under agriculture. Therefore it is there and it is not simply bottled water.
This particular motion spells out that water is not included in the North American free trade agreement. Water transported by a pipeline or by the diversion of a river is not covered. I have to agree wholeheartedly with this particular motion put forward by one of the members of the opposition in this House. If we are going to prosper as a nation we have to make the best use of our resources and make sure they are used for purposes required in Canada for the prosperity of this nation.
I am deeply alarmed about the lack of water that is quickly developing in the U.S. not only for the production of food but also for watering their lawns. Their cities require huge volumes of water.
We heard earlier today about some of the reservoirs in the Columbia River system that are practically empty. It only makes sense to me that under an agreement like this the first obligation of this government is to look after the needs of Canadians first. It is in that context that I have to support Motion No. 6 at the report stage of this bill.
We have all heard about the grand canal scheme to divert water from the lower end of James Bay across the prairies and down through the Great Lakes system. Some of the dams that are already in place were encouraged to be built by the U.S. corps of army engineers who were probably in a lot of the hearings. They already have some of those reservoirs in place to
begin the diversion of waters from Canada to the nation to the south of us.
The creation of life is dependent on water. I look at the continuing lowering of the aquifers in the plain states of the U.S. where they have to rely on irrigation for the growing of food or the irrigation in the state of California, subsidized irrigation I should point out, used for the production of vegetables and then those vegetables landing back on the Canadian markets at a price well below that of Canada but produced with cheap labour, a lot of it in that country illegally from Mexico, and then we expect the Canadian people to compete economically with such measures.
This is not a free trade agreement when you see a situation developing like that. We need to have our resources here in Canada and use them in the interest of this nation.
I wholeheartedly support spelling it out very clearly in this agreement. I am sure it is no accident that we had to bring forward a motion to achieve that objective, a motion that was left out of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement, not left out by accident but left out on purpose because those other nations were demanding access to our precious resource here in Canada.


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have the opportunity to rise in support of the amendments that have been provided by my colleague, the hon. member for the Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca area and particularly with amending Motion No. 6 that nothing in this act or this agreement applies to any water transported by a pipeline or diverted by reason of the diversion of a river.
We have been debating for some time. As a matter of fact this debate goes right back to before the last election in 1988 as to whether or not water is in fact a commodity or good that is included in both the original free trade agreement and now the proposed North American free trade agreement.
The government has argued that there is nothing in either agreement which compels us to sell our water and it is technically correct in that regard. There is nothing in the agreement which compels us.
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The point is that there is nothing in either agreement, the original FTA or the proposed NAFTA, which expressly forbids or prohibits the export or large scale diversions of water as commodities of trade under either of these agreements.
Canada's chief trade negotiator, Gordon Ritchie, has in fact conceded that nothing in either the free trade agreement or this proposed North American free trade agreement would prevent, and I want to highlight and emphasize the word prevent, governments or individual entrepreneurs for that matter from redirecting water south of the border under the provisions of these agreements.
Mel Clark, the former senior trade negotiator for Canada with some 30 years of experience, a strong opponent of both of these agreements, has argued emphatically that the North American trade agreement and the original free trade agreement endanger Canada's control of its water resources.
Dr. Frank Quinn, the senior federal policy adviser for the inland waters directorate for the Government of Canada, has said: "Under the FTA and the NAFTA market forces will inevitably result in the diversion of Canadian water. Sooner or later Uncle Sam will force us to open the tap."
It is only this government that continues to mislead the Canadian public with its line that water is not included in either agreement. It is only this Tory government that refuses to see how its failure to negotiate specific exclusions for large scale water diversions and bulk water exports has in fact endangered Canada's water resources and has severely compromised Canada's sovereignty with respect to this particular resource.
I want to read from an article entitled "NAFTA and Water Exports", a submission by the Rawson Academy of Aquatic Science dated April 1983. It talks about water inclusions in the North American trade agreement. Reading from this article, it says: "Without an exclusion, water is certainly part of the agreement. Any good or service covered by a tariff heading annexed to the NAFTA agreement is subject to the rights and obligations set out in the agreement itself". Tariff heading 22.01 of the NAFTA is as follows: waters including natural or artificial mineral waters and aerated waters, ice and snow.
It has been argued by the federal government that this tariff heading which is the same as that annexed to the free trade agreement does not cover water and river
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systems as this is not considered a good in the commercial sense. Tariff 22.01 covers only bottled water, they have argued, because it is found in a chapter entitled "Beverages, Spirits and Vinegar".
They go on to argue. They say: "This argument, however, has proven groundless by the interpretative rules accompanying the tariff schedule of the NAFTA agreement. Interpretative Rule No. 1 states: the titles of sections, chapters and sub-chapters are provided for ease of reference only. For legal purposes, classifications shall be determined according to the terms and headings of any relative section of chapter notes".
It has been upheld and recognized and respected Canadian experts in international trade law have agreed that naturally flowing water is indeed covered under tariff heading 22.01. Even the Ottawa law firm that the federal government referenced in the original water debate in 1988 has acknowledged this. It quotes from this firm: "A review of the tariff items in chapter 22 reveals that chapter 22 is directed at beverages, however, nothing in the wording suggests that the word waters is restricted to waters used as a beverage or waters that are not of large scale quantities as would be required for diversion".
It is pretty clear from the comments made in this document, the comments made by senior trade negotiators for Canada, the comments made by senior officials in the Ministry of the Environment, water is indeed identified as a commodity, a good in the North American trade agreement. Because the agreement does not specifically exclude the possibility of large-scale diversions of water for the purposes of trade, then these agreements subject Canada's water supplies, our natural surface waters, to exploitation by commercial interests.
We want to talk about the interpretive clauses of this agreement and how they affect the possibility of accessing Canadian water supplies. Article 102 sets forth the objectives of the agreement as they are written to eliminate barriers to trade and facilitate the cross-border movements of goods.
Goods of a party are identified in article 22.01 in the agreement and these are identified as products, as understood in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades. I have a copy of the agreement here as it is written up in the harmonized description and coding system. Article 22.01 is in fact in this original GATT agreement which references both the NAFTA and the FTA. Article 22.01 is identified as ordinary natural water of all kinds other than sea water. That is a pretty wide-ranging definition that pretty much encompasses all natural waters of all kinds.

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The only conclusion that you can reach is that water is included as a good under the provisions of the North American agreement and because it is included as a good, it is subject to the provisions of these agreements if in fact a commercial contract was entered into to transport or divert the flows of Canadian waters to south of the border.
The North American trade agreement is very similar to the free trade agreement with respect to its over-all architecture. We find in the North American trade agreement that the government was not totally asleep at the switch. It did make provisions to specifically exclude the export of raw logs and it made provisions to specifically exclude the export of unprocessed fish from Quebec and the maritimes. Somehow it forgot there was a west coast fishing industry but that is not unusual because it always forgets about British Columbia anyway.
It managed to include exclusions for raw logs and exclusions for unprocessed fish but the North American trade agreement is absolutely silent when it comes to the possibility of export of water resources. There is no specific exclusion which exempts trade in water exports. That is why, regardless of any the purported benefits of these agreements, unless we can get the specific exclusions in the agreements this document should not be supported.


Mr. Larry Schneider (Regina -Wascana):: Mr. Speaker, at this untimely hour of 4.30 in the morning, one rises to speak to a series of debates which are intended to tie in and provide clarification to the North American free trade agreement. One begins to see a mirror image of the debate that occurred during the 1988 election dealing with the Canada-United States free trade agreement. One begins to wonder whether or not anyone is actually using any original material. That is perhaps an opportunity for the opposition to engage the government in debate and tie up the business of this House, particularly when we look at the vast amount of legislation we have to deal with, particularly in the justice portfolio. I hope this House will allow some time for the passage of that before this House rises.
I want to take this opportunity to address particularly the aspect of the loss of sovereignty, which is simply not true. I have a series of statements the opposition has made which are simply not true.
I would like to begin by talking about water, which we have just heard some reference being made to. You will note how carefully the speech structure was put together whereby it was said that nothing would prevent the exportation of water in large amounts. Perhaps it is quite true that nothing would prevent it but on the other hand, nothing in the North American free trade agreement or the free trade agreement with Canada and the United States compels Canada to export its water.
I would suggest that if we are looking at a trading arrangement, far be it for those who are traders to keep the doors open. Should governments of the future wish to export certain amounts of water that would be their prerogative. It is the desire and wish of this government that not be the case but we do not need that written into law.
We have seen time after time where GATT has had the matter of trading water in large volumes explained. It is not a matter dealt with in international trading terms as a substance that would be considered as a trading entity by GATT. So there is no truth in the allegation that the North American free trade agreement compels the partners to trade water with each other.
There was another non-truth in this debate with respect to the fact that this whole matter has been rushed. There have been 27 meetings recently by the committee, 203 witnesses have appeared and 95 submissions have been accepted by the committee. As well, the Subcommittee on International Trade has had 29 meetings. It has listened to 124 witnesses. It has accepted 95 submissions, 23 exhibits and four appendices. The committee has visited nine cities.
The matter of the North American free trade agreement was raised at least once in the House of Commons in a period of 234 days; in Question Period 300 times; Members' statements, 22 times and it was the subject of petitions 14 times. To say this matter has been rushed again is a non-truth.
May 25, 1993

I recall during the 1988 debate that my opponents in the constituency of Regina-Wascana were using the scare lactic that if we were to enter into the free trade agreement with the United States we would be forced to harmonize our social programs with the United States. I am sure, Mr. Speaker, being astute as you are in following the news you would find that if anything there seems to be a mini stampede toward harmonizing all right, but harmonizing American standards with those standards we enjoy in Canada. For people to try to frighten the stampede of social thought into thinking that harmonization would occur as a retrograde step is certainly not telling it as it is.
I recently sent a questionnaire to my constituents asking a series of questions. One was with respect to the public's acceptance of the North American free trade agreement. I must tell you in all honesty that the constituency is pretty well split on the subject. I would think that being a technical trade matter the average member of the public is not aware of what is required to become an international trader. The matter of international trade is not a matter that affects the bread and butter of the average citizen in the community. In spite of that I am quite pleased that at least 50 per cent of the constituents support further expanded trade on an international basis.
The opposition's scare tactics are working to a degree but not to the benefit of this country. From an economic point of view, a job creation point of view, the job stimulus and economic stimulus point of view those kinds of tactics are hurting the economics of our country. I hope the opposition will take the time to sit back and just ask themselves what they are contributing to the economy of this country by uttering these phrases that contain so many non-truths.
There is another item that I heard used so often in the 1988 election and I hear again dealing with our loss of sovereignty. This is the contention that if we have a dispute with the United States we will have to solve it by its rules. If that is the case then tell me why, out of nine disputes we have had with the United States using the binding trade dispute settlement mechanism, have we won nine of them? It seems to me that yes indeed, the mouse has made the elephant roll over.
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I think that with the inclusion of Mexico and the elimination of these non-truths I have highlighted from the debate we will find that Mexico to NAFTA is quite a bit like Portugal was to the European Economic Community. Portugal was deemed to be a backward country from a technological point of view. What did the rest of the European Economic Community have to gain? They gained the evolution and development of an economy of a country that is now contributing toward consumerism in the European Economic Community. The contribution of the Mexican people and economy will do the same thing for as Mexico becomes a stronger trading partner its expectations for a higher standard of living will grow and that in turn will make its people better consumers.
NAFTA and future trade evolutions can provide all of us with a much higher standard of living as a trading bloc. Perhaps we can step over the Pacific Ocean and develop a trading bloc with the Pacific Rim countries. We have learned from the example that has been given to us by the 360 million members of the European Economic Community.


Chris Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to hear the member opposite attempt to defend the impact of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and suggest that what he sees as gains under that agreement will be fortified by the North American free trade agreement with Mexico.
He talked about the criticisms of those opposed to the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement in the 1988 election. It is worth remembering that we in the New Democratic Party talked about the threat to our social programs, our health care system and our economy. If we look at what has happened to Canada since 1988 we will see that as a result of actions from the federal government our health care system has never been under more serious threat.
Our social programs have never been under more serious threat. We have seen quite blatant and open responses with regard to patent drugs following from the North American free trade negotiations and pressure from United States drug companies. We have 4.2 million Canadians living on unemployment insurance or social assistance.

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If we have benefited from the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement as the member opposite has suggested surely we would not be in these circumstances today. Surely we would not be in the situation where 16 or 17 per cent of Canadians are not part of the productive work force of this country. As a result of the economic and social policies of this government which are exemplified in both the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and the Mexico free trade agreement these Canadians are just thrown away to lead lives which do not provide them with the dignity work would provide.
Anyone who looks at the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement or who is part of that 4.2 million unemployed would find it difficult to believe what the member opposite is saying about the benefits under the North American free trade agreement.
It is worth remembering that most Canadians are opposed to this agreement as they were to the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. The government and people of Saskatchewan, my own province, are opposed but this government goes ahead anyway.
Why are they opposed? They are not opposed because they are afraid to compete. They are not opposed because they are afraid to trade in the world economy. Saskatchewan farmers, natural resource producers and manufacturers have survived by trading over the years. With a population the size of Saskatchewan's there is no choice. The economy has been entirely export oriented.
It is also worth remembering that Saskatchewan has contributed to Canada. Most of what separates us from the United States is in terms of policy initiatives from the New Democratic Party and the CCF before it on pensions, health care, social programs and a Canadian way of dealing with economic problems. We all know how important the co-operative sector is to the province of Saskatchewan. That is a Canadian-owned solution to problems of the economy.
Why would Saskatchewan have responded in that way in the past? Why would it be opposed to throwing the economy wide open to market forces to decide everything that will have an impact on Canadians as this government would want?
Saskatchewan in the context of the Canadian market is far from most markets. It has a small population and suffers from many geographical disadvantages, although it experiences some benefits in terms of its resource base and agriculture.
Left to its own devices trying to fend off market forces and do what was best for Saskatchewan and its people it had to take on those corporate interests which were only concerned with making profit and not concerned with the people of Saskatchewan. Consequently it developed in a rather different way than the United States.
If we are close to markets and have a large market we can benefit more effectively from more open barriers. We will recall that Britain was a big advocate of free trade when it had the upper hand. However countries that do not have the upper hand, the market benefits or the industries developed to take advantage of the breakdown of national interests must take matters into their own hands. Here we have an agreement that is giving up more sovereignty rather than claiming back sovereignty. We have a situation in which Canada under the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and under the economic policies of the government opposite has lost the power and sovereignty and the ability to make the decisions which are best for Canadians.
What we need in this country is not to give up power to multinational corporations and to other countries. What we need is to develop a strategy which works for Canadians. We need to chart out Canadian solutions for the challenges that we face.
I am sure that it is striking to most Canadians that the free trade agreement we are here discussing makes it impossible for Canada to pass legislation in conflict with the free trade agreement which would be in the interests of Canadians. This would include for example legislation which would encourage or even require the manufacturing of raw materials rather than allow those raw materials to be shipped out of Canada without being processed or without being turned into something with a higher value added and thus lose jobs to Canada.
I would like to close with one point which would also be disturbing to most Canadians. It has to do with the action on the Mexican border of drug smugglers who are setting up factories, warehouses and trucking companies in Mexico to exploit the cross-border commerce which will be expected under the North American free trade agreement. Is this what we are to expect from this North American free trade agreement? It means easier access to cocaine and other drugs to Canada to further erode Canadian society. Under this agreement the export of Mexican products in Mexican trucks will be vastly expanded.
May 25, 1993

I know from trucking companies in my riding how dangerous they feel this to be. They are already under serious threat as a result of the Canada-U.S. agreement. They are already seeing their share of the market cut back. As more and more American trucks come across the border they are now going to be faced with more and more Mexican trucks coming across the border with Mexican truckers being paid Mexican wages in contrast to our Canadian truckers being paid Canadian wages.
These trucks as a result of this action by drug smugglers in Mexico are more and more likely to contain drugs to undermine our own society. It will be very easy for Mexicans to travel to anywhere in Canada within the next 10 years. If our observance of border crossings and so on is anything to go by then we know that we have just given up control over things such as meat packing and meat inspection to American inspectors rather than to our own. I think we can see a major problem arising in that area too.
It is alarming to me that any government would want to further erode Canadian sovereignty rather than to build up Canadian sovereignty. Why would we not want to be able to make Canadian-made decisions in Canada for Canadians is beyond me and beyond the people of Saskatchewan and beyond the people of Saskatoon- Clark's Crossing. This government should be ashamed of the way in which it is undermining Canada's ability to do what is best for Canadians.


Diane Marleau: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on this second grouping of motions having to do with Bill C-115.
I am particularly interested in Motion No. 4 which is of great importance especially to the sections of our country that deal with natural resources. Motion No. 4 asks that:
Nothing in this Act or the Agreement shall be interpreted so as to prohibit a Party to the Agreement from requiring another Party to the agreement to process raw materials or raw resources before exporting such materials or resources.
That is basically because a lot of the raw materials come from northern Ontario and affect in particular my riding which is a great exporter of minerals.
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As we well know, especially in the mining industry, the trade agreements do not have a very large effect on them. They do trade on the international market now and that is the way their prices are set.
I think it is especially important that we have a clause like this which would not prohibit the additional value-added benefits that come from much of the manufacturing and processing of the different raw materials that can be done in Canada.
It has been a very big problem that a lot of our raw resources have been exported in their raw state so to speak. As such we have missed out on many opportunities at creating good-paying jobs in Canada rather than seeing all of our jobs move south of the border and perhaps even into Mexico. I think it is a safeguard that is extremely important to all of the people of Canada.
As I said in this same debate concerning the first grouping, the people of Canada are worried. They are afraid because they see all of their jobs that have fled south of the border. No matter how many times this Conservative government repeats that we are into somewhat of a recovery, it is very much a jobless recovery. People want to know when they are going to be able to expect to get any kind of employment and I think rightly so. As the representatives of the people of Canada we always have to remember that they are the ones we serve.
I think the original free trade agreement which we debated some four and a half years ago has caused some pretty serious effects on the lives of Canadians. Many of them are unemployed now.
In a place like Sudbury one would think that it is such a big mining industry and mining trades on the international market, however, many small companies that were producing equipment or a number of components for the mining industry have closed down because perhaps there was a parent company in the U.S. and they suddenly decided that it was cheaper to process the goods in the U.S. instead of having another place somewhere else. These companies have rationalized their operations so now they ship the goods because they think it is a cheaper way of doing it and there are no restrictions on that.

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We have a host of small companies that have closed their doors basically because of the free trade agreement. Even though the people of Sudbury thought that it would not have as big an impact perhaps as in the manufacturing centres, it has still had a severe impact.
I have had people come to my office such as men in their forties who are unemployed and have been unemployed for some time basically because their company closed its doors. It is now producing whatever it was producing in the Sudbury area somewhere else and shipping it instead.
It is very difficult for these people to comprehend why this Conservative government would push through another NAFTA or trade agreement with North America when it has not really addressed the problems in the first deal that they told everyone was going to create jobs, jobs, jobs. It has not done anything to help those people that it has affected.
I think that it is a sad legacy that this government will leave us when it leaves office as I know it will because the people of Canada are not about to allow this government to continue the devastation of its economy and the devastation it has wrought on the lives of Canadians. I think that is the key.
If one watched the election returns in the early evening out of Nova Scotia one will know that there was a Liberal sweep there. The Liberals won 40 seats. The Conservatives managed to keep 9 seats from a previous 35 seats and the NDP stayed at 3 seats.
If that is any indication of things to come then I think the people of Canada know exactly what has happened to them and they want some ray of hope no matter what this Conservative government tries to do or whatever kind of race it is having.
I say that because somehow we are in a recovery but there are no jobs to this recovery. For all of the jobs that the Conservative government tells us are created, twice as may are lost. Every time we turn around we hear of someone else who has been laid off. We know that the jobs that have been created are not the high-paying
full-time jobs of the past. They may be part-time jobs. They may contract jobs. People do not feel secure.
If one has a contract job it may be for three months or it may be for four months. One knows that at the end of four months one is not going to have a job unless one is lucky enough to get another contract. Not only that but one has absolutely no benefits paid. When one has a contract job one gets paid as if one was an entrepreneur.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. I know it is late but there is such a thing as relevancy. We are on these different motions. I would hope that the hon. member for Sudbury would stick with the motions please.


Diane Marleau: Mr. Speaker, this is very relevant to the motion because I was speaking about the people who have lost their jobs in the sectors that are affected by raw resources, especially the secondary manufacturing sector.
I am saying that many of these people do not have jobs now and those who are lucky enough to have jobs now have perhaps a contract job which may end after three or four months. I am trying to explain to the people in this Conservative group across the way that it is very difficult to have to survive on a contract job. That is the only kind of job that is being produced if any.
Some of the people across the way will soon be unemployed and at least some of them will have to look for jobs. Of course many of them will be able to collect their pensions. However, it is absolutely essential that they understand how difficult it is to work in a contract position so that they will change their minds and support some of these motions in this second grouping.
I say this because there are thousands and thousands of people who are in that position. At the end of the contract and when it runs out and they do not have a job they do not qualify for unemployment insurance and they are desperate. Always remember that it is the people of Canada we are trying to serve. If you and your government, Mr. Speaker, were to support some of these amendments perhaps it would help these people and the despair that they feel and the fear they have of not having work. They have a group of people who promised jobs, jobs, jobs and suddenly the jobs have disappeared.
May 25, 1993

I bring back the fact that during the last free trade debate the government with the collaboration of some of the major employers actually wrote to the people of Canada and said: "If you do not support this Conservative government then you are not going to have a job". Some of these people were frightened then and they thought that maybe it was right so they voted Conservative. Look where it has taken us now.
These same people are not even going to consider voting Conservative unless the government shows some leadership and does not pass Bill C-115. If it insists on passing this then we want it to consider all these motions in this grouping because they make a lot of sense. They would perhaps help reassure the people of Canada. Over and above that it is going to have to bring in some better adjustment policies.
It is more than time that you consider the people who elected you if it matters to you and your people, Mr. Speaker. I think now is the time. I ask you in all sincerity to speak to the people in your caucus and say to them: "Give it a chance". We have side deals that have not been agreed to.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I would just like the hon. member to know I am neutral here in this chair. I have as much influence in your caucus as I do in their caucus and also the NDP caucus. Please do not get me involved in this.
The Chair has always been neutral. We like to be helpful to all members in the House at five o'clock in the morning.


Diane Marleau: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to cast aspersions on you personally but in my zeal to convince the Conservatives of their misguided policies I cannot help but remember that you have been elected as a Conservative.
Perhaps you might have more influence with the Conservative caucus than I do. Obviously those members have not listened to anything that I have said. You do, though.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I think on that note we will close off your debate. Thank you.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Steve, she was going to ask you to join us.
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John Cole: Steve might do a lot of things but that would be pushing it I think.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to mention a couple of things and put a couple of things on the record about the North American free trade agreement and Bill C-115.1 think it is important that we talk about some of the positive effects that have taken place and that are about to take place as a result of this agreement.
One of the things that we must not fail to recognize is that the free trade agreement between Canada and the United States has produced NAFTA. It is built upon the free trade agreement and has created a new climate for trade and commerce between Canada and the United States.
Canada has really been the big winner when one looks at the merchandise trade flows and one sees the increase that Canada has accomplished in that area to the point that now we are probably exporting about $120 billion to the United States. That is somewhere in the area of a 10 to 15 per cent increase. That is pretty substantive when one thinks of the way the world economies have been lately.
I think it is very important to recognize that. Also it is very important to recognize that our trade with Mexico is about $2 billion or $3 billion. It is very minimal compared to what our present trade is with the United States.
The fact is that Mexico is a developing country. Its demands have increased very substantively in the last three or four years. Its market is expanding very rapidly. It has some 80 million or 85 million people who are learning to become more productive in a developing country. They are learning different aspects of the economy and giving themselves the ability to be more productive, more successful and create more wealth within the country.
I think it is very important to recognize those facts before we get into some of the details. I do want to talk about some of these amendments. It is important that when we get into a trade agreement like the one that we are talking about today or the base of it which is the free trade agreement that we have a set of rules, a dispute settlement mechanism or whatever. There should be a neutral referee who is able to look at the two sides of an issue.

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When there is such a large partner as the one we have which involves the largest trading arrangement in the world somewhere along the line you have to be able to protect the smaller partner. I think we have been very successful in that.
It was alluded to by my colleague from Regina earlier about the success rate that we have had with regard to dispute settlements and one thing or another with these panels. It is very important to recognize that. We have to recognize that if we are going to build an economy, if our economy is going to grow, if we are going to protect the social programs that we talked about earlier, if we are going to protect our health care system and if we are going to do all the things that are very important to us as Canada then we have to increase our gross domestic product.
This is the opportunity to do that whether it is small business, large business or what have you. Those businesses are going to have to take advantage of these new opportunities and when they do their businesses will grow and expand. They will employ more people, the circle will continue and we will be able to resolve some of the employment problems.
One of the few things we would all agree with in this House is that the level of unemployment is unacceptably high and until we have everyone in this country working we are not going to be satisfied as members of Parliament. We all have that as a goal.
We may have different philosophies as to how we are going to get there but certainly it is a worth-while goal. This kind of opportunity for agreements with other countries and economies can help us build our economy and also quite frankly it can help those economies to build.
We are dealing with a Third World country that has struggled but now seems to be moving in the right direction. I think it is to its advantage and Canada's advantage to work with this country. I think it is also incumbent upon us to set the stage for further development in the southern hemisphere. If Canada can make this kind of arrangement work with Mexico effectively it is certainly going to be to everyone's advantage.
In speaking to the four amendments that we grouped together we are talking about the prevalence of Canadian law and what that means under these kinds of agreements. It has been suggested that we provide a new Canadian law that will prevail over NAFTA in case of conflict. I think most people will recognize if they study this that under international law an agreement entered into between states is binding as between those states.
It is incumbent upon the individual parties to implement domestic laws and set up the appropriate laws within their own countries. Under Canada's system of constitutional law we do not recognize international agreements as part of our domestic law.
Contrary to what one of the members suggested earlier about municipalities, school boards and everybody else making their laws to agree to NAFTA, that just does not make any sense at all. Anyone who has studied this will recognize that. Of course we are going to have to have agreements within our own country to implement this and the laws accordingly but that in no way affects other organizations or other levels of government within the country.
The other area I want to talk about is the processing of raw materials. This is one of the amendments. It has been suggested that because of NAFTA we would not be able to process our raw materials. We would have to send raw logs to the United States or maybe even to Mexico and have them shipped back as finished products.
I think anyone who has studied and read the regulations will understand that Canada has the right to maintain its log export controls. When it comes to any other natural resources the same thing would apply. Canadians would have the right, obligation and opportunity to maintain control. Quite frankly, Canada should be taking advantage of improving its natural resources and putting the added manufacturing and processing on to them. I think it is important to recognize that.
There was also a suggestion made that the subject of the dispute settlement process has come up under Motion No. 5. It suggests that an individual would not be able to appear before a binational panel on anti-dumping and countervailing duty matters. That is just not the case.
Certainly when it comes to settlement panels created by governments for the resolution of government to government disagreements or what have you, the Government of Canada would be the one to represent the interests of the country. That is only to be expected.
May 25, 1993

It is also very noteworthy to recognize that individual experts can be brought in for their expertise, knowledge and capabilities in bringing these people forward to help settle the issue. As has been mentioned earlier, Canada has been very successful in maintaining that by bringing those people in and providing the expertise necessary. As a result we have been very successful in that regard.
I know I am running out of time, but finally I want to deal with the amendment suggesting that we have to include a special clause to stop the export of water. In reading this legislation we all know there is no attempt at that. There is no hidden agenda. There is no suggestion at all that rivers are going to be diverted or somebody is going to pull the plug on the Great Lakes to allow the water to flow south or anything like that. It does refer to bottled water, water in tanks, processed water or whatever.
That only makes sense to anyone who has looked at it. We can look at the success of some of these natural water companies. We wish them all well and we encourage them. They are taking advantage of a market that is there. These amendments do not improve the bill. I just want to suggest I will not be supporting the amendments as presented.


Simon Leendert de Jong: Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the amendments moved by my colleagues. They are important amendments. If we are to proceed with the agreement the proposed amendments would certainly make it much more acceptable to us.
Let me deal with the first amendment in this group. We have to take a look at the United States-Canada Free Trade Implementation Act as it was passed by the United States. The act states:
The Uniled States law is to prevail in conflict. No provision of the agreement nor the application of any such provision to any person or circumstances which is in conflict with any law of the United States shall have effect.
We assume that a similar provision would also be included in the NAFTA legislation when it goes before the U.S. House of Congress. When we compare that to when it talks about the ability of Canada to act in terms of Canadian law we see the following:
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The parties to this agreement shall ensure that all necessary measures are taken in order to give effect to its provisions, including their observance, except as otherwise provided in this agreement by state, provincial and local governments.
We should note that the exception reads "as otherwise provided in this agreement". It does not say except as otherwise provided in the laws of Canada or any of the provinces. It appears that any exceptions to this act are contained in the act itself. Canadian law may not be as clearly subordinated to the FDA as implied in the Campbell article, but nowhere in this act is it stated that in the case of conflict previously enacted Canadian law prevails.
It seems to be very clear from the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement that there is one set of laws for the United States and another set for Canada. Our concern is that this would also apply to the NAFTA and further weaken Canadian sovereignty.
The other motion before us is one to guarantee that Canada will be allowed to process its natural resources before export. The concern is that some 47 per cent of Canadian exports to the United States consist of raw material. At some stage we are going to get smart as a country and we are going to demand that we process these raw materials before we export them. Lo and behold, quite a few countries, even so-called Third World countries, are now beginning to demand that value added be placed on their natural resources.
Many countries that used to export hard lumber no longer allow the export of logs. They demand that value added be placed on wood products. Hopefully and conceivably when we have a more progressive government in place, a government that acts in the interests of Canadians and Canadian workers, we will also begin to enact similar laws. We want to make certain the NAFTA would allow us to do that. Unfortunately the existing agreement casts grave doubt on our ability to have some control over our natural resources.
In another motion before us we want to ensure that in any dispute settlement mechanism more than just government organizations are able to appear and to make presentations. Therefore the motion in the name of my colleague from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca would ensure that citizens either individually or in groups would be

May 25, 1993
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able to appear before any dispute settlement body established pursuant to the agreement.
We are interested in the democratization of the process. This is important. There is much in this agreement that we feel is not in the interests of the Canadian public, of the American public or of the Mexican public. It is not in the interests of working men and women on our continent. It is more a constitution that is being written to help the transnational and multinational corporations.
The multinationals will benefit from it, not the Mexican workers, the American workers or the Canadian workers. It is not those people who believe that through our collective efforts as a society we can put into place environmental laws, social laws and structures and labour legislation to ensure a fair distribution of wealth. It is not to help any of these progressive causes that we have this agreement. It is to ensure the multinational and the transnational corporations have access to the resources wherever and whenever they want and to cheap labour. That is the purpose behind this agreement.
It is a sad day for democracy when a government low in the polls is trying in its dying days to push through an agreement that will have tremendous negative effects on Canadians without having the decency to wait until an election is held, without waiting to see what the American legislation will be, without waiting to see what parallel accords will accompany the agreement. They are forcing Parliament to accept something the Canadian public is against, and we have no clear idea what we are agreeing to.
We have seen the effects of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement in our province of Saskatchewan. We have seen the abolition of the two-price system of wheat which has had devastating results for farmers. We have seen the attack on the wheat board. Now the Minister of Agriculture has expressed his desire to remove barley from the wheat board; another attack on orderly marketing, on the institutions we have built to protect our farmers.
They are all endangered by the free trade agreements negotiated by this government. This government is not committed to the welfare of Canadian farmers or Canadian workers. It is not committed to the well-being of our country environmentally and our social programs and policies. It is only concerned with the well-being of
the transnational corporations and the multinational corporations. It has betrayed Canada. Canada has been weakened because of the policies of this government. As a nation we stand crippled. The only desire of all Canadians is to have an election soon to turf this bunch out of office.


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, good morning. I will be serving breakfast later, bacon and eggs and toast.
The basic question we ought to be asking this morning is why the government is not listening. There is nothing in these amendments that should frighten the government. There is nothing in these amendments that will not respond to a number of concerns that have been voiced by Canadians throughout the country.
For example let us look at the first amendment. There should be nothing brought forward-essentially that is what it says-that would be in conflict with Canadian law. In other words, if is in conflict with Canadian law, it will not go into effect. What is wrong with that?
Surely in our own country Canadian law should prevail. That seems quite reasonable to me. Why is the government not listening? Why is the government not reading? I suspect it is not unlike-you will remember that Mr. Speaker because you have an excellent memory-Bill C-93 when the government was given ample opportunity to withdraw. Despite all the evidence it decided not to. I guess it was not listening there either.
Let us look at the second amendment that says the processing of raw materials or raw resources before exporting should not be prevented. What in the world is wrong with that? Increasingly we are looking for value added in order to increase the number of good, long term jobs for Canadians. That is a reasonable amendment and so are the others we have discussed. But here again the government is not listening. Why is the government not listening? I shall try to answer that question shortly.
The third amendment says nothing shall prevent Canadian citizens individually or in groups from appearing before any dispute settling body. What is wrong with that? Surely fundamental justice demands that if someone wants to appeal a particular question then he or she, individually or collectively, should be able to appear to present a case. Why is the government not listening?
May 25, 1993

The fourth amendment says that control of our water must be maintained. Surely that is quite quite reasonable. Why is the government not listening?

I cannot understand why the government refuses to listen. Some of the amendments before us are completely reasonable. This is true not only of this series of amendments, but of the others we have discussed as well. I completely fail to understand why the government refuses to consider each of the amendments that addresses the needs expressed by Canadian workers.

Why is the government rushing through this? There is an election coming. It wants to get this through. It wants to create a bit of space hoping that Canadians will have forgotten that it rammed this through. Or is it the second hypothesis that the Prime Minister wants to be able to go down in the history books as the one who brought in the Canada-U.S. trade agreement and the NAFTA agreement?
I would rather not go down in the history books and have that quotation beside my name. I certainly would prefer not to have that and so would you, Mr. Speaker.
If the government is so certain this is such a good idea, why does it not go out and ask people. I have. Last week I went to my riding. It is a very representative riding. It is the geographic centre of Canada. I asked my constituents how they like the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and if they think we ought to proceed with the North American free trade agreement. The answer was an overwhelming no. I did not hear one person say yes. Ask my constituents if they believe the Canada-U.S. trade agreement has created jobs for them.
Ask my constituents if they think NAFTA will create jobs for them. Ask them if the government will level with Canadians. When it says jobs are being created will it talk about the kinds of jobs, the kinds of remunerations and the kinds of benefits?
Will the government talk about the other side of the coin? How many jobs have been destroyed and what kinds of jobs? Of course some jobs have been created
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and of course some jobs have been lost. If we look at both side by side we will find that good well remunerated jobs have been lost.
I think my colleague has finally come to life and I appreciate that. I want him to listen very carefully to the following. We in the Liberal Party of Canada have made a number of requests. We have said what a wonderful opportunity this would be to correct the flaws in the Canada-U.S. trade agreement if the government would only listen. Why not define subsidies? Why not define anti-dumping? Why not do it now? Why not have appropriate agreements with respect to labour and environmental standards? Why wait?
Why not have adjustment programs? My colleagues will be very interested in this because the Prime Minister and his government, of which they are a part, had promised the best training programs in the world so companies and workers could adjust to the Canada-U.S. trade impact.
What happened? Nothing.

Nothing. Nothing at all. We are still waiting. Really, there is absolutely nothing.

It is really unfortunate it did not take advantage of this situation to come to grips with the dispute settlement. This dispute settlement which was temporary is now permanent but there is nothing in here that will be an advantage to Canadians. There is nothing in here that will shorten the process. There is nothing in here that will make it less costly.
The government lost a golden opportunity to make sure we had the same deal the Mexicans negotiated over their energy needs.

It did not understand anything, they did not hear anything and they did not see anything. It is too bad. This is why it is not making any headway in the polls. This is why the Canadian people are going to tear it to pieces very soon. We will not have to wait long now. Why? Because it even refuses to hear amendments, like the ones that have just been put forward, that are very reasonable.

May 25, 1993
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My colleague agrees with me. If I heard correctly, he said: "These amendments are very, very reasonable." If I heard correctly, he said: "If I had the power to do so, if I had the courage to do so, I would rise in the House of Commons and I would denounce my government. I would tell it to listen to the message carried in the amendments proposed by the two opposition parties." This is what I think I heard my collegue say in his speech, and I commend him.


An hon. member:: No, no. Go wash out your ears.


Ron J. Duhamel: I am pleased that he is saying that at least he was listening. Maybe it is contagious and his colleague will agree with him. Perhaps even his other colleagues will begin to understand.

I just want to repeat that it is unfortunate that the government is not listening. What a wonderful opportunity to ensure that nothing would go through if it were in conflict with Canadian law.
The second amendment would make the processing of raw materials a reality. Why would it not accept that nothing shall prevent Canadian citizens individually or collectively from going to a tribunal? That is basic fundamental law. Why would it not agree that the control of our water is absolutely essential to us? Well put it in the agreement.
When I addressed the Canada-U.S. trade agreement in 1988, I told the government if it really believed that Canadian workers would not be displaced to put it in the agreement. If it believed that these points were covered by the agreement, put it in the agreement. Allay the fears of Canadians. Allay the fears of Manitobans. Allay the fears of my constituents.
I ask you at this time of the morning to start listening. It is still not too late.


John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether I can reach the oratorical levels of my good colleague from St. Boniface. I will try but after all, it is 5.25 a.m. I am not too sure how well I function so early in the day.
When I was driving to the House a few minutes ago I was wondering whether the Tories would get it. One
might ask, get what? I will answer my own question because I do not think they do get it. I do not think they understand the gravity of the situation. I do not think they understand the concerns of Canadians. We have a bill that is before us and Canadians are demanding not only that it be thoroughly debated, but that we also address all the questions arising from NAFTA.
Canadians are going through tough times, terrible times. They are not going to take an agreement of this kind lying down, especially in the wake of the FTA. They are not just going to take it according to the creed set down by the Progressive Conservative Party.
Canadians know that the Conservative Party is now totally intoxicated, drunk on its own ideology. It has been listening to itself for about nine years and its members have become true believers in everything they have said. They have lost all balance. Canadians are saying that we must get back to some sanity.
Look at the cluster of motions before us. Speakers before me have addressed these motions individually. What do the motions say? Motion No. 6 for example is designed to explicitly state that we Canadians have control over water. Nobody else, just us. The motion in effect is asking this government to put explicitly into NAFTA that we have the final say. Nobody else. We have the final say and all say explicitly in NAFTA.
What is wrong with that? What is it really designed to do? It is designed to give us control over our lives. It will strengthen our democracy. Is there anything wrong with that? I would not think there is anything wrong with it.
I guess according to the ideology of that party there is something wrong because according to this government it should be the marketplace that decides and that always makes the final decision. The marketplace has the final say. Not our public institutions, not our democracy, not Canadians, but the marketplace.
What has happened to Canadians? Are we not capable of making our own decisions any more? Do we just take whatever the marketplace serves us? Have we come to the point that we cannot make decisions on our own?
I believe in market economics, not unfettered market economics. I believe in the marketplace. I would like to give the marketplace as much manoeuvrability and power as possible. However things can go wrong in the marketplace and it can make mistakes.
May 25, 1993

When the marketplace is not functioning properly we, on behalf of Canadians, have the responsibility to step in and see what we can do. We do not walk on water and we do not always make the best decisions, but we cannot just stand back and accept anything that is served up by the market.
There was a column written the other day in the Toronto Star by Carol Goar. She was citing a recent UN report. Let me just quote a couple of passages from that UN report.
Listen to this one: "Markets should serve people rather than people serving markets". Anything wrong with that? I do not see anything wrong with that. Yet this government says: "No, you will not have any more say. We are not here to draw up any laws concerning international trade or international business. The market will decide". Of course when it says that the market will decide really what it is saying is that the multinationals and the transnationals with their headquarters in New York, London, Paris and Tokyo will decide. Certainly it is not going to be the servants of the people.
What else does this UN report say? It says: "Markets are not automatically or inevitably people friendly. For all their efficiency at matching buyers and sellers they could also be associated with increasing inequality and poverty as well as large-scale unemployment". Anything wrong with that? I think that is common sense. Some people say that common sense is not so common. Well whatever you want to call it, that makes a lot of sense.
I have one more quote from the UN report because it is relevant to this cluster of motions. This cluster of motions in effect says: Give us more control over our lives through the NAFTA. The UN report says: "Market friendly policies of the 1980s should be replaced with policies to make markets more people friendly". Again, what in the world is wrong with that? Nothing.
Canadians are saying to us in Parliament that we should get a grip on ourselves, get a grip on what is happening in this country. Sure there is globalization. There are challenges out there that we have not experienced before. We know it is more competitive.
Competitiveness and globalization. Those words should ring loudly with the Conservatives on the other
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side of the House. That is their new mantra, their new chant. They cannot walk five feet without uttering the word globalization or the word competitiveness. We know that.
We know that there are new dimensions to the global economy, but do we sit back and do nothing or do we try to get a grip on the situation? That is what Canadians are saying. They are saying they do not like the way things are going and they do not like the way the Tories are handling things.
We can do something. We just do not have to say that we are impotent, that the markets are deciding, or that if you just play smart, or if you just be smart everything will be okay. I wish it were as simple as that but it is not.
Good things just do not happen. I think I am old enough now not to believe in too many miracles, especially when it comes to the economy. Good things have happened because first of all there were good ideas and good hard-working people took those ideas and implemented them into real practical things.
Look at the history of Canada. Does anyone really think that our founding fathers-that is more of an American term is it not-our Fathers of Confederation said one day: "Canada needs a national railway, but we do not have to do anything, right? The marketplace will decide that and the marketplace will just give us the CPR". I am looking at my good friend from Toronto and he is nodding his head in the affirmative. Well, that just did not happen. The politicians of the day decided they had to take the bull by the horns. They had to get a grip on things and they made it happen.
Do you think the St. Lawrence seaway just happened? Did the marketplace just serve up the St. Lawrence seaway? I do not think so. Canadian and American politicians got together and decided that this was needed and then they would have it.
Now we have this so-called NAFTA and before that the FTA. We have the global economy. The global economy has been given to us by the world marketplace and it has given us many challenges and many problems. Ask the unemployed. Do we say: "Do not worry. The marketplace will just take care of that". Or, do we do something?

May 25, 1993
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I submit that we do something. This cluster of motions before us is trying to do this. They are trying to get a grip on things. Motion No. 6 has to do with water. Motion No. 4 has to do with getting a grip on our natural resources. Motion No. 2 states that Canadian law is to prevail in any conflict. Is there anything wrong with that?
We in the Liberal Party have been talking about an anti-dumping code and a subsidies code. Why do we advocate those two things, among others, to strengthen and improve the NAFTA? It is because the way things are set now, we are judged by American law. When we go into their marketplace, we are subject to American law and American trade remedies.
To me that does not make any sense. What we should have is a common law. If we are going to have a North American free trade area, we had better have some common rules, rules the Americans must observe and rules Canadians must also observe and so on.
Let me just say we support this cluster of motions. They would strengthen our control over our own lives.


Ron Fisher: Mr. Speaker,
I would like to point out that it is now 5:37 in the morning of what is actually Wednesday although if you look at the calendar, it is Tuesday. Hopefully, as the time progresses, Wednesday will cease to exist.
The way this second group of amendments has been put together puts them in conflict as far as the law is concerned. They make reference to raw materials in Motion No. 4. Motion No. 5 talks about the initiating of disputes in the agreement. Motion No. 6 makes reference to anything that is not in the agreement as being a possibility to open itself up for interpretations other than we might ordinarily think.
I would like to make mention to some of things which have been said earlier, particularly on the government side. One of the previous speakers mentioned that since the free trade agreement came into effect, and they were using that as the basis for how wonderful things would be under the North American free trade agreement, there had been an increase of approximately 15 per cent in trade between Canada and the United States in Canada's favour.
The fact of the matter is that if you add the inflation which has occurred since the free trade agreement was put into effect with the United States and if you also add the lower value of the Canadian dollar, what you end up with is something very closely approximating 15 per cent. Whenever the government refers to the increases under the free trade agreement, it always refers to it in terms of dollars and not in terms of the actual trade itself, which has been minimal and in some cases has been on the negative side.
In other words we have had a heck of a lot more increase in trade coming into Canada from the United States than vice versa. If you look strictly at the dollar value of Canadian exports, you would believe otherwise. The government does its best to try and convince us that that is the case.
Referring to the second amendment in this group, we have to use the North American free trade agreement as the example. The North American free trade agreement makes specific reference to the fact that the agreement shall not be in conflict with American law. Motion No. 2, proposed so wisely and presciently by the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, says that if we go by the free trade agreement then United States law is going to be predominant. All we are saying is that there ought to be a provision in the bill that nothing in the free trade agreement shall override Canadian law.
The free trade agreement does not make reference to Canadian law but it sure does as far as American law is concerned. I know that sounds repetitive but it is a point which absolutely has to be made. It is ironic that there is specific reference that the agreements in the free trade agreement will not override American law. We can only assume that in reference to the North American free trade agreement the same conditions will prevail.
We had assurances from the government side that it is not necessary to make specific reference to Canadian law and the supremacy of it as far as Canadians are concerned because the dispute mechanism is there. There is something within our Constitution that obviates the necessity for having that kind of wording.
May 25, 1993

The fact of the matter is that if we are going to have protection as Canadians we have to have those references in there because the Americans pay no attention to what is in agreements anyway. We have the case of Canadian agriculture being absolutely devastated by the actions of the United States government and its export enhancement program. This program was instituted by the Americans in direct violation of the free trade agreement. The free trade agreement says that the two parties to the agreement will recognize the usual common traditional markets of the other.
I suspect what it really may have done was wake the Americans up to the fact that Canadians in their exports, particularly of wheat, had some pretty lucrative, good, solid and economically advantageous agreements with other countries and summarily proceeded to delve into those markets. Without listing them, there are numerous countries where the United States through its export enhancement program and in violation of the free trade agreement have stolen Canadian wheat markets.
The reference in Motion No. 4 is to the ability of Canadians to have value-added processing to raw materials. The free trade agreement again is a good example of how cautious Canada has to be whenever it is getting into an agreement with our neighbours to the south because of course the free trade agreement extends it one more country.
We have the example of fish where the dispute panel ruled against Canada and we lost the ability to say that fish caught by Canadians in Canadian waters ought to be processed in Canada. It is to the everlasting disgrace of the government opposite that it was party to an agreement where in the final analysis this kind of processing was able to be carried out south of the border by other than those who caught the fish, or I would suggest in the broader sense of our natural resources, of those who did the mining of the material or the growing of it.
Motion No. 5 refers to who may initiate disputes under the free trade agreement. Originally the motion which the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca put forward wanted it to be possible for individuals, ordinary Canadians, to be able to initiate these kinds of disputes.
Of course the North American free trade agreement limits it to its signatories, in other words, the governments and in some cases companies. This adds a whole new dimension to the international situation as far as Canada and the United States is concerned. In the long
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term it is not going to be governments, even of Canada I would suggest, or on a smaller level the governments of some of the provinces that are able to initiate actions under this. It will be solely the purview of the multinational corporations which, having felt their rights to have been violated, will have the ability to initiate dispute mechanisms.
In the long run this will result in the rules of NAFTA becoming the governing mechanism by which international trade disputes and the settlement mechanisms between Canada and the United States and Mexico will be settled. If this agreement goes on and on, which was promised by the free traders-freebooters would probably be a better description-because we anticipate that the agreement will-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret the hon. member's time has expired.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Mr. Speaker, not since opening day of the pickerel season on Pigeon Lake near Bobcaygeon, Ontario have I experienced a five o'clock shadow at five in the morning.


Don Boudria: Tell us about that fishing trip.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: It was a terrific fishing trip but my time is short and I want to get to the relevance of the issue.
It has been eight hours since I last spoke to the amendments brought forward by my colleague from Kenora-Rainy River, and now we are on even further amendments. At that time I spoke to the Tory record and the broken promises made by the outgoing leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Note that I have left out the word "Progressive" and the "right hon. Prime Minister". We have heard about jobs, jobs, jobs, the best training and retraining programs that were going to be available in the land, and all the rest of it.
The text suggests that Canada would like the agreement to take effect on January 1, 1994.1 want to tell the folks at home the government wants to get through this debate. At 4.30 this afternoon in came the House leader, and he said: "What, not moving? I want this thing to shut down and shut down quickly. I want this through all phases of the House of Commons and then I want this thing moved over into Senate where it is going to have to go through first and second reading and the committee stage and report stage and amendment stages and third reading, and all the rest of it in that order. But, the final little bit of work that has to be accomplished, of course, is royal assent".

May 25, 1993
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If I recall the last newspaper article that was reporting on the government's position on this NAFTA deal, royal assent will be held back. Everything is going to be done right up to royal assent. Of course it is not going to let it go through royal assent just in case something goes askew and it needs that little step to hold it back, in order to pull the plug on this thing, just in case. The government does not want to totally destroy itself, it will just destroy itself this far but not take us over the brink.
Of course the government that is making this decision wants this thing concluded by Thursday, actually one day from today. Today is already Wednesday? That is right, tomorrow.
What we are dealing with is a government that is in the fifth year of its mandate-and we all remember what the Prime Minister said about-


Don Boudria: The fifth year of its four-year mandate.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: The fifth year of his four-year mandate. When the Prime Minister was Leader of the Opposition he stood in his spot right there and said: "Oh, how dare the government ever go into five years of rule. The tradition in this country is to call the election in four years, so do it". Remember how he was pressing and pressing?


Iain Francis Angus: What did Trudeau do?


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: I will get into this NDP nonsense in a minute. The member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan is a colleague of mine in the transport committee. We usually work very well together but when we are in here it is a whole different ball game.
If the Prime Minister sticks to his spring election plans then Canadians will no longer have a chance to have a say on the trade deal. I dare say this government wants my constituents to forget about a few things between now and then, and that is why we have so much debate on this trade deal.
Forget about what kind of things? At 11.4 per cent unemployment today is almost as bad as it was in September 1984. It was 11.6 per cent in 1984. In the fiscal year just ended the federal deficit was $35.5 billion, a shade below the $38.5 billion record set in 1984-85. The
public debt meanwhile has more than doubled in those eight years.
The Bank of Canada just this month said that: "There was little net change in cost competitiveness on an economy-wide basis". That was from 1980 to 1992. The bank said: "The manufacturing sector, in contrast, has experienced a substantial deterioration in competitiveness in recent years reflecting the fact that productivity growth in the Canadian manufacturing sector has lagged behind its U.S. counterpart".
As for the prosperity of this nation, Statistics Canada reported during the week of May 10, this month, that the real after-tax income of the average Canadian family in 1991 was no higher than in 1976.
Isn't that a record to be proud of? However we will debate free trade because that is what is on the minds of Canadians today, that is according to this government and the member for Simcoe Centre.
She became disgusted when my colleague from St. Boniface started talking about talking to his constituents, as I have in my riding, as my colleague has in Broadview-Greenwood and as we all have. Our constituents do not want this deal. She got in a huff.


An hon. member:: She rose in her seat.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Off she went into the lobby. It is not just the opposition that is saying this.
It is fun to look back in the papers. One year ago today, on May 11, 1992, The Toronto Star said that only 1 in 25 Canadians polled, 4 per cent, said that the agreement, NAFTA, should continue in its present form. That was the government's position.
What about the NDP's position of scrapping it? Slightly more than a quarter of adult citizens, 27 per cent, preferred that the agreement be terminated. What was the support for maintaining the deal but making the changes necessary to it? A solid majority of the public, 61 per cent, said it should be maintained.


Don Boudria: That is the Liberal position.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Of course there should be changes made to it. Also, 7 per cent had no opinion at all. They have a right to have no opinion. I respect that.
May 25, 1993

I addressed steel eight hours ago when I was up and this time I want to address textiles. Textiles are a concern in my riding. There is the KoBe group which employs many hundreds of individuals.


Dennis Joseph Mills: And in Quebec.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Of course in Quebec and especially in Montreal.
What does Jack Kivenko, president of the Canadian Apparel Manufacturers Institute, have to say about NAFTA?
He says that the industry is keen on increasing its market access in the United States and the apparel industry believes that free trade is in its interests. However the proposed NAFTA creates "hurdles" which do not create "a level playing field with open competition". Mr. Kivenko says: "For our sector the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was about liberalizing trade in some products some of the time".
NAFTA, because it has substantially tightened the rules governing preferential trade between countries, will mean liberalized trade in fewer products, fewer times, but provide openings in the Canadian market for Mexican-assembled U.S.-branded apparel. As a result of this Kivenko gave this assessment of the proposed NAFTA: "Left to us the North American free trade agreement would not be implemented in its current form. In our view, it threatens Canadian businesses, Canadian jobs and Canadian investments".
Let us move over to what the Canadian director of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, John L. Alleruzzo, had to say. He said the proposed NAFTA contains three important changes to the FTA, the free trade agreement, which will accelerate the negative impact the FTA has already had on the Canadian textile and clothing industries.
First, concerning the transformation test, the FTA required that apparel producers demonstrate that they sourced fabric from either Canada or the U.S. in order to qualify for free trade rates. If they did not meet FTA content requirements they had to make use of tariff rate quotas, TRQs. Large multinational textile producers were able to deal with these provisions through relocation to the U.S., but smaller apparel producers were not.
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Canadian manufacturers of men's fine wool clothing which imported wool from third countries were the exception. He said that one specific area of the apparel industry that was able to be successful in using the TRQs was the men's fine wool clothing sector. Although it was able to considerably increase the export of men's wool suits to the U.S. and increase its market share it still had only a minuscule share of the total market.
I could go on about the problems we have in the textile sector. I will come back a little later and read a few more instances where we have problems with NAFTA in the textile apparel industry. It is important and I think we will have the opportunity a little later on this morning to again address this issue because there will be more amendments forthcoming.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, good morning to you. It is three minutes to six on this Wednesday morning.
By the parliamentary calendar this is technically still Tuesday. However we will not bore Canadians with the technical details of why we insist that this is still Tuesday. The long and the short of it is that we have been up all night on this debate on the North American free trade agreement.
We are talking about a deal that is some 1,500 pages long. We are talking about a bill that is close to 200 pages of text and the government wants this whole thing passed unamended.
I am not one of those who is against negotiating a trilateral trade agreement between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico and I do not believe that it is the position of our party that we should not have been at that negotiating table. Our critic has been quite clear that given that we are part of a Canada-U.S. free trade deal, and have been for almost five years, whether we like it or not we would be bound by some of the decisions taken in these negotiations and therefore should be at the table to ensure that we get the best deal for Canada. However we did not get the best deal for Canada. This agreement has not been negotiated well.
Why do I say that? I say that because another party to the agreement is already negotiating amendments to the agreement which has not passed. I know Tories across the way will say that is not the NAFTA they are negotiating but parallel accords which are quite separate. One would have to be very naive to believe that.

May 25, 1993
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The Americans have said they will not sign the deal unless the parallel accords are passed to their satisfaction. Therefore they become de facto part of the same deal, whether we like it or not.
What kind of a negotiating strategy do we have here in Canada? How does passing this deal now when the Americans refuse to pass it strengthen our hand in the parallel accord discussions? It obviously does not.


Fred J. Mifflin: The Tories think it does.


Don Boudria: The government obviously thinks this is just swell. I do not agree because there are plenty of things in the agreement which could be improved.
I will give an example. I was recently approached by a firm in my riding that sells steel structures. They are called steel weighed buildings and are prefabricated modular buildings that are put together to make arenas, hangars and so on.	.
This company has just been made aware of a bid in the United States, and I will read some excerpts from this invitation for bids. It states: "Invitation for bids for pre-engineered metal buildings at Fort Lewis and Yakima firing centre''. This is from the U.S army corps of engineers.
First of all, it says that this procurement is 100 percent set aside for small business. That is what the Americans are doing. That is a great idea, but one wonders. If any of us proposed to do that in the House then the government across the way would probably say that it would contravene the FTA.
Let us see what this said. Let me read clause 1.29 of this particular tender. It says: "The buy American act, section 41, provides that the government give preference to domestic end products". Is that not interesting? What if we tried to do that?
It states: "Components as used in this clause means those articles, materials and supplies incorporated directly into the end product. Domestic end product as used in this clause means: 1) an unmanufactured end product mined or produced in the United States, or 2) an end product manufactured in the United States if the cost of its components mined, produced, or manufactured in the United States exceeds 50 per cent of the cost of all its components. Components of foreign origin of the same class or kind as the product referred to in subparagraph (b)(2) of this clause shall be treated as domestic. Scrap generated, collected, or prepared for processing in the United States is considered domestic. On acquisition of above $25,000 in value, components of Canadian origin are to be treated as domestic only if they are $25,000 in value or more". That is for a component.
If one is building one of these structures using panels and putting them together not one of them would be $25,000. One could build a structure worth millions with parts that are worth at the most a few thousand dollars each. They are constructing this huge hangar for the U.S. corps of engineers using the buy American clause to get around the free trade agreement.
Right now we are negotiating NAFTA. The government says we are completing it. We are negotiating parallel accords. How come we are not getting this fixed in the parallel accords? The government says that agreement is fine as far as it is concerned. This company in my riding, and it also has an office in Aylmer, Ontario, which I believe is in southwestern Ontario, sure does not think this deal is fine. It thinks it needs to be repaired, but this government does not think so. It does not think that we need to negotiate the parallel accords in such a way as to improve those things which are otherwise deficient presently.
I disagree, and as I say, I am not one of those who is against signing a trade deal with Mexico. I am not against that per se and I am not against the fact that those deals should be signed if they are to the best advantage of Canada. I cannot swallow the argument that says that we should have never negotiated, we should not have been at the table, we should not have been there from the beginning, we should not have signed anything and so on and so forth. That is not going to change the reality that is happening around the world right now. It is not going to change the fact that the European Economic Community exists. It is not going to change the fact that the East Asian countries are forming as a trading bloc. Those are realities that are there. I do not like them but they are there.
May 25, 1993

We have the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. I did not vote for it because I thought it was poorly structured. All of the flaws in it were stated quite well at the time by the member for Vancouver Quadra and they have been proven to be true. If anything, they have been proven to be worse than anything he had predicted. That agreement obviously needs to be repaired.


Sidney James Parker: It was a bad deal.


Don Boudria: The New Democratic member says that it was a bad deal. Yes, there were serious flaws in it. There were a few winners and many losers. Unfortunately, we have already lost many of the jobs. Couple that with the disastrous provincial government that we have in Ontario that chased so many jobs out of my riding and elsewhere south of the border. It has been a tremendous disadvantage for all of us.
I will come back later on other amendments. I want to talk about the textile industry because it affects my riding as well. There are a few winners in the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. The apparel manufacturing industry was one of those small winners, if I can call it that, but now it is going to end up losing the gains that it made in NAFTA. I want to get back later and speak about that issue. Unless what is negotiated in NAFTA is corrected it is going to be disadvantageous for my constituents as well.
How time flies. I guess I have already used up my time but I will be back to speak about this at a later opportunity.


Iain Francis Angus: Madam Speaker, I want to welcome you back to the chair this morning. In your absence we have done what a lot of executives I think would love to have the opportunity to do. So far we have created a 30-hour day. We are working on 31 and maybe we will go up to 36 if not more as we debate the amendments to the North American free trade agreement enacting legislation.
I want to deal with two of the amendments that are in this grouping because they are amendments that have a direct relationship to the area of the country that I represent which is northwestern Ontario.
The first one, Motion No. 2, is an attempt by my colleague, the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca who is the trade critic for my caucus, to ensure that within a dispute Canadian law shall be supreme. As I understand it, in the way the legislation is written it is not
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the case. We want to ensure that Canadian law is supreme because we have found the hard way that under the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement it is written in such a way that if there is a dispute between Canada and the United States and it goes to the dispute settlement mechanism panel, all they can do is to determine whether American law has been applied appropriately. It is not whether the American law is appropriate, but just if it has been applied in the right way.
Let me relate that to my area because one of the major issues that has affected the economy of northwestern Ontario has been the softwood lumber dispute which is now still in the dispute settlement mechanism. We are waiting for yet another shoe to drop as the 90 days wind through the process in the commerce department of the United States government.
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However, all through the battle we have argued and the Americans have argued that under this agreement American law prevails. In fairness let us mention the reverse too. If there is a dispute initiated by the Americans suggesting that we are doing something that is in violation of the free trade agreement the dispute settlement mechanism will determine if Canadian law applies only in Canada and not whether the law is fair.
If it was to be a proper trade agreement then one would have a mechanism that would ensure that the appropriateness of the legislation or the subsidy would be determined in that context.
In the North American free trade agreement, which is what we are debating, I want to draw attention to a comment made by the former U.S. Attorney General, Elliot Richardson. This comes from an article in The Toronto Star of February 21, 1991. Richardson noted that though the proposed law would violate the agreement, the implementing legislation states that U.S. law shall override the FTA in case of conflict. Canadian law on the other hand is subordinate to the agreement.
Let me elaborate a little bit on that. The act that was passed by the U.S. government-and I use it in the broad sense-the United States-Canada Free Trade Implementation Act of 1988, title 1, section 102, relationship of the agreement to United States law, page 1853, states: "(a) United States law is to prevail in conflict. No provisions of the agreement nor the application of any such provision to any person or circumstances which is in conflict with any law of the United States shall have effect".

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This language is quite forthright. Canadian law however is another story. If one compares the U.S. wording as I have just described it to the weaker language provided in our Canadian counterpart then one will note the difference. The act to implement the free trade agreement between Canada and the United States of America, volume 2, schedule part A, article 103, extent of obligation on page 2 states: "The parties to this agreement shall ensure that all necessary measures are taken in order to give effect to its provisions including their observance except as otherwise provided in this agreement by state, provincial, and local governments".
Note that the exception reads only "as otherwise provided in this agreement". It does not say "except as otherwise provided in the laws of Canada or any province". It appears that any exceptions to this act are contained in the act itself. Canadian law may not be as clearly subordinate to the FTA as implied in this particular package but nowhere in the act is it stated that in the case of conflict previously enacted Canadian law prevails. I would argue that in the terms of the North American free trade implementing legislation that that is even worse.
We have seen the devastation of the softwood lumber issue in northern Ontario. We have had a number of sawmills wiped off the face of the earth. We have had a number that struggled all through that period of time and have only found themselves rejuvenated in large part because the NDP government of Ontario that my Liberal colleagues like to bash so much came in and worked with the companies, unions and communities and developed a package that provided for their survivability and their ongoing economic viability.
I would challenge any member of this House to come with me to Atikokan and visit the workers in Sapawe and ask them who came to their aid. The Liberals did not do it when they were in government in Ontario. The Government of Canada, the Conservative government, did not come to their aid. We got nothing from them other than a few letters that said that it was looking at it. In the meantime the Ontario government acted and protected those jobs and in fact the sawmills in northwestern Ontario are expanding their operations as we speak because of the assistance applied to them by the Ontario government.
I want to deal with the second issue. Motion No. 6 standing in the name of my colleague from Esquimau- Juan de Fuca deals with the question of water. We have had a number of debates about water in the House over the last eight, nine or ten hours as we have debated through the night. However I want to put it into historical context again from the area of northwestern Ontario that I represent.
One of my earliest exposures to the question of interbasin water transfers was by a group called Damn the Dams. In the late 1950s or early 1960s the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was doing survey work throughout northwestern Ontario and looking for ways in which to divert the fresh water of northern Ontario south of the border. That campaign was led by a very remarkable lady, Millie Barrett, who has now passed on. She fought along with community groups throughout the northwest to chase the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers back across the border.
We do have some diversions in place. We have the Algoki-Longlac diversion which diverts water into Lake Superior. I cannot remember the correct name, but there is a canal or a channel in Chicago that diverts some water from the Great Lakes into the Mississippi system. It is highly regulated. It cannot be used for anything other than the sanitation purposes for which it was provided. However there is a real danger with the water thirsty southern United States, whether it be for agricultural purposes or for maritime commerce purposes. Those ol us who sat on the transport committee and dealt with a Seaway subcommittee report know the very real threat that the Mississippi water system has for the movement of grain, the movement of bulk products south of the border as opposed to east and west.
It is extremely important. In spite of what the government says we need to put in place enabling legislation with very clear wording that there shall be no interbasin transfers of water under the NAFTA.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Madam Speaker, I would like to continue on the point made by my colleague from Glengarry-Prescott-Russell earlier this evening. He brought to the attention of the House and Canadians something I believe will emerge as a real deal breaker on the free trade agreement. He talked about his constituent, Steelway Building Systems, that
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sent him this information. It had to do with an invitation for bids for pre-engineered metal buildings.
It is interesting that on the cover of the bid the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has this bold face statement: "This procurement is 100 per cent set aside for small business". I think that is a good idea. I wish all our bids at all levels of government, whether federal, provincial or municipal, had a clearly defined program where procurement would be 100 per cent set aside for small business.
Then we get into the body of the tender. The Army Corps of Engineers refers to the buy America act and states: "The buy America act provides that the government give preference to domestic end products".
On the face of it we would say that because of the free trade agreement and a national treatment clause Canadian small businesses would have the same treatment as U.S. companies. Therefore what is the big deal?
We then get into the further description of the bid. It reads that on components if the acquisition value is above 25 per cent then the Canadian company is treated as a domestic. Each individual component must be above $25,000 but under $25,000 the company would not be eligible to bid on these contracts.
This is a perfect example of how the Americans are getting away with the free trade agreement advantages. They are really showing that it is a disadvantage for Canadian small businesses. This is the type of thing that causes us in the Liberal Party to say time out to the free trade agreement as well as NAFTA. Roll the car back.
The current trade agreement is filled with many flaws and so many issues that need to be cleared up and here is one that affects small business. The government has stated repeatedly that small business is where we have the greatest hope for new job creation. Here is a perfect example of where the free trade agreement is not really going to work for small business.
Certainly when it comes to the buy America policy, how many businesses are building products with component parts having a value in excess of $25,000 a compo-
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nent? An individual component part must have a value in excess of $25,000. That is the only way one can become eligible under the buy America preference plan. It rules out a whole sector of our economy in relation to the free trade agreement that we were hoping would be the greatest source of our revival for new jobs.
How can the government not be concerned about an issue like this? How can it not be concerned about similar problems in this hastily negotiated NAFTA?
Earlier in this House today I raised another point in relation to NAFTA in the area of the environment and harmful production processes. There are definitely environmental wrongdoings. A process may be wrong but because it is separate from the actual product, the product can have a free flow. It can be exported or imported.
In other words, a product can be made in Mexico with an environmental process that is definitely harmful but because the actual product itself is not environmentally harmful it can be exported. That is wrong. That means in any business when we talk about being competitive we talk about the cost of doing business not just in relation to labour.
I am not even going to make something of the fact that we have child labour and wages at $1.50 or $2 an hour. When a plant is put up where the land costs and infrastructure costs are practically nil-I am talking about Mexico right now-and there are no worries about the environmental process being deficient, where is the level playing field?
Businesses here have to live with municipal environmental standards or provincial environmental standards at the process level. If we have plants in our ridings where the process is wrong, we shut them down. We do not care if the product itself is environmentally friendly. We are not even going to let a business make that product unless the plant and its process are correct. When that process is correct we will allow that product to be made and exported anywhere in the world.

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Under the NAFTA the process can be environmentally deficient as long as the actual product is environmentally friendly. The product can be exported and we have to take it in, even if the whole environmental process is deficient.
That is a serious flaw in NAFTA. I cannot imagine a member of parliament in the Conservative Party who could go into any high school or grade school or talk to any of their kids and say to just write off the process.


Patrick (Pat) Anthony Sobeski: What about acid rain?


Dennis Joseph Mills: Just write off the process. The member from Cambridge says: "What about weather?"


Patrick (Pat) Anthony Sobeski: Are we going to close INCO?


Dennis Joseph Mills: Are we going to close INCO? No.


Patrick (Pat) Anthony Sobeski: As well as the acid rain from Sudbury?


Dennis Joseph Mills: No, no. Hold it. That is a perfect example of why we have to take time out here. If the member wants to refer to INCO, let me tell him about INCO.
Six years ago INCO came up with a technology that it spent about a half a billion dollars on, which helped clean up that plant. It now exports that technology. In fact, that technology is making more on exports than the actual operating company. That is the point I am trying to make.
We have a chance in this country because of our commitment to the environment to export our environmental technology and make sure the Mexicans and others have our standards. Why are we lowering ourselves to their standards?
Even the Americans, even A1 Gore and President Clinton are saying time out. This is not working. This deal is not committed to an environmental principle to save the planet. Here we are in the middle of the night because the government is afraid to debate this and we are jamming it through. It is wrong.


Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Saskatoon - Humboldt):: Madam Speaker, it pleases me to have this opportunity at this hour of the morning to get up and indicate my feelings about these particular motions relative to the North American free trade agreement.
I will start by speaking on Motion No. 2 which states:
That Bill C-115 be amended by adding immediately after line 45,
at page 3, the following new clause:
"3.1 Canadian Laws to Prevail in Conflict. No provision of the Agreement, nor the application of any such provision to any person or circumstances, which is in conflict with any law of the United States shall have effect."
In other words all we are asking is that our law have the same weight in this agreement as does U.S. law. By putting this particular clause in, the Americans made it possible for them to absolutely control the structure. Any U.S. law has effect. It says so in the U.S. implementation act of 1988. We are suggesting that maybe we, the Canadian people, the Canadian government should have the same kind of power over this particular act.
In Motions Nos. 4 and 5 we are also asking to have the ability to process our products before we ship them. That
is,	we want to keep those products here long enough to do something with them. The present act does not allow us to do that.
Even if we passed a law saying that we will not ship anything out of Canada which is not processed, we could not do that under this act because we do not have the kind of legislative structure which would allow us to do
it.	The U.S. could do it. It is in the act at the moment and the Conservative government accepted that.
We have accepted very little of what the Conservative government put in these acts in the sense that they basically sold out our right to develop our economy. We as a party believe that trade is very important to Canada, but trade under circumstances which give us the power to develop and the ability to develop our economy within the structure that we believe should be in place.
With Motion No. 2 we wish to put into the act the fact that Canadian laws are to prevail in conflict. Anytime we get into a disagreement with the United States we apply the laws of Canada just as they now apply their own laws when they get into conflict.
One of the big things that has affected us in the agricultural industry has been the export enhancement policy of the United States. The Americans have put millions of dollars from their treasury into the sale of grains particularly, but other products as well.
What has affected the farmers most in Canada has been the export enhancement program which spends millions of dollars on selling the grain. Because of the way it is set up, this particular enhancement does not necessarily go directly to the farmer. We cannot call it a farm or an agricultural subsidy directly. What it does do is make sure that a company in the United States buys the grain from the farmer at a particular price and sells it
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to another country, say Algeria. Then the farmers get some subsidization at the price that they get but the company that sells the grain then can add as much as the total price of the grain initially.
The lowest they have sold grain as far as I know, and it may have gone lower, was a couple of years ago. Under the export enhancement program United States companies sold to Norway a number of tonnes of wheat for $52 a tonne. Nobody in the United States or Canada could possibly raise wheat at $52 a tonne. What the Norwegians paid was $52 a tonne, but what the company got after paying the farmer was probably another $50 a tonne.
Therefore the companies made their money anyway. It did not matter to the corporation that was selling the grain into the Norwegian market that this price was lower than the possible production of the grain. It did not matter to the U.S. corporation or the U.S. that in the process they were undercutting the EEC market which I guess was its intention in the first place. It was also affecting the Norwegian market in such a way that it was almost worthless to try to grow wheat. Surprisingly, Norway grows a considerable amount of cereal grains.
The farmer finds himself competing against an almost limitless U.S. treasury. There is no way that the Canadian farmer or the Canadian government can fight the almost unlimited funds available to the U.S. treasury. Not only are the funds seemingly unlimited, but it does not bother the Americans at all to go deeply into debt.
The United States has had deficit situations for many years and it continues to do so. A good portion of that deficit has been its expenditures on export enhancement. Therefore the farmers are affected directly by legislation which the United States has in place.
We can shout as much as we want about this export enhancement being unfair and we have. We have shouted about it. We have told them that it is unfair, but the U.S. application of the free trade agreement is that United States law is to prevail in any conflict. The United States can point to this and say that its law says it can provide export enhancement.
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This export enhancement has led to the devastation of the cereal grain industry in Canada. It has not just led to the fact that we are having difficulty penetrating certain markets now. It has not led to the fact that in some areas of the world we are unable to celebrate at all because we cannot match the low prices that the export enhancement brings.
I would challenge any farmer to produce wheat at $120 a tonne because that is very low, but the fellow who sells it for the United States gets another $50 enhancement. He is sure to make a profit so it does not matter whether he sells it at a much lower price. He could sell it at $50 a tonne and still make some money. How has that affected the farmer directly? It has been devastating. As I have pointed out, it has affected the price of wheat which means the operation of the farm is in jeopardy.
Also, in my community probably 30 or 40 per cent of the farmers have lost their land. They are now out of farming entirely. Not myself particularly but many of the other farmers are picking up the slack. In my own case, I had a farmer who was working my land tell me the other day: "I am sorry. I can no longer afford to farm your land. You will have to farm it yourself". He was helping me out but it was costing him too much.
This is the kind of change we need to put in place. We need to be sure that we give our own country an opportunity to develop its economy even as we trade with different parts of the world.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Madam Speaker, I must say that I am delighted to be here with so many of my colleagues to participate in this important debate.
May I say that I think the Speaker has done a tremendous job of maintaining a rather excellent decorum in this place despite the great heat that has been generated because of the importance of this debate.
I walked in a few minutes ago having just watched on television the tremendous speech by the member for Broadview-Greenwood, pouring out his heart and his passion for Canada. I wondered what could possibly bring the government to force this kind of debate on Canadians at this eleventh hour.

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Outside on Parliament Hill I watched a flock of pigeons trotting across the road. I thought to myself that those pigeons had more sense of self-determination, more sense of worth, more ability to make a decision than members opposite who blindly follow this path of pushing this bill upon the Parliament of Canada at the eleventh hour as some kind of senseless monument to a leader who is departing in a few days. They are trying to force this bill on Parliament at the last second, authorizing the North American free trade agreement in advance of side deals even being negotiated. They are asking us to pass judgment on the North American free trade agreement before we even know what is going to be in it.
Parliamentarians and government members opposite have completely divested themselves in the dying days of this administration of any sense of responsibility in undertaking their duties as members of Parliament. Even a pigeon knows it is time to fly the coop when it has been fouled. Not so members opposite.


Don Boudria: Not so with the bird-brains across the way.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Not so, as my colleague says, with the bird-brains across the way.
If it were not so serious it would perhaps be humorous, but there is nothing humorous in what is going on. Canadians have to know that the only reason members have been here all night long and this most distinguished Deputy Speaker has occupied the Chair all night long is that parliamentarians have flocked to this place.
I hate to use the word. I hate to borrow the example from south of the border but this is the Canadian Alamo. A handful of parliamentarians are standing and mounting the barricades in the face of this onslaught against responsible democracy.
How many Canadians recognize and realize what process is under way here today? How many Canadians understand that 295 members of Parliament are being asked to cast judgment on a trade arrangement that is not yet negotiated?
How many Canadians understand that in the United States Congress the legitimate elected representatives of the people of the United States are not seized with this
issue because the Americans have not yet finished negotiating?
How many people understand that what we are doing in this place now and the only reason we are here is to try to bring a sense of sanity to the megalomania that drives the decisions opposite?
Why are we here? Why are we considering a trade deal that is not yet negotiated? In Ottawa last week trade negotiators to the three countries failed to provide, as President Clinton says he wants, a new definition for the environmental code and a labour code. Why a week later are we here in Canada seeking to rush a trade deal through Parliament that was the subject of a failed negotiating exercise last week? Why?
There is only one reason. It is not a negotiating tactic. That makes no sense. We are not being asked to cast judgment on a finished document. That is not the case. Why? This exercise is more boarish than the hunting expedition the Prime Minister took in Russia a few weeks ago.
This is an attempt by a Prime Minister driven by his own visions of grandeur and his own delusions of greatness to finish his agenda in advance of his departure from the office of Prime Minister, which is coming none too soon for the people of Canada.
How outrageous it is. How without precedent is it in the annals of Canadian parliamentary history for sober, serious, responsible, dedicated and interested parliamentarians to be asked to consider something as substantial and important to the future of the country as a comprehensive trade deal with our largest trading partner and with a smaller, but becoming more important, trade partner, Mexico, in advance of having a finished deal on the table.
Is there one lonely Canadian out there who, against all of his or her better instincts and the experience of the last eight or nine years, clings on with shattered fingernails against the slick mausoleum of reality; who believes this government has changed; who believes the leadership campaign across the way represents renewal; who believes that some sense of conscience or responsibility has been restored to the party opposite, the Progressive
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Conservative Party of Canada? That is an oxymoron if there ever was one.
If there is one lonely last Canadian standing on the bill of Cape St. George, facing the Atlantic Ocean, seeing the storm brewing and believing there has really been change, this bucket of cold water, this so-called exercise in democracy that has been slapped across the face of Canadians will bring that last lonely, foolish Canadian- if there is one-to his or her senses. There are no enemies of Canada. There are no ordinary Canadians in their T-shirts, beer in hand, as described by certain people opposite, notably the minister of defence.
There are no sons of Bs, there are only sons of Ps and daughters of Ps, of pioneers who built this country, founded upon the principle of democracy. There are no Canadians who can be purchased at $50,000 a pop, as slick, manipulative advertising consultants. There are only Canadians who recognize that their institution-not ours as we are temporary custodians at best-their Parliament has been hijacked. It has been made subject to a foolish, last, twisted, misguided, egotistical grasp by a departing Prime Minister who feels power slipping away. It is a vain exercise on the part of that individual. It is a corrosive exercise in the context of Canadian democracy.
If this government has any sense whatsoever it will withdraw this bill. It will accord not the members on the opposition benches, not the Liberals or the New Democrats, but Canadians the basic respect for their intelligence.
Madam Speaker, would you buy a car without seeing it? I know you would not. Would you sign up for insurance without reading the fine print? Would you sign a mortgage without knowing what the details were in the mortgage? You would do none of those things. Madam Speaker. I know that if you were not constrained by the steely cage and the total impartiality of that chair you would be on your feet rebelling as instinct would tell you to do to save this democracy.
My time is up and so is the time of this government. It will happen as soon as it has the gall and the courage to
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ask the people of Canada to cast judgment on this shameful act and call an election. The sooner the better.


Mr. Vic Althouse (Mackenzie):: Madam Speaker, I rise to debate some of the amendments that are proposed at this stage of the free trade agreement debate.
Bill C-115 intends to implement the North American free trade agreement. There is no way to stop the agreement at this stage. What we are doing here is simply trying to make amendments which at this stage deal with the interpretation of the agreement.
We are trying to make a bad deal more acceptable at this stage. Later we can debate it at third and final reading and try to defeat the whole package. Right now we are simply trying to make a bad deal more acceptable.
There are four motions in the grouping that we are dealing with here, Motions Nos. 2, 4, 5 and 6.1 will spend a few moments going through the reasons why we think there should be some amendments made.
The first one proposes to amend the proposed act so that Canadian laws may prevail where there is conflict. This simply says:
No provision of the Agreement, nor the application of any such
provision to any person or circumstances, which is in conflict with any
law of Canada shall have effect".
Those are fairly strong words. Why is it there? It is there simply because similar wording is there on the American side. It states quite clearly that no clause in the agreement shall have effect over the American law.
In other words this three-nation agreement cannot supersede American law. That is the nub of the whole problem I have had with the idea of international trade agreements with the Americans that the government has been pushing for the last five or six years.
The government misjudged the effect of a smaller economy trying to get equal treatment with an economy 10 or 11 times larger. Politicians might make that error since they have very little business experience in the front benches of the Conservative government. However being politicians they should definitely not have missed that the American Constitution is quite a different document from the one we are used to operating with. Our Canadian Constitution is based on practice in the United Kingdom which uses a much different foundation

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for the establishment of laws than the United States Congress.
By its constitution, the Congress of the United States can, may and is required in cases to have power over the President in the signing of international agreements. It does not matter what the President and his or her administration might decide to sign. In the final analysis at the time of the signing or any time in the future, the U.S. Congress has the right by the Constitution of the United States of America to overturn that.
It does not matter what we sign with them. It is only as good as the current Congress decides it should be.
While I can forgive the leaders of the government for having been so naive as to have missed the consequences of the economics of a closer union with the United States I cannot forgive them for being so stupid as to have missed that vital difference in power that the U.S. Constitution gives the U.S. Congress.
That is because there is no way in the future that this country will have an equal trading arrangement with the United States of America simply because Congress can override the agreement at any time the Congress so desires.
We have had many instances of this with the implementation of the Canada-U.S. agreement. I think that experience is pertinent because the North American free trade agreement uses the same foundations to extend the agreement into Mexico and to include three countries in the agreement.
We have seen the constant and continuing disputes over softwood lumber. It was not initiated by any reason of unfair practice on the Canadian side. It was probably initiated because the Canadian dollar fell and we became as a result more competitive in the United States. The problems arose because producers of softwood lumber in the United States put political pressure on their congressmen and initiated the countervail actions that are now history. Eventually we work our way through them.
I might remind us that before this agreement we used to work our way through the agreements. We would work our way through any international disputes on the
myriad of commodities that had no duties between ourselves and the United States and we managed.
We are still managing, but this agreement has not made it a whole lot easier. It is not going to get any easier with the extension to include the country of Mexico because the U.S. Constitution stays the same as it has always been. We will always be at a disadvantage in dealing internationally with a country that has the power that it has given itself or taken by members of their Congress to override the international agreements that the President might sign.
This particular amendment one might call an equitable clause. It simply says that where there is a dispute then Canadian law shall apply. It is the same as American law that now applies any time there is a dispute. Motion No. 4 says:
Nothing in this Act or the Agreement shall be interpreted so as to prohibit a Party to the Agreement from requiring another Party to the Agreement to process raw materials or raw resources before exporting such materials or resources.
Again, our experience in the last four and a half years with the Canada-U.S. agreement has shown that the U.S. Congress has been able to force Canada, one of the signing parties of that agreement, to make decisions that are not necessarily in our best interests. There is one that talks about raw products whether it is raw logs, raw fish or raw anything. We have been required on a number of occasions to ship raw product into the United States in order to "comply with the agreement".
The one that I recall most notably was the raw fish dispute that occurred on the west coast. Canada recognized that we were having some difficulty maintaining fish stocks, particularly salmon stocks. In order to count the catch and to regulate the catch so that we would know whether we were in fact overfishing or keeping the fishing levels at a level where the stock could regenerate itself, we had required that all catches in Canadian waters had to be landed in Canada to be weighed. Because they were already landed to be weighed and measured they were usually processed here.
After taking that law or that practice to the international disputes settling mechanism the United States insisted upon and won the right to take raw fish out of Canada and process it in the United States.
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Not only did we lose the sovereign right to manage our own resources, but we watched as fish processing jobs went south of the border to Oregon and Washington.
There are two more motions as well but I see you are giving me the time signal, Madam Speaker. I understand that my time is up. I would urge members to support all four of these motions. They were put forward as a means of demonstrating that Canada could have negotiated a more equitable agreement. We do not think that the whole process of the agreement in the first place was a very smart move, but if we are into it then we could at least at this stage make it a more equitable and more fair agreement. These four motions I recommend highly to the government members and to the rest of the House because I think they would go some way to achieving that.


Mr. Jack Whittaker (Okanagan -Similkameen-Merritt):: Madam Speaker, it is seven o'clock a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. This debate has gone all night. I have to ask myself why it is that this government has forced Parliament into sitting all night. Why is it that through the dead of night this government has forced the debate on this? Why is it that the government has not allowed the people of Canada to scrutinize this agreement in the hard, cold light of day?
Is it because it is afraid of what is in that agreement? Is it because the people of Canada do not want the agreement and the government is trying to sneak it through like a pack of bandits in the dead of night? It is because the total sovereignty of this nation is at stake within the North American free trade agreement?
I would suggest that it is probably all of those things. It has not allowed full debate at second reading. It closed off debate through closure after fewer than six hours. Did it allow the committee to proceed across Canada to talk to the people of Canada and and find what they thought about the North American free trade agreement? Was there an explanation of what was in this agreement?
No, it did not do this. It allowed a few people to come in, some of its friends and associates, to talk a little bit about the North American free trade agreement. It did not allow any open debate across Canada. It did not even allow the provision of the agreement in the libraries across the country. We in our party supplied the libraries
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in our areas with copies of the North American free trade agreement so that the people could see what is in it. This government would not do it.
This agreement is about the loss of sovereignty of Canadians and the loss of many of the things that we as Canadians have held near and dear. First it was the free trade agreement and all that went with it. There was the erasure of the border between Canada and the United States. I would suggest that this now furthers the erosion of the sovereignty of Canada.
If we look at some of the motions that my friend and colleague for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca has put forward then we will see at least some attempt to salvage some of what Canadians have been telling us. I am pleased that the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca has stayed here all night. He has been up on Parliament Hill and has been here in the House for the last many hours awaiting his chance to put forward further amendments and motions on this matter.
One of the amendments that the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca wants is to ensure that Canadian laws prevail in any conflict. When I talk about the loss of sovereignty I refer specifically to that. What is it when we get in a conflict? Are we to be guided by the provisions of United States laws or can we be guided by our own? This amendment ensures that Canadian laws prevail in a conflict. "No provision of this agreement nor the application of any such provision to any person or circumstances, which is in conflict with any law of Canada shall have effect."
It shows that we can turn to the laws of Canada. That is in some doubt in the present presentation under section 3 of the NAFTA implementation agreement. What do we turn to in the event of a conflict? We have heard speaker after speaker tonight talk about that very problem in this agreement. That is not all that troubles us.
Motion No. 6, which the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca proposed, attempts to protect our water within the agreement. We have heard it time and time again from the members of the government that water is not an issue, that it is not included in the agreement. Yet it would be so easy to simply put in a provision, as there is with softwood lumber, as there is with processed fish from the east coast and Quebec, saying specifically that

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the export of water is not included in the agreement between Canada and the United States and Mexico.
The amendment that is proposed states as follows in subsection (2):
Notwithstanding subsection (1), nothing in this Act or the
Agreement applies to any water transported by a pipeline or diverted
by reason of diversion of a river.
We know there are all sorts of diversionary plans. In British Columbia, for instance, one plan is to divert the North Thompson into the Columbia River basin, take the water down and export it by pipeline from the south end of the Columbia River into the dry belt of California and Mexico.
The NAWAPA, the North American Water and Power Alliance, has proposed to flood the whole Rocky Mountain trench, diverting all the rivers into that and exporting the water.
It goes on and on, the diversion in the Columbia River Treaty and the question of the sovereignty of British Columbia and Canada with respect to water. Within that agreement, signed in 1964, we lost the right to ensure that we can govern our own water resources.
In that agreement we set out that we must provide flood control essentially into perpetuity. As long as those three dams on the Columbia River that were in the agreement-the Duncan, the Keenleyside and the Mica dams-are standing, we must provide 8.5 million acre feet of flood control for the Americans. I say that is not good enough. We have to specifically exclude that.
Motion No. 4 is one I am quite interested in with respect to the processing of raw materials and raw resources for export. We have to provide jobs for future generations and we must do it by ensuring that we have value added production. We have to ensure that the Americans and the Mexicans are not allowed to process our raw materials, that we are not simply the miners and the hewers of wood, the drawers of water. We must not export the raw materials down into Mexico where there is cheap labour for the furtherance of jobs in those areas.
We have to look at the value added production of those areas and we have to ensure that jobs are looked after for our future generations.
With that in mind, I read into the record clause 3.1:
Nothing in this Act or the Agreement shall be interpreted so as to prohibit a Party to the Agreement from requiring another Party to the Agreement to process raw materials or raw resources before exporting such materials and resources.
At this time I would like to propose an amendment to Motion No. 4 as follows:
That Motion No. 4, as it appears under Notices of Motions pursuant to Standing Order 76(2) dated May 25,1993, be amended by deleting after the word "requiring" the words "another party to the agreement" and inserting in their place the words "commercial entities within its sovereign territory".


David Barrett: Madam Speaker, I want to speak directly to the amendment to my motion by giving a bit of history of its importance.
Some months ago the members for Okanagan-Simil-kameen-Merritt, Prince George-Bulkley Valley, Kamloops and Okanagan-Shuswap, four members from the interior of the province of British Columbia, visited Washington, D.C., relative to gathering information vis-a-vis the American intentions on the softwood lumber dispute.
Just before the provincial election in British Columbia the federal government had arbitrarily removed itself from the agreement it had established with the United States of America that had imposed a 15 per cent tariff on softwood lumber. The timing of that to some of us was directly related to the connection between the government of the day in Ottawa and the government of the day then in British Columbia, the Social Credit government, in an attempt to bolster its re-election chances.
The import of the removal of that unnecessary and ill-founded surcharge on Canadian softwood lumber was politically motivated at the time and left the Americans with the position of immediately slapping back that 6 per cent which actually was what it was reduced to.
My colleagues who I mentioned went to the United States to raise this matter in conversation with and for the information of the American officials. They were told at that time the Americans needed the tariff to protect their softwood lumber even though technically it was a violation of the protection we should have had allegedly from this government on the free trade agree-

ment. However, with more than a wink and a nudge my colleagues were told that should the Government of British Columbia lift its ban on the export of whole logs it would be received as a welcome sign that the Government of British Columbia was prepared to make a deal. Therefore there would no longer be a barrier as far as the Americans could see in putting up the 6 per cent against softwood lumber.
This was all contrary to the free trade agreement, leverage known as bullying and with no protection left even under the free trade agreement for the Government of British Columbia and ultimately the people of this country to protect resources and to use them in value added and secondary or tertiary processes as the government of the day or as industry, as the particular amendment points out, may want to do in terms of maximizing its capital investment. Maximizing their capital investment would employ more Canadians. It was a goal shared rashly by most economists in this country, that every step of value added in terms of secondary and tertiary development coming out of capital investment, whether it is private or public, benefits the well-being of this nation.
What we are asking for in this amendment is the simple permission for the Canadian people through their provincial governments to establish self-determination vis-a-vis maximizing the use of resources.
My good friend, the member for Okanagan-Similka-meen-Merritt, has made a valid point in amending our amendment. By doing so he focused on a serious problem both in a general sense and a particular sense that there is no policy by this government as exposed in the agreement it has signed to ensure there are more jobs in Canada for Canadians out of Canadian resources.
The government has signed a deal that does not permit us to be masters in our own house, maitres chez nous, in determining how we want to develop our resources in terms of secondary and tertiary investment and secondary and tertiary job creation out of that investment.
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Did the government do this consciously? If it did, it stands to be condemned. Did the government sign this without knowing what it was signing? That would even be worse. It is a fact that frequently for the last year in Question Period I have stood in this Chamber to ask for sector-by-sector studies by the government on the North American free trade agreement relative to the use of resources both in terms of capital investment and in terms of labour potential.
Not once in the House has any member seen a single sector-by-sector study that should have been done by the government before it signed the agreement. Not only is this Chamber being asked to ram through a bill before the drafts are even completed for the U.S. Congress, but this Chamber and the Canadian people are being asked to blindly endorse a deal. Not a single bit of evidence in terms of sector-by-sector studies vis-a-vis the impact of the application of secondary and tertiary labour has been available to the House.
Where are the studies on oil, gas and energy? Where are the studies on labour? Where are the studies on the forest industry? Where are the studies on fisheries? None have been presented. Excellent points have been made by the members of the opposition and of the government. Not a single government backbencher has an amendment.
All those points were not been made around the fact that the bill is being rammed through but that there has been no information provided. I asked department after department as they appeared before the committee to give us the sectoral studies. If they were done they have been kept secret. If they have not been done then the government is being condemned for not doing them.
How could this government and a minister who has not been here for a single minute of this debate ask-


Mr. Langlois:: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member who is speaking knows full well the minister has been in the House for a lengthy period of time overnight and that he will be back in the House later today. The member who is speaking was away from the House for at least seven hours overnight.

May 25, 1993
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Some hon, members:: Oh, oh.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Just a moment, please. It would be wise for both sides of the House to avoid referring to the presence or the absence of members or ministers during debate.


David Barrett: Madam Speaker, naturally tempers get flared after this long in the House. If I have offended the rules of the House I withdraw. However, I will say that since the debate started there still has not been presented to the House one sector-by-sector study. Do they exist? I ask the government this simple question: Do those studies exist? They do not.
With everything I have been involved in during this debate I believe the government has actually gone into the signing of this agreement without doing sectoral studies. I ask the government to prove me wrong, to prove to the Canadian people that every sector covered by this amendment in terms of the right for value added was thoroughly examined before it signed the deal.
I do not believe it has been done. There has been not one shred of evidence that with all the billions of dollars necessarily spent by a government in maintaining department after department relative to sectors of the resources a single penny was spent on doing sectoral studies.
How many thousands of jobs are slipping away because of the lack of that research? How many thousands of jobs and how many small businesses are at risk because that value added work was not done? How many Canadians are now out there looking at their sons and daughters who cannot find work and do not know that the attempt to maximize the job potential of those resources was not even initiated by studies by this government? How many people waiting in line at a food bank who are not members of government staff and are expecting to have jobs know where to train for the opportunity to even rationally look in a sector that is potentially developing because of this agreement?
How can the government say that it is initiating training programs to accommodate this agreement when it does not know on which areas to focus in those training programs because the sector studies were not done?
I appreciate that my 10 minutes are up. However an important point has been made here tonight by this very limited debate. It has exposed layer by layer the stupidity and incompetence or culpability of this government in
ramming this bill through. There is no explanation. Let the Canadian people understand how blind, how pitifully weak and how this government has totally sold us out in this kind of legislation.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Madam Speaker, I begin by complimenting the member for Esquimau-Juan de Fuca on the point he has made about the analysis. However I want to say to him at the same time I disagree with his comments that I heard on the radio a few minutes ago. He did not really feel there was much benefit to this debate.


David Barrett: At the time I made that statement I did not think so.


Dennis Joseph Mills: He indicated that it would not accomplish much. I disagree. We may not be accomplishing much in terms of causing the government to listen today or tomorrow, but I believe the point he just made is an important one for all Canadians to be aware of. When we go to the people for accountability 12 weeks from now I believe the government will be out of business partly as a result of our determination in the last 24 hours to bring it to the attention of Canadians. There may be only a few right now but there are some substantive flaws in this particular agreement.
I want to build on the point that the hon. member just made. I cannot believe for a second that all of these corporations that are moving and setting up in Mexico, whether it be Northern Telecom, General Motors, the Magna, or the Volkswagen, that these transnational or multinational corporations are not doing research and that they are not putting forward proper business plans which they take back to their boards for approval.
There is absolutely no way that General Motors would be investing hundreds of millions of dollars in a country which is not exactly stable in terms of its over-all business practice. It would not be doing this unless there was some cost benefit analysis. It is just not common business practice to go and make these investments without having the approval of the board of directors. It is that fundamental.
I support what the member from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca is saying. We are the nation's boardroom and we are asking the government to show us the sector by sector analysis of the cost benefit to Canada and Canadians. We want to see the analysis that the government must have.
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A decision cannot be made that is going to affect the entire fiscal framework of a nation without having some kind of analysis. It is like doing a budget without crunching the numbers in finance. It is like making a commitment on social policy without knowing what it is going to cost. It is just not done.
The government should bring those sectoral analyses forward. What is the cost benefit analysis in terms of the automotive industry of this country? What are the benefits? What are the costs? We have to know that.
In my community we just lost the first complete assembly plant in Canada's history, the Scarborough van plant. We are still trembling as a result of that loss, especially when the plant was making so much money. We want to see the benefit of this deal to the automotive sector which has 250,000 manufacturing jobs and there are also spin-off jobs related to that sector.
We want to see the cost benefit analysis in the telecommunications industry and in financial institutions. The fact that the government is not bringing to this boardroom, and we are here representing the Canadian shareholders, is wrong. It is the wrong way to go about it. There would not be a director in any corporation in the world that would approve of a major transaction like that without knowing the cost benefit.
I am happy to see the Minister for International Trade here in the House. He is a respected business person, a former stockbroker. I know that this man would not have invested hundreds of millions of dollars of placement money to corporations without seeing a business plan, without seeing a cost benefit analysis. Therefore, as the member from Esquimau-Juan de Fuca said, why can we not see our cost benefit analysis sector by sector?
Knowing the background of the Minister for International Trade I am shocked quite frankly that he would not put that on the table. Let us have a cost benefit analysis of the auto sector. Let us have a cost benefit analysis of the telecommunications industry.
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I believe maybe in telecommunications there will be some benefits, but let us know who the losers are going to be. The minister's track record in terms of who the winners were going to be in the free trade agreement did not work out. Does he not think he owes that to the people of Canada if he is so confident about this deal?
The hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca has put forward a very good point. It is another reason that this bill should be withdrawn because the government has not put forward all the information that is necessary to even make a proper judgment.


Mr. Guy H. Arseneault (Restigouche-Chaleur):: Mr. Speaker, first of all I want to support my colleague from Broadview-Greenwood and also our esteemed colleague from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca for bringing forth the point which has been made quite often here this evening and quite often throughout Canada.
We have just finished a week of travel in our riding and consulting with our constituents. When I informed my constituents that we were going to debate the North American free trade agreement, the question I was asked most often was: Why is the government rushing this agreement through? The Americans do not even have the draft legislation yet. What is the rush?
It can be compared to buying a house. How many of us would buy a house blindly? How many of us would call the bank tomorrow and say: "I want to borrow some money. The terms do not matter. The interest rate does not matter". How many would blindly trust another group, put their destiny in someone else's hands? I say not very many.
Some have said that this debate is not very beneficial. I say it is. I say there is a lot more coming out of this debate than meets the eye. I hope that colleagues will continue to put forth their points.
I would like to follow along the lines of the members from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca and Broadview-Greenwood. It may be difficult to follow their eloquence, but it is very easy to follow the substance because they have common sense.
The problem we have right now has been with this government. People expect this government to show leadership. Leadership is like putting a ladder against a wall and climbing the rungs. The ladder is put up and this is the direction to go. The problem with this government is that it has put the ladder on the wrong wall. After that it is taking the rungs down. It is dismantling this country. This is not enabling legislation, it is dismantling legislation.

May 25, 1993
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It is about time that hon. members over there stood up. This government has no authority, no mandate left to implement this agreement. None whatsoever. In fact those members should walk out of this House and ask for an election if they have any guts whatsoever.
Where are the sectoral agreements? Where are they? Have they been done? If they have been done and they are so great, why is the government not tabling those sectoral agreements? My constituents would like to know what effect this will have on the forestry industry.
My constituents would like to know what effect this will have on mining. The reason is that they know what effect the previous free trade agreement has had. Unemployment is up. We predicted that there would be problems in the social areas. Social programs would have to be cut. I am not saying that they are being cut totally because of the free trade agreement. What I am saying is we warned that this could probably happen.
Why are the four, five or six leadership candidates over there and the other ten who have had a press conference to announce that they are not running concerned about medicare all of a sudden? Why are they talking about user fees? They see the writing on the wall, definitely.
In a nutshell, this agreement is not good for Canada. We, as members of Parliament, have to stand up for what is good for Canada. We have to take a stand and that goes for the honourable members on the other side.
Sometime in the not too distant future they will be sitting around the dinner table. Their grandchildren will probably be there and will ask them the eternal question: "Where were you? Were you not a member of Parliament? Where were you when this was being debated and what was your position? Why? Were you not smart enough to see that there was something wrong with this agreement? Were you not there or were you away? Were you out of the country? Or did you see everything that was wrong but you agreed with it?"
Little sheep. The leader of that party goes around and every once in a while, every 48 hours he sheds those crocodile tears and lowers his voice: "Oh, it has been a tough nine years but I have done what I have had to do".
He has done what he has had to do. He has jumped this high. The Americans said to jump and he just said: "How high?" He was in the "bush league" for most of his life, in the American president's back pocket. It is about time we stood up for Canada and Canadians.
When we look at it we talked a good line on the environment but there has been no action. There is no action in this agreement. We are still debating subsidies in the last agreement. There is still no agreement on subsidies. Labour standards. I could repeat all of those things but I am sure the member has heard them. He has listened to them. He is allowing it to sink in. I only hope all government members will wake up, smell the coffee, and say: "To heck with this crazy agreement. Throw it out".


David Stupich: Mr. Speaker, I do not often disagree with my colleague from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, but there is a record of one study having been completed. It was reported in The Globe and Mail of May 22.
It was a study to the effect that it would cost more than $20 million for customs officials to implement the North American free trade agreement in its first year alone. There is no mention at all as to whether or not there would be any benefits that could be quantified, or have been quantified.
The 35-page document shows the department plans to ask Treasury Board for permission to spend up to $55.11 million to cover implementation and administration costs of the customs aspects of NAFTA in the current fiscal year and the two following years.
It says customs aspects and talks about this secret document. How it surfaced, we will not know. In any case, this study was done for Revenue Canada. It has been quantified, $55.11 to the fourth significant figure, so apparently some real work was done to find out how much it was going to cost. Beyond that, apparently nothing has been done since.
The minister has declined on many occasions to accept the invitation of the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca. For almost a year now the hon. member has been inviting the minister of trade or anyone else who cares to pick up the invitation to produce even one study that shows there is some benefit to Canada. All we have seen so far are figures generally from the United States, one
May 25, 1993

to the effect that it was going to cost Canada $1 billion in losses in the first year of the NAFTA agreement.


Patrick (Pat) Anthony Sobeski: Name the study.


David Stupich: The member is inviting me to name the study. It was reported in the press and it was talked about in the House but I do not have it in front of me right now.
It would take quite a library if everyone was to bring everything to do with the free trade agreement. After all it is still only Tuesday. I believe that is how the clock works. Although it is 7.40 a.m. on the clock up there as far as we are concerned we are still working on Tuesday.
I welcome the amendment moved by the hon. member for Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt because it does make it abundantly clear that it is up to the private sector to further process resources that are exploited in Canada. We should not simply be rushing for the sake of building up trade figures to ship these raw materials out of the country.
What good does it really do us to ship out vast quantities of raw materials? In some cases these are non-renewable resources. It makes fancy figures to show that our trade is increasing but does it really bring any benefit to Canada? It is providing a minimum in the way of jobs because more and more of this kind of work relies on technological improvements, which means more machinery and more energy but fewer people, fewer jobs and fewer top paying jobs.
It does not accomplish anything. What we have to do is export enough to look after those goods that we import and also to pay a substantial amount of money, and I will not quantify the figure lest I be challenged by the government member to give the source of my information.
The latest word I hear is that roughly half of the federal government debt of $450 billion is borrowed from abroad. This means that we have to spend something in the neighbourhood of $17 billion or $18 billion a year and that means exporting goods. They do not want Canadian dollars so we have to export something.
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The exports from the forests alone would be much more than that figure without including anything for grains and oilseeds or fish from the west coast. There used to be fish from the east coast but we do not have them any more. The way things are going we may very well lose the fish on the west coast if this government survives the next election. I hope for the sake of the fish resource on the west coast that does not happen.
There are resources with which we could be doing a great deal more, and I mentioned the forest briefly. I think it was one of the Liberals earlier in this debate who said that he is concerned about the volume of round logs that are exported, particularly from the province of British Columbia where we have the larger logs.
One of the problems the provincial government has is that it can legislate with regard to the export of round logs from Crown-owned land but it does not have authority to deal with logs that are being exported from privately owned land.
A significant production of round logs comes from land that is privately owned by the CPR through one of its subsidiaries, Pacific Logging Company Ltd., or at least it does the logging. This was land that was given to the ENN people when they built the ENN railroad. It covers one-third of Vancouver Island, perhaps its best forest land. There are significant tracts, and there is still substantial logging going on there after 100 years of logging.
That company is privately owned. The land was given to it for the construction of the railroad and the railroad was turned over to the CPR. The CPR now owns all that land through one of its subsidiaries.
The provincial government does not have the power to impose upon that company a regulation to the effect that it must process those logs in British Columbia or somewhere in Canada before exporting them, as much as it might want to.
There are other privately owned lands although the most important is what is left of the ENN land grant. That was a steal. It may not have seemed at the time that it was that good a deal.

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Certainly the CPR, in taking it over from the ENN, has done very well by it. It has sold logs off it. It has sold other products. It has sold mineral resources. It has sold lands, not substantial amounts but smaller parcels of land. It has recovered its investment in the ENN railway many limes and now between it and VIA Rail they want to shut down the railroad. That could happen.
There are possibilities of using the round logs in British Columbia to provide employment in the mills, and that is not enough in and of itself. We are doing a lot of sawmilling of round logs in British Columbia but we should be further processing them. We should not be in such a hurry to export them simply because there is a market somewhere for that material. If we further processed it there would still be that market.
The Americans have not been buying lumber from British Columbia because they want to help British Columbia or because they want to help Canada. They import it as they need it and when they need it. They pay the price, but only when they need it and in the quantities that they need it. That is the way it works. They are not doing us a favour.
It certainly helps our external exchange, as we talked about earlier. Nevertheless we should recognize that it is in our interest to add value to those products before we export them. We have not done this to the extent that we should be doing it. It is certainly in the interests of the provincial government and the federal government to get together and introduce rules so that there will be control and so that private corporations, and public corporations operating in the private sector, will be obliged to process those resources here in Canada before exporting lumber and mineral resources.
We do very little processing of mineral resources in British Columbia, just the initial stages. A good deal more could be done there. There is another market that it opens up. Canada is very important in mining. Yet we produce very little, if any, mining equipment in Canada let alone in the province of British Columbia.
There is a tremendous opportunity for some company to get into the production of mining equipment. We should not be importing mining equipment. We should be making it and exporting the surplus rather than simply buying it from abroad whenever the companies need it. We should be obliging these corporations to do so, or if
not then we should be showing a little government initiative to get something going to make sure that we are building this equipment and producing jobs here in Canada.
Certainly in Canada we have a better appreciation of the need for that kind of equipment, what sort of equipment is required and what improvements could be made to make it better for harvesting or exploiting the resources in Canada.
There are other opportunities. I spoke earlier about the possibility of doing more with our fish, about further processing of our fishery products. We have still have them in British Columbia. As long as we have them and as long as we can make sure that the supply is available to the processors in B.C. we should encourage them to develop new products, new ways of selling fish and new ways of adding value to our exports of fishery products.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I want to first of all congratulate you on your elevation to the chair and on how you have conducted yourself in terms of the proceedings of this House.
I would only hope, Mr. Speaker, that you could remain in the chair for the duration of Question Period today and for the remaining days left in this Parliament because like your predecessors and others I am sure you would show objectivity and sensitivity. I am sure you would get the unanimous consent of the House to remain in the chair for Question Period for the duration of this session. I want to congratulate you, Mr. Speaker.
The debate we are involved with at the moment involves a number of amendments put forward by my colleagues. In particular I make mention of Motion No. 4 which reads:
Nothing in this act or the agreement shall be interpreted so as to
prohibit a party to the agreement from requiring another party to
the agreement to process raw materials or raw resources before
exporting such materials or resources.
Mr. Speaker, as you know coming from the region of Canada that you do, this particular amendment cries out for the support of this House. It should be noted that regional economic development in many instances in this country has a lot to do with natural resources, raw materials or raw resources, and it has developed towns and communities over the years. The amendment cries out for our support in this particular debate.
May 25, 1993

In my own district we have an abundance of raw resources and raw materials. If an agreement of international proportions were to suggest that because of an international agreement those raw materials would have to be shipped elsewhere for further embellishment to make them ready for the marketplace then this would have a devastating effect on many communities across this country including my own.
I listened very attentively to my colleague who just spoke. He made reference to the fisheries in British Columbia and what it does for that province. I speak of the mining industry in Nova Scotia. I speak of the mining industry in Newfoundland. I speak of the forest industries that are very significant in many parts of this country. I speak of those industries in northern Ontario, parts of northern Quebec, and parts of western Canada including British Columbia.
Developing our natural resources and embellishing upon them as best we can to make them suitable for market has been a corner-stone. There are certain members in Ontario, for instance, who do not share our concerns or our sensitivities. I know hon. members from the Hamilton area who are very sensitive to the concerns and aspirations of the poorer regions across this country.
We as parliamentarians have to be cognizant of the importance of amendments such as this and how they affect our economy and our regions.
Madam Speaker, you have returned. Your predecessor did an excellent job. There was almost a disposition in the House that he remain in the chair for Question Period but some hon. members did not agree to that. Madam Speaker, you will probably want to take that under advisement and perhaps have a conference of your colleagues and see what we could arrange for subsequent Question Periods.
On with the debate that is before us. Seriously, the amendment before us is quite important. It cries out for our support which my party will give.
On the issue of regional economic development, we have many communities across this country which do have natural resources and raw materials ready to be put together to make them suitable for the marketplace. We need more of that in the regions of the country. We should not ship them elsewhere. We should not ship
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them to foreign countries for processing and then ship them back to Canada. That is not what we want.
That is not to suggest in any way whatsoever that those of us on this side of the House are against forms of international economic development in other countries. That is not the case. However we are parliamentarians and we have to represent the best interests of Canadians. Hence there must be a preference or priority given to Canadian industry in things of this nature. I spoke just a few moments ago about various communities across this country where there is an abundance of natural resources and raw materials.
Technology could be made available and we certainly have the work force. We need adjustment programs in order to bring those workers in line with the needs of this decade and the next century in order to take advantage of Canada's strategic position. We have enjoyed it for many years.
The government has failed miserably. It has been a complete and utter failure. Just the other day I read the promises that the right hon. Prime Minister and the government had made in 1984 with regard to research and development.
Research and development in its basic form means a great deal. It means a great deal more when put to practical use. I think for instance how massive research and development in forestry would affect rural Canada.
I think of research and development as it relates to our mining industry. It would have a tremendous impact on places such as northern Ontario, Cape Breton, parts of Newfoundland, northern Quebec and western Canada. However this government has failed miserably with regard to research and development, notwithstanding the fact that it made it a centrepiece not only of its platform in 1984 but of the economic renewal that it was to seek for all Canadians in 1984 through to 1993.
If you look at the statistics you will find that not only has this government not met its stated objective of 1984, but a reasonable person would conclude after listening to what those people promised that it is wanton, gross negligence on the part of the government for not pursuing that objective with great vigour and with the appropriate programs.

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The final point I wish to make is with regard to adjustment programs for workers, for communities and for industry. What in the name of God are we doing in this debate anyway? We have to have that. That is what we were promised. That is what the Prime Minister and all of those members opposite ran on about in 1988 and failed to deliver. Here it is almost five years later and we have yet to see any adjustment programs whatsoever as they relate to the free trade agreement and the North American free trade agreement.
My time has expired. I hope I will have an opportunity in subsequent debates on other amendments to continue my intervention. I believe the subject matter cries out for our support of the amendments and of course I disapprove of the government proceeding with this legislation at this time.


Ron Fisher: Madam Speaker, I do not know how many times we have debated absolutely flawed legislation which this government has brought in. Obviously this is going to be one of the last pieces. Certainly it is the last major piece of legislation of this tired, worn out, market oriented, free enterprise government.
Everything this government has touched since it came into office has had a tremendously negative effect on the people of this country.
have people going to food banks who, had the changes not been made to UI, would not be doing so.
I think of the changes to the drug patent act. Why on earth the government would want to come in with legislation that would give large, tremendously profitable multinational companies an even greater advantage to the disadvantage of the Canadian public is certainly beyond me and beyond anyone on this side of the House.
I think of the cap on CAP and its devastating effect on the three more well-off provinces, and the GST and the list goes on and on. We can talk about the cuts to post-secondary education and health care. They are devastating.
The main thrust of Motion No. 4 concerns the studies which ought to have been done in order to make some kind of sense out of this. The challenge was that the government show us the studies. Did it do them? It is obvious that it did not or else they would have been forthcoming.
In the few moments available to us in this debate, a mere 10 minutes, I would like to make particular reference to the agricultural sector of our nation and the outcome I am sure which the government would have come to had it actually done the studies.

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I would like to start with the first item. I came into the House of Commons at the same time as the free trade agreement. The last years have shown that the free trade agreement has had a devastating effect on Canada and its people.
I think of the changes to the unemployment insurance scheme, one of the sacred trusts which the government promised would be left in place and untouched. The negative effect on unemployment insurance was exactly what we predicted, in the final analysis the municipalities, the smaller governments in the land, would be the jurisdictions which would be saddled with the devastating effects of the changes.
We now have an enormous number of people on the social welfare rolls in the municipalities, in the cities. We
There are realities in Canada in so far as agriculture is concerned, particularly in western Canada where a goodly portion of our farm land is subject to a deficit in moisture. If you look at the agricultural picture within the United States compared to Canada you will find that in the mid-1980s the total farmland in the United States was about 400 million hectares with the crop land areas somewhere at 186 million hectares, compared to 68 million hectares of farmland in Canada with only 33 million being in crop land, giving obviously a tremendous advantage to the United States in so far as agriculture is concerned.
If you look at western Canada you find as well that the western United States suffers to some extent from a deficit of moisture but there you have comparisons again of land which has been irrigated. Canada has less than 750,000 hectares of irrigated land, mainly in the areas with less than 120 frost-free days. That certainly is significant.

May 25, 1993

The U.S. has 18 million hectares of farmland which is irrigated and a large proportion of that has as much as 240 frost-free days.
The U.S. currently has a massive amount of underused crop land. In 1980 as a result of various commodity programs, the areas of idle crop land in the United States was over 20 million hectares which corresponds to 60 per cent of the total Canadian crop land area.
The point is that the Canadian agricultural industry is at a tremendous disadvantage for a lot of very geographic reasons vis-a-vis the United States. As a result, over the years regulations have had to be put into place which protected Canadian agriculture. There is nothing wrong with that but what we are going to have under the free trade agreement is a situation where the tariffs which we have imposed on commodities coming into Canada are going to be eroded.
What this really means is that we are suffering from that age old malaise, which the Conservative Party seems to be so fond of pursuing, deregulation, which of course goes along with privatization and free trade. I was going to call them the three sisters of the Conservative philosophy in so far as the economic outlook of Canada is concerned, but it certainly is maligning any gender connotation that may be associated with calling them the three sisters. I guess a better way of describing it would be the three devils: privatization, free trade, and deregulation.
We are talking about the regulations which we have in place-the tariffs which we have in place are merely regulations-which previous governments, provincial and federal, in their wisdom have put in place to protect Canadian agriculture against the geographic differences in which we find in the industry, but also some other actions which are so endemic in the American free wheeling, free enterprise way of life.
They are exemplified probably best of all by an action which the United States has taken subsequent to the passage of the free trade agreement. We have to use what has happened in the free trade agreement as the example of what will happen under the North American free trade agreement.
What I am proposing in the light of the evidence is that the Americans will continue to conduct themselves in a way which benefits only the American economy, only the
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American industry, only the American philosophy as well.
The previous speaker from Mackenzie pointed out how much the Americans had simply ignored treaties which they had reached. I would like to point out that a provision of the free trade agreement states that each party shall take into account the export interests of the other party in the use of any export subsidy on any agricultural good exported to third countries, recognizing that such subsidies may have prejudicial effects on the export interests of the other party. We have had an epidemic.
I see that my time is up but what I really wanted to emphasize is that had this government done the sectorial studies, it would have found how enormously costly this North American free trade agreement was going to be in the agricultural sector. I suggest that those studies never were done or this free trade agreement would never have been contemplated.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Madam Speaker, this is turning into a marathon debate. Many members in this House of Commons are very concerned about Bill C-155, which is the implementing legislation for the North American free trade agreement between Canada and the United States of America and Mexico.
It is a massive document that is being hammered through Parliament in some four hours of sitting time of the House. This will be expanded because of the allnight debate in which we are taking part at 8.10 in the morning. The government is forcing this legislation through the House. As the hon. member who just spoke said, there are no sectoral studies, no investigations as to what the impacts of this agreement will be. It is just a matter of putting this legislation through as fast as possible for whatever reason. Whether it is that the Prime Minister wants to have a footnote in history that he passed the FTA while he was in office or whether there is some other agenda, no one knows.
The strange part of it all is Mexico has not implemented the agreement. The United States has not even brought the legislation into its Congress yet. There is no agreement. As a matter of fact, the agreements and negotiations relating to the side agreements have broken down, the companion agreements which the President of the United States has been demanding with regard to labour standards and with regard to the environment.

May 25, 1993
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The amendment before us and the subamendment to Motion No. 4 says nothing in this act or agreement shall be interpreted so as to prohibit a party to the agreement from requiring commercial entities within its sovereign territory to process raw materials or raw resources before exporting such materials or resources.
This is a very important amendment because the history of Canada in many ways has been to try to build a nation where we process our resources within this nation. In the past we have been disproportionately dependent on raw resources. Eighty per cent of our wheat and coarse grains shipped internationally are unprocessed. It is top quality, but not made into biscuits or other food that is edible, but shipped in the raw. Or it may be lumber that is shipped in the round log, or in coarse lumber.
This proposed amendment really spells out that we should maintain the ability of Canada to process its raw resources. Those of us who come from resource sectors of the country, whether it is in western Canada or northern Ontario or Atlantic or northern Quebec or some of the other parts of the country, are very conscious of this because all kinds of blocks have been put in our way.
For instance, in my constituency we have the uranium mines at Elliot Lake. That whole industry collapsed in 1959 when the United States Atomic Energy Commission cancelled the contracts for further purchase of uranium from Elliot Lake. We had some 13 producing uranium mines there which had expanded dramatically during the last half of the 1950s. Those contracts were snuffed out in 1959.
It is interesting that during that period of the 1950s the United States was demanding more and more uranium. As soon as those contracts to take our uranium were cancelled in 1959, laws were brought in the United States whereby they would not take any Canadian uranium because the demand for the nuclear weapons program was fulfilled. They were looking after their own electrical generating plants by preventing any Canadian uranium.
We are in this motion before the House trying to ensure that Canadians have the opportunity to process whatever resources they have in this country, and are not
subjected to pressure under this agreement to prevent that. There is the obvious example in British Columbia of round logs being sold to the United States rather than being made into lumber, materials, desks, furniture or whatever.
I believe the example which is going to be coming to the fore in the next decade is the whole question of the production of ethanol on the prairies. I think it gives the greatest opportunity for diversification that I can think of in the prairie region. We know the western sedimentary basin has been a tremendous resource in terms of natural gas. There are still great reserves there.
When we move over to crude oil, we will find that by the middle of this decade some 500,000 barrels a day of light sweet crude will have to be imported into this country. That represents almost one-third of our petroleum demand.
As we move toward a more environmentally sustainable economy and environment, we should be moving toward the use of ethanol. In fact, in many parts of the United States the old petroleum industry is being supplanted with some 5 per cent or 10 per cent of ethanol being used in automotive fuels. That is not only possible if you are in Canada, it is desirable. If we are spending billions of dollars importing 500,000 barrels a day of crude oil from offshore, then we certainly should be moving to supplant some 10 per cent of our automotive petroleum needs through the use of ethanol. It provides for great diversification of the prairie economy.
Last year about this time I had a chance to visit a plant in Lanigan, Saskatchewan, some 70 miles east of Saskatoon. That plant utilizes one million bushels of feed wheat. It produces 10 million litres of ethanol a year. It has on feed something like 18,000 head of cattle. That is going to be expanded to some 40,000 head of cattle.
This is the kind of diversification and further processing of our raw resources that we need, in this case our wheat, barley, and other grains to do really two or three things. First of all, to diversify that economy, get the value-added, provide a more environmentally acceptable fuel for our gas and for our automotive fuel supplies, and utilize that production that is available.
May 25, 1993

We pride ourselves on the quality of the grain that we ship abroad, some 20 or 30 million tonnes a year. Much of that grain in the past has gone to countries which could not afford to pay for it. So we have debts outstanding to the Canadian Wheat Board of some $4 billion, $5 billion or $6 billion which is garnering $300 million or $400 million worth of interest every year. Surely, it would make more sense to use some of this grain. We could in fact create a vast new market.
What does this have to do with the resolution before us that says nothing in this act or agreement shall be interpreted so as to prohibit a party to the agreement from requiring another party to the agreement to process raw materials or raw resources before exporting such materials or resources?
The reason we are talking about this is because if we do develop the ethanol industry, we have to be sure that that industry is going to have some protection during the early years. Otherwise, it would be wiped out by imports from the United States.
We have to build into this agreement arrangements so that we can develop that industry and other industry in a fair and equitable way so that the future is ours and that we are processing our resources and getting the value-added. We should be doing the high tech thing that will create jobs for our young people, not just the kind of things that happened in the FTA, where literally hundreds of thousands of good paying jobs were given away. Many of our young people are now suffering because they are working at low pay, low skill, low wages and dead-end jobs in the service sector which is not what we want for them.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Madam Speaker, I am happy to be able to say a few words on this subamendment that was presented a few minutes ago in this very historic debate. It is historic in the sense that this is a piece of legislation that we talked about several times today as being a redrafting of the North American economic constitution.
This is also an historic debate because we have gone throughout the night concentrating specifically on the very negative aspects of the North American free trade agreement and the legislation that the government has put on the table, Bill C-115, to implement the agreement.
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It is 8.20 a.m. here after an all-night debate that established that there are a great many questions that this government has left unanswered in dealing with this legislation. It proves to me and I am sure to many of those people who have been watching this debate beyond the shadow of a doubt that this legislation required a great deal more scrutiny than it received up to this point. It still requires a great deal more scrutiny because these questions which we are raising throughout this debate tonight remain unanswered.
The subamendment raises one of the most significant questions of all. That is does this agreement prohibit the development of value-added processing particularly in areas in rural Canada? When we were debating the free trade agreement with the United States, we were told of the great opportunities that Saskatchewan would have for the development of factories, manufacturing and processing plants because the United States was going to require so much of our product.
What happened instead? The factories, the manufacturing plants and the processing plants have not materialized. The investors who were going to participate in value-added programs simply treated the Saskatchewan and Canadian marketplace as being an arm of their main plants in the United States.
The North American free trade agreement expands this so that now the food market in particular can probably be serviced as a processed product from the United States into Mexico and into Canada. All we are doing is cementing the ability of these multinational agribusiness companies to cement their hold on the marketplace.
One of the telling signs in all of this is that one of the largest multinational agribusiness corporations operating in Canada now, Cargill Inc., has already moved to establish a plant in Mexico in order to be able to utilize some of the raw product out of Canada and the United States to be processed in Mexico at much reduced prices and then sold back into our marketplace.
We are going to be reduced to a consumer society with no funds with which to purchase those consumable goods. Agribusiness and the multinational corporations by pursuing this strategy may find that eventually they have bought themselves right out of a market. That is some time down the road and we as Canadian producers and workers are going to be the ones who will pay the price in the meantime.

May 25, 1993
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The subamendment simply reads: "Nothing in this act or the agreements shall be interpreted so as to prohibit a party to the agreement from requiring commercial entities within its sovereign territory to process raw materials or raw resources before exporting such materials or resources".
Essentially what we are saying is that Canada should be able to require that some product be supported for processing and manufacturing within Canada and that we not be penalized if in fact we try to do that.
We take a look at the North American free trade agreement on another aspect and this becomes more important. That is when we realize that the North American free trade agreement actually prohibits a buy Canadian type of a program in this country. When we cannot even get into a program that is going to promote Canadian products within Canadian territory, how are we ever going to protect fledgling industries in rural communities where investments are not great from developing, particularly industries that have a lot to do with the resources?
Over the last year I have done a fair bit of study on the economy of Saskatchewan. I would like to put on the record some of the things I found out about the Saskatchewan economy. It will be seen how important value added processing is going to be to the future of communities like those within my constituency boundaries, the smaller communities where we have to take agricultural products and own them for a little longer in the process in order to achieve greater returns at the farm gate.
Agriculture makes up about 14 per cent of the over-all economic activity in the province of Saskatchewan. In terms of that 14 per cent of activities for agriculture, this is the highest of any province in Canada. Prince Edward Island is second in terms of its agriculture production. Agriculture is the single biggest contributor of any economic activity in the province of Saskatchewan.
Of the farm cash receipts to date, 50 per cent comes from wheat, 18 per cent from cattle, 11 per cent from canola and 6 per cent from the other groups, the barleys, the peas and oats. The industry has diversified over the years. In 1951 we were seeding 23.7 million acres and in 1991, we were seeding 33.3 million acres.
Wheat has gone from 64 per cent of the crops sown to 52 per cent of the crops sown today. Specialty crops and canola for example really is the area which has benefited the most from diversification on the prairies. Canola went from virtually no production a few years ago to 10 per cent of the acres sown in the province now.
The processing is obviously something that is very much desired.


An hon. member:: So why do the polls support NAFTA?


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: They do not. The polls certainly do not. That is a good example of how the government does not even know what the agriculture producers in western Canada are saying.
It is interesting to look at the ratio of farm gate sales to food manufacturing and processing sales in Saskatchewan and other provinces. It should be known that Saskatchewan, where agriculture is the single largest economic activity, is also the province with the lowest ratio of farm gate sales to food manufacturers and processors in all of Canada. In Saskatchewan we get 30 cents of processed product for every dollar of farm gate sales. It just shows how dependent we are on farm gate sales.
The Atlantic provinces get $4.45 for every dollar that comes from farm gate sales. That is $4.45 in processed goods for every dollar in farm gate sales. B.C. gets $2.76 on every dollar. Quebec gets $3 on every dollar. As I mentioned, in Saskatchewan we get just 30 cents of processed product for every dollar in farm gate sales.
It can be seen that Saskatchewan lags far behind the other provinces in processing. It is very important that we find ways to protect the growth of the processing value added industries in Canada if our province is going to survive. That means this amendment must be supported by this House.


Marlene Catterall: Madam Speaker, I have to repeat for the second time in this long night how the debate is making it clear that the efforts to force this huge agreement through this House in a matter of hours over a period of three days is so contrary to the public interest. It is incomprehensible why the government is insisting on doing this.
May 25, 1993

The agreement has not been approved by either the United States or Mexico. We are still in negotiations about issues and other accords to go with the agreement. They are are so crucial that the American President has said that NAFTA will not be implemented until agreements satisfactory to the United States are part of it.
We sit here, forced by this government within a matter of three days-and that means very few hours of debate and even less if we had not extended it right through the night-to give up Canada's bargaining power in those negotiations that are going on, prepared to concede on a number of issues still to be resolved.
I want to focus and expand on my remarks of earlier this morning concerning the environmental implications of this agreement.
The Minister for International Trade claimed during the negotiations that Canada had put forward very strong environmental conditions in this accord, that it had the agreement of Mexico and that those were not included because the United States would not agree with them.
It is a little hard to believe that when that door is now open on environmental conditions and on labour standards and occupational health and safety the American government is insisting on renegotiating. Our Minister for International Trade turns tail and runs in a panic.
It is appalling for me to go back to last June when the Canadian Prime Minister went to Rio. He claimed leadership for Canada on environmental issues and claimed how committed we were to sustainable development. Yet we end up with a document two inches thick that includes not one concrete enforceable provision on the environment. We end up with no ability for Canada to do as this motion suggests, have the power to determine that as we export our resources we are not going to export jobs.
At an international conference I had the privilege of meeting a woman parliamentarian from Bolivia. She was proud to show me their new legislation on forest products which she had been responsible for developing as chair of their committee on environment and resources. It says very clearly that Bolivia will create jobs with its
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resources within Bolivia. It will create jobs for its poor people. It will create economic prosperity for its people with its resources. Here is Canada giving up the right to do that, obligating ourselves to export the future of our young people when we export our resources.
This parliamentarian told me about the difficulty she had encountered in bringing forth this legislation and having it approved by her Parliament and all the pressures that had come from the lumber companies. We hear them all too often. However, unlike our own Minister of the Environment who wants to be Prime Minister, she did not cave in and her Parliament did not cave in. They said that the resources of the Bolivian people will be used to benefit the Bolivian people.
I bring Bolivia into this because this is not simply an agreement among Canada, the United States and Mexico. This is the first step in an agreement that can potentially include every country in the western hemisphere, on the North American and South American continents. The right of new countries to come into this agreement and the lack of precision and provision, the lack of looking forward to what that will mean to us is absolutely irresponsible.
We are concerned about Mexico's environmental standards and enforcement. Mexico has some of the best legislation in the world on the environment, better than Canada's in many cases, but it is not enforced. If we are concerned about the environmental standards in Mexico, I ask some of those members opposite who have not had the courage, the character or the honesty to get up and put forward their position as this debate went on all night. They have sat there and they have failed to justify to Canadians why this agreement has to be passed at all, why it has to be passed in the next two days without debate, and what the implications are going to be.
Those hon. members should go and visit some South American and Central American countries that can now accede to this agreement with no environmental standards except in a preamble that has no force and effect. Go and visit Sao Paulo and see the situation there and the devastation of the environment. Mexico is nothing to worry about. I wonder if any of those members would have the courage to go and see the environmental standards in some of the other countries that could now without problem come into this.

May 25, 1993
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I want to talk very briefly about the assassination of democracy that has gone on with this process, and I want to give a good example of how good democracy works.
In the area of communications, I watched the hearings of the committee on television. I was appalled that the member for Mount royal was being treated with contempt, with disdain, with summary dismissal by officials of this government when she raised some very important issues on communications.
I watched that and I cringed for those who were forced to defend the indefensible. These hearings went on for two days. Ultimately when they got to clause by clause it turned out that the member for Mount royal was right. Elowever she had to sit there and point out that this two-inch thick document had not been properly translated into the legislation.
She had to force the government to concede that over 40 amendments were needed to correct the legislation. That is in just one area, that of communications. Had this government given the Canadian people and parliamentarians more than two weeks to look through that agreement and the legislation arising from it, what improvements could have been made? What public discussion should have happened on the environment and on agriculture?
My colleagues have been saying tonight that no sectoral studies were done. It does not really matter because with the FTA when sectoral studies were done the report was suppressed or amended if this government did not like the answers.
If we do not accept that, I ask the members opposite to find out the truth. They did not do the sectoral studies because it is easier than having to suppress the truth or change the truth if it does not suit their agenda.
It is clear that we need more time on this issue. It is far too important for our constituents, for Canada and for our future to ram it through in this fashion.


John Harvard: Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak at this time and follow on the heels of my colleague from Ottawa.
She was asking: Why pass NAFTA now? What is the hurry? This government knows that it is on the way out. Pretty soon it will be history. The Prime Minister of the day wants to leave a legacy. The legacy that he wants to leave, in part anyway, is NAFTA. He wants that enshrined in legislation before he leaves office.
He has no regard at all for Canadian voters or for the country and certainly has no regard for the democratic process. After all we should have a thorough debate. This issue has not been debated well at committee nor has it been debated well in the House, at least in terms of assigning hours to it.
Right now we are under time allocation and in just a matter of hours later today the axe will come down. That is not the way to deal with an issue of this magnitude.
I want to say something about this subamendment because it goes to the heart of some of the concerns we have in this country. We are concerned about shipping raw materials out of the country because when we ship raw materials out of the country we ship jobs out of the country. That is a concern to all of us.
It also addresses the matter of value-added activity. Canadians have now come to realize that if we are going to rebuild the economy or ever experience prosperity again, such as we did 20 or 30 years ago, we are going to have to pay much more attention to value-added activity.
We cannot be content to just extract raw materials of one kind or another and ship them out of the country. When that happens jobs leave. This subamendment concerns looking after our own needs and tending to business. It deals with looking after ourselves. That is contrary to the current Tory ideology because Tories say we are not supposed to look after ourselves but just accept the dictates of the marketplace.
We know how that is working. It is not working very well. Let me give an example that comes from my very own riding.
May 25, 1993

About three to four years ago there was a very active battery plant in my riding called Varta Batteries. An American company came in and bought up that plant and a companion plant in St. Thomas, Ontario. At that time we received the usual line. We were told: ''We are consolidating. We are downsizing. We are right-sizing. We are going to close the Winnipeg plant but we will keep the St. Thomas, Ontario plant open. Do not worry, we have everything under control. We know what we are doing. We are market-wise and efficient". Those are all the usual Tory buzz words that we hear.
The company closed the plant in my riding. Along with that closure 140 jobs were lost. However we were told not to worry because the St. Thomas plant was open and it was supplying much of the Canadian market through the St. Thomas plant.
Guess what? A couple of years after that, about a year ago, the St. Thomas plant closed. Where did we benefit? Despite all the talk about efficiency and being business-wise and market-wise and serving the consumer we lost two plants in Canada and hundreds of jobs.
Maybe I am just old fashioned but I believe in some quid pro quo, you scratch my back and I will scratch your back. What is wrong with a company coming into the country and serving the market, in this case batteries, but in return supplying some jobs? What is wrong with that? Under the current Tory ideology which we now suffer under there is nothing wrong with a company moving out of Canada or a company buying up a plant and moving to the United States or some other place in the world and supplying our market from afar.
What happens? The company starts off selling us a product of one kind or another and we do not get anything in return. How long can that go on? Can we forever go on just buying commodities from someone else outside of the country without getting anything in return, without getting jobs? It seems to me that we cannot. Sooner or later we are not going to have any jobs and when we do not have any jobs we do not have any spending power.
This process that we see under Tory so-called free trade or Tory globalization is ultimately going to end in
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disaster. If the marketplace simply says that we will have all the jobs in Mexico or all the jobs in Canada and Canadians will do all the buying, what happens? At the end it seems to me that we will be out of jobs and spending power. Then we will not have any economy left.
We have to be concerned about what economists now refer to as the jobless economy or the jobless recovery. The Conservative government that is on the way out tells us that productivity numbers are up and that the recession is over as of last February. It says we are back to the productivity levels of 1990. It tells us not to worry because everything is on track, everything is going well and exports are up.
It is true that the figures are better than they were but the jobs are not there. We are producing about the same as we did three years ago with about half a million fewer workers. Is that the way we want the market to work? Are we to be so slavish to technology and neo-conservative economics that we just accept that? Do we just accept the numbers? Do we just accept technology the way it is manifesting itself now or do we do something about jobs? It seems to me that we have to address the issue of jobs.
We cannot have a strong economy with huge numbers of unemployed. Right now there are officially about 1.6 million Canadians unemployed, that is 11.4 per cent of the work force. That is a drag on the economy. We are paying out billions of dollars in unemployment insurance and we are paying out billions of dollars in welfare.
Think of the indignities heaped upon unemployed workers. Most Canadians want to work. They do not want to be unemployed. They want to be productive citizens. They are looking at us and telling us that they want to work and be productive. They want to pay taxes. If they paid taxes there would be more revenue for the government. If there is more revenue for the government it would be in a position to pay down some of the deficit. After all, the Tories have been telling us that for a number of years. They have said that we have to get that deficit down. Mulroney said in 1983-84 that they were going to have that deficit down to $3 billion in 1990.


Brian Vincent Tobin: What is it now?

May 25, 1993
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M. Harvard:: It is $35 billion. It is right on track. We have to be fiscally responsible. What is fiscally responsible in Tory jargon? It is taking the debt from about $169 billion and pushing it up to $450 billion. Boy, they are good economic managers. They go around and tell the whole world that only Tories know how to manage economies, only Tories provide strong economic leadership.
They say that all the Liberals do is spend. They are profligate spenders. They know nothing about managing an economy. The gall, the unmitigated audacity these people have to go around the country and say how great they are at managing the economy.
After nine years this economy is in tatters. It is in shreds. Then when something as important as the NAFTA comes along they say that they will allow just a few hours of debate and shove it down our throats because they know best.
They have a sharp awakening down the road because when election day comes Canadians will tell them exactly how they feel about this country and it will be bye-bye.


Guy St-Julien: Madam Speaker, as I stated on Februraiy 16, 1993 in this House, Quebec and Quebec's Liberal government support the federal government where the North American Free Trade Agreement is concerned and in general the Quebec government sees NAFTA in a favourable light.
Often it is said in the House of Commons-and this is particularly true of the opposition parties-that note is taken of what ministers, officials and political attaches say, but I want to focus on what has been written in the newspapers in recent months about this free trade agreement. What has been said about it?
I have here in my possession an article that appeared in the February 16, 1993 issue of La Presse. That is not so long ago; I am not talking about the 1980s or 1982, but about 1993.
Quebec supports Ottawa trade.
While Ontario wants to scuttle NAFTA, Quebec, which sees many advantages in this agreement, has taken the opposite tack and supports the Conservative federal government.
Indeed, when Minister of International Affairs John Ciaccia made public a 90-page study on Quebec and NAFTA, he stated that, in general, Quebec's Liberal government sees NAFTA in a favourable light.
We can see from this statement that Quebec's Liberal government has taken this free trade agreement seriously and has commissioned a study of it that is 90 pages long: not two pages, or four pages, but 90 pages. I believe that when the premier, Mr. Bourassa, prepares papers, they are well done.
At a press conference, the Minister said that this difference of opinion could be explained by the fact that, as he put it, Ontario is living in the 19th century. Mr. Caccia also accused Bob Rae's NPD government of not thinking about the future, something that does not help workers.
A little farther on in this article in La Presse, written by Richard Dupaul and Gilles Normand, we read that:
In Mr. Caccia's opinion, this agreement offers Quebec great possibilities by giving it access to the world's richest market-a thousand billion dollars-, and he was anxious to reassure those who were concerned about the fate of social programs. He gave assurance that neither NAFTA nor the Canada-US agreement jeopardizes Canada's social programs.
This article also discusses increased competition, saying that:
From an economic point of view, the Government of Quebec, a Liberal government, considers that the objectives it had set for itself at the beginning of the negotiations have been reached. And there is reassurance concerning NAFTA's impact on key industries, even if Quebec businesses will face increased competition from the United States.
The Minister also states:
According to the authors of the study, Mexico's entry into the free trade area will not fundamentally upset the economic parameters that Quebec producers, exporters and investors must take into account.
Quebec makes certain gains under NAFTA, including the fact that this agreement opens the door to Quebec investors who would like to acquire, set up and operate electric generating stations in Mexico.
Banks, insurance companies and stockbrokers will also be able to set up subsidiaries in Meixco, under certain limiting conditions that will, then, be phased out over an eight-year period.
Where agriculture is concerned, Quebec is very pleased that NAFTA does not affect Canada's supply management system for eggs, dairy products and poultry products. Increasingly often, it is emphasized that there are promising markets in Mexico for producers of dairy cows and bovine genetic material.
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The journalist in this article states:
I recognize that certain sectors will be more sensitive to foreign competition.
Automobile manufacturers such as Hyundai will have to increase their North American content. A period of time is provided in order to allow businesses to adapt to the new standards.
In closing, Quebec's Liberal government says:
The new trade agreement respects the Quebec statutes on professional practice, consumer protection and financial services and that, furthermore, Quebec's language policy is not affected.
A little farther back, in another article written in November of last year and also published in La Presse, we read that Mexico and NAFTA represent a new Eldorado for Quebec investors. The author is a lawyer and a member of the Montreal bar association and has a doctorate in law from the Universite Pantheon-Sor-bonne in Paris. He is an expert in matters of international economic law. His article is a full page in La Presse and mentions easier access to Mexico, better treatment and protection, and new investment opportunities.
What is interesting in his article and what concerns my constituency of Abitibi, a resource-based region, and is of particular concern to several resource-based regions in Quebec is that it deals with mining. The professor says that in the mining sector-and this is his last example-it must be realized that Mexico is a major producer of minerals. It is estimated that only 20 per cent of Mexico's potential deposits have been found. According to a KPGM-Peat Marwick survey, over the next 10 years the coming into force of NAFTA will boost Mexico's mining production by 13.2 per cent simply because of economic expansion and the demand for base minerals. This sector therefore seems quite promising. What NAFTA will do to allow Quebec businesses to profit from this sector is to allow them by the year 2001 to hold 100 per cent of the capital of a business set up or to be set up in Mexico in order to extract or develop all types of minerals.
This is important for the mining sector in our constituencies. Another thing that we should not forget is that NAFTA and the environment are good news for Canada. I understand that in the opinion of some observers NAFTA has raised concerns about its impact on Canada's environment. They feel that NAFTA will harm our high standards because the environmental regulations of
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the other signatory countries are not as strict as ours. However, a recent environmental review shows that these concerns are unfounded. This statement has been made repeatedly by the hon. member for Sherbrooke in this House. He has stated that there is no cause for concern, that he is attentive, that negotiations are still to take place, and that neither Quebec nor Canada will be led down the garden path.
Indeed, we asked that an environmental review of the impact of NAFTA be carried out, the first review of its kind world-wide of an initiative of this magnitude, a trade treaty. The purposes of this review are to examine closely the provisions of NAFTA dealing with the environment and to understand clearly the effect of this agreement on environmental matters.
NAFTA includes environmental protection provisions that are unequalled in any other trade treaty in effect in the world. NAFTA protects our right to establish and apply our own strict environmental standards. What is more, we will be able to influence the establishment and amendment of the standards adopted by NAFTA partners.
Madam Speaker, I realize that I do not have much time left. I also know that Canada can compete with Mexico. Competition is not solely a matter of labour costs. The world's main exporting countries, such as Japan, Canada and Germany, pay high salaries.
If cheap labour is the determining factor in deciding where to put a factory, how is it that 87 per cent of imports to Canada come from Europe or Japan rather than from countries where labour is cheap? Canada has net advantages over Mexico which make it more attractive for the investor. With a better-educated population, superior transportation and communications networks, and a reputation for excellence in manufacturing, Canadian workers are much more productive than Mexican workers.
I understand why people are sometimes apprehensive, but together with the opposition parties we can find solutions for the future of Canada and the future of our workers.

May 25, 1993
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Sidney James Parker: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on this amendment to the NAFTA. I want to address my comments to the sector by sector studies which are proposed on this amendment. I want to start with transportation.
All we have to do is look at the free trade agreement that was reached in 1988 to see the ramifications of what has happened with regard to transportation. We built a country and a railway system from east to west to accommodate a vast country. Now we are finding in only four years of trade with the Americans that the major railways are starting to talk about abandoning their track from the Atlantic provinces to Quebec.
Thousands of railway jobs have been lost in these four years. The railways are starting to direct their attention to the transportation of their goods through Chicago and on to the American rail lines.
We are a young country. Our taxpayers have put out hundreds of millions of dollars toward the building of this transportation system. But we are seeing it, especially our rail transportation system, disappear before our eyes.
We saw government get out of the rail passenger service. We saw it get out of the various other areas and the abandonments of track, all for profits. Our whole railway transportation system is disappearing before our eyes. There is the possibility of the two railways having to join together as one because of the kinds of policies that this government is bringing in. It shows the kinds of inept studies that were done before these agreements were signed.
I do not have to go any further on the railway part of it. We all know about the lay-offs, the abandonment of tracks, the kinds of policies that are taking place. The people across Canada know exactly what these agreements are doing.
Our air industry has reached a point of almost total collapse. Air Canada is striving to save itself. CP Air is trying to save itself. To try to save Canadian Pacific, $250 million of federal moneys have just been been announced. What is it doing? It is discussing the possibility of the American Airlines joining forces with them.
We are not even going to be able to have a transportation policy that will serve our own country. This government is bringing about the total destruction of our whole
system of transportation. A country cannot survive without having a transportation system that will serve its needs.
I could look at telecommunications. I sat in the committee when they were talking about the deregulation of our telecommunication systems. The minister said when I asked him what kind of regulations he was going to bring in to try to maintain Canadian content in our telecommunications: "Oh, we do not want to do that. We want to compete with the Americans. We want to open it up so we can compete." My God, we are like a fly compared to all of the communications that are into the States. They will swallow us up with one little hiccup and we will disappear. What does it all mean?
We have built a telecommunications system across Canada that would serve our people. We had it regulated so that the large profitable areas would subsidize our rural areas. My rural areas are going to want to get a private line brought in so they can get into the fax machines and so on. They are going to go before the transport committee and it is going to say: "Well, the company did not make enough profit last year so we cannot force it to do it".
That is how we were able to build the kind of communication system that we need in Canada. Under the CRTC and under the regulations we had we were able to cross subsidize. We were able to say to the telecommunications companies that because they made this extra profit, we would allow them to pay their shareholders but they would have to use some of that profit to build a better system.
We have done that very successfully. Elowever we are not going to be able to do this when these kinds of things come in. Again it is the deterioration of our telecommunication systems.
The truckers were here less than a year and a half ago all concerned about the trucking industry in Canada. Again the government has opened the doors. Of course our people are unemployed.
With regard to the finishing of our forest products we have not even begun those kinds of things. All we have done is the very raw production of our forests such as two by fours, lumber and shipping it as fast as we can. We are not into the manufacturing portions and we will not be able to either under this kind of agreement.
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The machinery for our mining industry and the diesels and equipment for our railway systems, opening this up is actually ludicrous.
This free trade agreement will bring Canada to its knees if we proceed on the present course. I brought up the water issue time and time again and the ramifications of what the government is doing with regard to water under the Columbia River treaty and other treaties. There are the ramifications it has on our tourist industries and the sub-industries that relate to that, the people who sell the boats, motor homes and recreational things. We are losing them.
We are losing control of our own country and the government has not even done the studies to be able to answer the questions that many of us want answered.
It is a shame that after a full night's debate into the next day the Conservative members cannot even defend the kind of policies that they are trying to promote with this free trade agreement.
The member from Quebec spoke about the environmental aspects and how Quebec was not concerned about that. Is it not odd that the Americans are very concerned about that? The Americans are saying that they want a side agreement, that they are not going to sign this agreement until they have it. However Canada says: "No, we are not concerned about that. We will push it through because the Prime Minister is going to be finished in a few days. We want to get this legislation passed before he leaves." That is not good enough. The Canadian people will not allow that. We in the New Democratic Party will stay here and we will keep debating this matter until we get some answers. We want some answers with regard to the kinds of policies and programs that will be affected by this agreement.


Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Madam Speaker, in speaking to this subamendment I am doing so to oppose the NAFTA legislation. It is relevant and useful to begin by asking what was the original purpose of what we have now, the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement?
The Prime Minister said its purpose was to end all trade harassment by the United States oi Canadian exports to that country. He said it was to provide absolute security of access for our trade with the United
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States. That is what the Prime Minister said. That is what he promised would be the result of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. He said these would be his objectives and if they were not achieved there would be no such agreement.
We have known from the day the Canada-U.S. deal was announced that these objectives were not and have not been achieved. The deal that was signed by the Conservatives was an unfinished deal. It contained no definition of subsidies when it went into effect on January 1, 1989.
This definition, a subsidies code, instead was to be negotiated over a period from five to seven years. Now, four years later, there is still no definition of subsidy.
The free trade agreement did not free us from United States trade harassment. If anything it has intensified. One incident has followed another. Softwood lumber was followed by pork, steel, wheat and magnesium.
When Canada joined the United States and Mexico in their negotiations for a trade deal the Minister for International Trade said we were not to worry because Canada-Mexico trade was very small and the Canada-U.S. free trade deal was not on the table.
However when the NAFTA deal was announced we found that this was not true. The Canada-U.S. free trade deal and everything connected with it had been on the table. In fact the NAFTA was justified by the Conservative government on the basis that it cured all the problems in the original Canada-U.S. deal.
That is kind of peculiar because according to the Conservatives when they first announced it there were no problems with that Canada-U.S. deal in the first place. The Conservatives originally said in effect the Canada-U.S. deal was perfect. They said it would bring security of access for our exports to the United States and it would bring new and expanded dimensions and benefits to Canada in its trade with that country.
Yes, it certainly brought new dimensions. Hundreds of thousands of jobs have disappeared. Plant after plant closed as work in them was taken away and consolidated in the plants of U.S. parent firms, leaving nothing behind but closed factories and the occasional warehouse and sales office.

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This tragically is continuing. In the past year we have seen cases such as Champion Spark Plug in Windsor and the recent Jergens case in eastern Ontario. We were promised by the Conservatives that the Canada-U.S. deal would make it a matter of indifference as to whether a plant located this side of the border or the other side. Either way they said it could serve all of the United States and Canadian markets. They claimed that many more plants would establish or expand here in Canada for that purpose. This has not happened.
We have seen very few if any companies establish in Canada to serve the combined Canadian and American markets. We have seen few if any companies consolidate here in Canada rather than in the United States if they had to consolidate their operations. It has just about always been in the other direction.
The latest example is Dofasco which said it was setting up a new steel mill in Kentucky. A principal reason given was the company could not take any more trade harassment by the United States authorities of its steel exports to that country. Since the free trade agreement there has been the chilling effect of continued U.S. trade actions of countervail and the like.
There have been the delays, the costs and the lack of binding decisions in the dispute settlement mechanism that was supposed to be one of the great positive features of the Canada-U.S. deal. All this is making Canadian businesses decide they should just as well set up in the United States where they can serve both the American market and the Canadian market without facing the threat or the risk of U.S. trade harassment.
In addition to their broken promises regarding what the Iree trade deal would do to end trade harassment and provide secure access for exports to the United States the Conservatives broke another promise. They did not carry out their pledge to have the best adjustment programs in the world to help Canadian workers whose jobs would be eliminated because of the Canada-United States deal.
Madam Speaker, why do I tell you this? Why do I tell the House this? It is because the very same bunch, the very same Conservative gang that brought us the Canada-U.S. free trade deal, has now brought us a new trade deal, the NAFTA. The same Conservative gang that
botched and bungled the negotiations for the Canada-U.S. deal and brought us that flawed arrangement has now negotiated another deal.
They say it is good for Canada and in fact it is better than the U.S.-Canada deal. They say it corrects all its errors and omissions. Why should Canadians believe them now? How can we believe them now when we can clearly see their failures when it comes to the Canada-U.S. deal.
Canadians can see how they failed to carry out their promises to end U.S. trade harassment, to create totally secure access for Canadian trade to that country, to create hundreds of thousands of more jobs through the deal and to provide marvellous new adjustment programs for our workers.
None of this has come true. How can Canadians believe the Conservatives now when they make the same kinds of promises all over again for the NAFTA? Why should Canadians allow themselves to be fooled, to be deceived for a second time by the Conservatives into accepting their NAFTA deal.
NAFTA does not correct the flaws of the free trade deal in that there is still no subsidies code. We are still open to U.S. trade harassment. Its anti-dumping and countervail laws are still there. What was supposed to be the marvel of the free trade deal, the dispute settlement mechanism, even under the new NAFTA would still be too long, too cumbersome, too costly, and decisions at the end of the process would still not be final and binding in every case.
There are new and additional problems now that Mexico is to be added under the NAFTA. There is nothing to prevent unfair competition for Canadian plants and workers arising from the extremely low wages of Mexican workers. It does nothing to prevent unfair competition from plants in Mexico due to their lack of labour, health, safety and environmental standards similar to our own or the lack of any real enforcement of any such standards in that country.
This will mean the companies operating in Mexico can have an unfair cost advantage over companies in Canada that have to pay Canadian wages and live up to our health, safety and environmental standards. Also under the NAFTA Canada would not have the same degree of sovereignty over its natural resources that Mexico would have over Mexican natural resources.
May 25, 1993

The flawed Canada-U.S. free trade deal would be rolled over. It would be included in the NAFTA. Liberals say we have to negotiate a better deal for Canada which responds to the kinds of concerns I mentioned. If this cannot be done Liberals say the deal whether it is the present U.S.-Canada deal or the NAFTA would be abrogated.
It makes sense first to try to negotiate a better deal for Canada because of the opportunities created by the installation of the new Clinton Democratic administration in the United States. It sees many of the same problems we do in the NAFTA deal. It says it will not present its legislation to implement NAFTA to the U.S. Congress unless there are first signed what it calls side agreements on major concerns it has about the NAFTA. These include labour and environmental standards. The Clinton administration says the NAFTA implementing legislation will go to Congress only in a package with the side agreements it agrees to.
These agreements have not been negotiated. They are far from being negotiated. Only last week it was announced that Canada, Mexico and the United States were at an impasse in negotiating these agreements. Yet this crippled and dying Conservative government insists on using its majority to force this massive NAFTA, all 4,500 pages of it, through the House after only three days of debate this week and after only a few inadequate days of committee hearings. Why? For what purpose?
The Americans have not passed the legislation. Mexico has not passed the legislation so we are not losing or missing any trade opportunities. Leaders of the Congress have told President Clinton publicly that if the legislation were presented to the Congress of the United States now clearly it would be defeated. It may not come up for a vote until next year, if at all, and well after the original proposed date of implementation.
What is the rush for Canada? We do not miss anything worth while if we wait. We will not lose anything if this government gives Canadians a full opportunity which we have not had to debate the deal, to urge changes and improvements, and to say if we want it at all even if there are changes.
Why will the Conservatives not let Canadians take the time needed to debate this deal? What has it to hide?
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Why does it fear the common sense and good judgment of Canadians? It must be because the Conservatives know they have not made a good deal. They know the deal will not stand up to the scrutiny of full parliamentary debate.
I call on this Conservative government to come to its senses, let this happen and not force a vote this week. I call upon it to put the interests of Canada and Canadians ahead of the desires of the Prime Minister to add yet another tarnished page to the soiled record of himself and this government. I call upon this government not to proceed. I call upon this House to defeat this legislation.


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Madam Speaker, in coming to assess and judge the proposal before us in the House and the amendments in front of us, the government has had only one major argument in its defence that we hear day in and day out: the free trade agreements it has negotiated and is negotiating have been good for Canada's trade performance.
How often do we hear the minister of trade ask how we can oppose the free trade agreements or NAFTA when we have had such demonstrated success in developing a bountiful expanding trade performance for Canada? The minister of trade does not know of what he speaks. Canada's trade performance has not improved as a result of the free trade agreement. In fact it has worsened.
I want to put on the record this morning what I consider to be the true facts. They are not generated by some paid by government think tank or by some Tory public relations firms but by Statistics Canada, an agency of the government known and recognized for its own honesty and integrity.
Let us come to one fundamental and clear case. The trade surplus in the four years before the free trade agreement was signed has fallen by 26.9 per cent since the free trade agreement. We have declined in our total global trade by over 25 per cent after the free trade as before the free trade agreement.
The argument put forward by the government is that somehow we should now renegotiate the NAFTA to further compound that mistake. It is important to show in these figures that not only has our trade with the United States begun to decline but most significantly our trade with every other part of the world has dropped drastically since the signing of the free trade agreement.

May 25, 1993
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If we look at the figures in the first quarter of 1993 the global trade surplus shrank by $886 million. Our trade surplus with the United States fell by $116 million and then dropped by $520 million from February to March 1993.
It is incredible that the minister of trade has the audacity to stand in the House day after day to defend a trade agreement when the figures of his own agency demonstrate it has been an unmitigated disaster. What is even more significant is that we are losing the opportunities by this narrow focus on our trade with the United States to open up and expand around the world. When my colleague from Newfoundland and I visited Japan in early January we were told in clear terms that the NAFTA was seen by the Japanese as discriminatoiy against them in a number of areas-banking, financial services, automobiles, textiles-and that it was clearly contrary to fundamental international trade rules of not trying to divert trade to one country.
What is the fastest growing economic region of the world? China, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, the area where economic growth in the Pacific Rim is going up 10, 12 or 15 per cent. We are signing a trade agreement that in effect sets up barriers to that area of the Pacific Rim. It precludes Canadian traders and exporters from having maximum opportunity. If you are on the other side of the fence being erected by NAFTA, what are you going to say? Why should we trade with Canadians when they are signing an agreement that keeps us out?
In my own province of Manitoba, a province highly dependent upon international trade, the centre of the grain export market for Canada, look at the figures, the hard numbers, not the figments of imagination by the minister of trade, not the fantasy of his public relations team, but the hard figures of Stats Canada. Manitoba's surplus with all other principal trading areas fell by $451 million between 1988 and 1992.
Since the signing of the free trade agreement, the province of Manitoba lost close to a half billion in trade as a result of this great agreement. Manitoba's trade deficit with the United States grew by $298 million. We lost trade with the United States in the very same period.
Manitoba's global trade surplus, the centre of the grain trade, became a deficit of $494 million from a surplus of $255 million four years earlier.
Is that the record on what one defends these magnificent trade agreements? Our trade around the world is in decline. Our merchandise trade, our equipment, computers, and others is in serious decline with the United States. Yet this is the only defence that is being offered by the minister of trade. He is saying that Canada is locking itself into a narrow trade arrangement and denying the opportunities and openness that Canada has traditionally sought out in its trade strategy. As my colleague from Etobicoke, our trade critic, points out, we are hampered even further by a dispute settlement mechanism that is inferior to the one we had under the international trade agreements, allowing more harassment.
I just want to point out that yesterday the leader of our party put forward a series of foreign policy proposals that a Liberal government has indicated it will follow when it becomes the government in two or three months.
One of the interesting proposals made by the leader is the idea of looking at the western hemisphere as a new area of opportunity for Canada, not defined by the NAFTA free market definition, but by saying that there is a whole series of issues dealing with how to integrate and develop our economic relationships in the entire hemisphere on a multilateral basis working through the international bank, working through multilateral trade agreements.
It is interesting that the World Bank, an agency that one has to pay some heed to, points out that the most important requirements in the western hemisphere are to continue investment and human capital, social infrastructure, education, social welfare, environment friendly production, none of which is permitted under the NAFTA because this is geared solely to a free market, laissez-faire ideology which in fact penalizes any form of government investment. Part of the problem we have had in Canada under the FTA is that we had our own ability to clearly invest in our economy hindered and hampered by the FTA. We now want to export that same kind of ideology to the rest of the hemisphere.
May 25, 1993

We are proposing a positive alternative by which Canada could work with the United States and Latin American countries to develop a multilateral, economic arrangement dealing with debt problems, with the foreign investment problems, with new trade arrangements, working out in relationship to these countries the kind of approach that would not rely upon trickle down economics but upon a positive, constructive approach. It is interesting that one of the most noted U.S. experts in this area, Andler Moss of the North South Centre at the University of Miami said: "Supply side economics simply fail to provide sufficient trickle down in either Los Angeles or Caracas". We might add Calgary as well. It simply does not work.
What we are putting on the record this morning is a clear repudiation of the only defence, the only argument, the only position that the government has tried to put forward to substantiate and support the NAFTA. They said FTA was such a great success we should now build upon it with a NAFTA. If you take that argument and look at the figures, the abject failure of the FTA to substantially improve Canada's trading position means that by following their own logic we have only one recourse. That is to reject this agreement which our party intends to do.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Madam Speaker, I am glad to have a further chance in this marathon debate to speak against the NAFTA bill which was rammed through Parliament in five days of debate at second reading. A huge long bill which was rammed through the committee in a few days without hearings across the country is now given three days for debate on the amendments and third reading.
I wish to speak now on amendment No. 4. Amendment No. 4, moved by my friend and colleague the member for Esquimau-Juan de Fuca says: "Nothing in this act or the agreement shall be interpreted so as to prohibit a party to the agreement from requiring commercial entities within its sovereign territory to process raw materials or raw resource before exporting such materials or resources".
The point is if Canada is to develop our secondary industries we must have the power to direct our natural
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resources so that they can be used by Canadians in Canada to create value added, whether it is for the Canadian domestic market or whether it is for export.
The amendment in this is in the words "commercial entities within its sovereign territory". In other words, it is not enough to ask for an amendment that would require a foreign government such as the United States or Mexico to do this processing. The ones who are in fact conducting the business, the ones who are in fact seeking our cheap raw materials at the lowest price and our labour at the lowest price are not the governments of those countries, but the multinational corporations which control those governments.
Therefore, we have this subamendment to the amendment with the effect of saying that no corporation, no commercial entity can export our raw materials or our natural resource unless they do the value added work in Canada with Canadian labour. That should be required by any government which has any respect for the needs of the Canadian people.
It is fairly obvious in the case of the various minerals that we have that we need to be able to process more of them within Canada. During the last world war and during the Vietnam war Canada did some of that. Much more was done simply to ship it to the United States to build their industries. Now that we are not involved in any war, even indirectly, we should be giving attention to building our long term peace-time industries with those minerals and also with Canadian water. We need a rule that will protect Canadian water as well from being exported and then being subjected to the rule that once we have started exporting we cannot stop it, which is the rule of the free trade agreement.
We also need that rule to protect our oil which we need for many purposes in Canada. Madam Speaker, would you ask the Liberal caucus to conduct its meeting outside, please?


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. When members are disturbed by comments being made or by conversations that are being held in the House it is my duty to ask members to hold their caucus behind the curtains, please.

May 25, 1993
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Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Thank you, Madam Speaker.
I want to speak a little bit about a situation in southern Ontario. It is not a matter of minerals or oil but it is a matter of our agricultural produce. We have plenty of land capable of producing fruits and vegetables in southern Ontario. In the past there were a lot more small local processing stations, processing plants throughout southern Ontario producing preserves, producing jams, producing all kinds of products from our fruits.
What has happened, especially since the free trade agreement was signed, is that mammoth multinationals like Campbell's have been closing their plants in Canada and either ceasing to buy the Canadian product or buying it up only to ship it to the United States to process in their much larger plants there and sell back to Canada.
As a result we are becoming dependent on a foreign country for our food. When I grew up in this country I thought I was growing up in an agricultural country which also had manufacturing and commerce. It never occurred to me that we might ever approach the point where Canadian land would not feed Canadian people, where Canadian people would not be able to control the production of food and the processing of food in our own country. But in fact that is the prospect we are now facing with the NAFTA accord. We will be prevented from restoring the food processing industries in Canada by being told that any aid that the government gives is an unfair subsidy.
We have to protect the right, not so much of governments but sometimes with the help of governments, of people in any small town or any rural community elfectively to generate their own further employment by producing a cannery or a bottling plant or a jam factory, whatever you have, produce it and sell it locally without being swamped by cheap exports from the United States or Mexico. The United States blatantly violates the general principles of GATT with its export enhancement program. They can undersell any competitor in Canada and drive it out of business if we do not use our only defence against it which is the sovereign Government of Canada.
The same applies to Ontario's forest products industries. I worked for 18 years in one small branch of it, the production of corrugated paper boxes. I now learn that plants are being shut down in Canada because the boxes can be shipped in from the United States to serve the Canadian market. Some of those boxes are made with pulp produced in Canada, formerly used in Canada to make the boxes, now sent to the United States by the multinationals down there which control that part of the Canadian source and that part of the Canadian market.
Unemployment in cities as well as in the small rural towns is growing on account of the effective rule of the multinational corporations. It is killing local communities. It is causing people to move desperately into our larger cities, especially the three great metropolises, but not only those, and to empty and break up the fabric of rural communities in the countryside.
We need a chance to enable people in those places not only to grow food but to process it locally. That is why we need this subamendment. Without this amendment, NAFTA will continue to wipe out the food processing industry. It will block the possibility of creating new ones because of the multinationals flooding our market.
The general goal of the free trade agreement and the general goal of the North American free trade agreement, the so-called economic constitution for North America, is clearly to give the biggest companies the freest access to the cheapest materials and low wages or for some people, no wages.
The Tory government slogan of promoting this agreement about four or five years ago was: "Do not explain the agreement to the public; just sell it".
Also, the intention of the Tories was to do no studies ol the impact or to withhold any impact studies so that Canadians would not know the results to be expected. Their decision was to prohibit hearings across the country, except in a few places. They missed the two largest metropolises in Canada which with the regions around them represent about a quarter of the Canadian people. There were absolutely no hearings there.
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It is therefore necessary that the people understand what is being done by this government to the people who entrusted it with this responsibility.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Madam Speaker, I could not help but notice your casual glance to the government benches across the way, just to check to see if one government member would utter a single solitary scrap of support for this deal that we have been debating all night and through this morning. Not a single one. Oh, the member for Cambridge has been a stalwart. He has been sitting in his chair and listening hard. He has not been saying much, just yelling little comments, but not saying much.
Maybe there is a minister in the House, maybe he is out there in the lobby somewhere. But it is very discouraging to talk to an empty House. Where are all these government members who are supporting this deal? It is supposed to be "the deal" for Canada, the deal for Canada that is going to push us into the global economic trading market. Where are they? I do not understand.
We in this party decided that we are going to work hard in order to try to demonstrate to Canadians why it is that the Liberal Party, Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, has to demonstrate to this government on behalf of our constituents just how lousy this deal is, on the heels of course of the FTA. It has been repeated time and time again by my colleagues and sometimes by the NDP.
Now, that is another thing. Not only have we got the government benches all empty, but also the NDP. The hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca came in here this morning, having stirred up the beehive last night. He got us all going on this debate, and rightly so because we ought to be debating this thing, but then goes to bed. Not a bad deal. And we sit around trying to debate this whole thing. Then he gets up, at around five or six this morning and wonders: "How the hell it is going?" He turns the television on and holy smoke, the debate is still going on. Then he goes on CBC and says: "Well, you know, we made our point in this debate. Maybe we should not have been carrying it on".
Why did the NDP not think about that? Now the NDP starts talking. Let us talk about the NDP for a second. How about the leader of the NDP? Let us begin right at the top. She has stated three positions on NAFTA. Position one: She will immediately cancel NAFTA.
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Position two: She will immediately cancel both deals, FTA and NAFTA. Position three: In an interview she gave to The Financial Post I quote: "If elected we would sit down with the Americans and say how can we make this thing work?"
Do I hear the NDP leader saying renegotiation if necessary, but not necessarily abrogation? Where do I find myself today? My colleagues and I this morning are privileged to be standing on our feet here in the highest court of the land. This is the third time for me in the last 12 hours to express on behalf of my constituents the fears that the Canada-U.S.-Mexico deal will exacerbate the problems, the disastrous effects of the free trade agreement.
It will make us more dependent on our U.S. neighbours and will devastate an already gutted manufacturing sector in this country. Wake up, Mr. Prime Minister. Look at all the heads bounce, in our party anyway. We have been here all day and all night while the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca has been catching his beauty sleep. God knows he needs a lot of beauty sleep.
We are being betrayed. That is what my constituents are saying. The NDP caucus is in tatters, having run out of things to say. Perhaps it is out of fear of contradicting each other. What do the New Democrats do? They train their political guns on the Official Opposition. That makes a lot of sense but that is their tactic.
When you are as low in the polls as they are, that is what you have to do. We beg our constituents at home to hearken back and remember the debate of 1988. The last election campaign, my first election campaign, saw the NDP and its leader, Ed Broadbent, forget to mention the free trade agreement. He forgot to mention the free trade agreement in the opening speech of the 1988 election campaign. Thanks to the Liberal Party, the FTA became the major issue.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Here he is.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Good morning to the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca. He looks pretty fresh. I would be fresh too if I had stirred up the hornet's nest and then went off for about eight hours' sleep and came back for the closing remarks and probably some questions in Question Period.

May 25, 1993
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Then and only then do the NDP wake up. What do they do? They train their political guns on the Liberals. Remember the last 10 days of the 1988 campaign and all those vicious attacks on the leader of the Liberal Party of the day. Do you know what happened?


Sheila Maureen Copps: He got paid for it.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: We all paid for that.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Ed Broadbent got his payola.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Yes, he got his payola. Probably double dipping. One of the problems we have is that we are trying to get away from that nonsense of collecting a pension after serving some time and working for the government and collecting a pay cheque. Is that not what the member of the NDP is doing? That is something we are on record as being against.
What happened as a result of all this argument of course is that it cost us seats. It cost the Liberals seats. It cost the NDP seats. Of course the Tories were reelected. Here we go again as if there was not a lesson to be learned in the 1988 campaign.
The NDP caucus split all over the map. Their leader was on the skids. There were confusing messages coming from the New Democrats on matters of finance and trade. Again what do they do? They train their guns on the Official Opposition. It does not make a heck of a lot of sense. It is not working and it is confusing the heck out of their leader.
I am getting carried away. I wanted to come back as I promised in my last intervention to the matter of textiles and apparel goods. That is important to my riding because of the Coppley group which is a major employer. Hundreds of people work for that suit maker.
I already mentioned the testimony to the subcommittee by the Minister for International Trade to explain that the federal government would have preferred a more open trading regime in textiles and apparel but it could not be achieved. "This area of negotiations is not wholly satisfactory. The U.S. and Mexico agreed to a rule of origin which was not satisfactory as far as Canadian companies were concerned". Why are we signing this thing? That is another reason we ought to sit back should we not?


Patrick (Pat) Anthony Sobeski: Hang around Stan. I will be in Hamilton during the election.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: There goes the hon. member for Cambridge again prepared to interrupt me from across the floor. But not once in the last three hours that I have seen him has he got on his feet and defended the deal.
Then I mentioned the Canadian director of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union's remarks, and I will ask my constituents to go back and read that.
Another intervention I wanted to make was that NAFTA now requires a third stage of transformation whereby producers qualify for free trade rates if they produce their products in North America using North American fabric which is made from North American yams or fibres. These rules will make it increasingly difficult for Canadian producers to qualify for free trade rates. The second important exchange is restrictions on tariffs rate quotas.
I also wanted to make mention of the remarks made by Mr. Alleruzzo, the Canadian director of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union who said that he was concerned about the extent to which increased competition would lead to greater use of home workers by the Canadian apparel manufacturers.
"Many apparel manufacturers are increasingly making use of home workers to lower their costs. When resorting to ship their production to workers at home, the cost for manufacturers decreases substantially as they exploit the workers by paying less and giving no benefits. The workers at home see long hours, little pay and no benefits. At the end, many do not qualify for unemployment insurance or pensions because they were never registered in the first place."
There is so much evidence. I am glad that we are getting the opportunity to bring it forward to our constituents, to the Canadian public, to the 74 per cent of Canadians out there who say that we have a deal.
The NDP wants to scrap it. That is crazy and irresponsible. The responsible thing to do is to not rush this deal. God knows the Americans are not. Do not sign a blank cheque. Do not buy the house without looking at the details of the mortgage. Let us just sit back, have a look at this sensibly, sign a proper document, make the adjustments that have to be made to make it a good deal for Canada, which this deal is not.
May 25, 1993


Mr. George Proud (Hillsborough):: Madam Speaker,
I join my colleagues this morning in this debate which has gone on now for many hours. A lot has been said about the deal. A lot has been said in favour and a lot has been said in opposition and some in between.
I listened attentively to all of the speakers throughout the night until early morning. I went away for a while and came back. The trend and the message which is getting out to our constituents is: Why do we have to shove this deal through today? Why does this have to take place in such a fast track manner?
We have heard from our neighbours south of the border, the U.S. Congress. They as yet are not prepared to see this thing go through. There is an argument within the Democratic caucus as to whether the side deals are the way to go or whether to open this agreement up and renegotiate it totally. I believe as has been said here many times today and last night that this is what has to be done.
We have also to look at what is happening to the labour standards and the environmental standards and all of these things. One time as we negotiated with other countries throughout the world the idea was that we would try to bring the standards of other countries up to our standards.
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I believe we cannot stop this. We have to continue this. This is something that has been in Canada's favour over the years. There was a time when Canada's negotiators were looked up to and the people knew that when they went out and negotiated, they were negotiating in the best interests of this country. The negotiating skill displayed by this government does not live up to former standards.
We went through the same type of debates in 1988 at Christmas time. The government said we have to get that famous Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement ratified and shoved through this House. It did it in the same manner, closure, push the deal on, sign it and give away our freedom. Everybody you talk to in your constituencies wonders what this deal is going to do in comparison to what the Canada-U.S. deal already did to this country.
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We have seen thousands and thousands of jobs flee this country across the border. I heard a Democratic congressmen from Minnesota on TV this morning saying that one of the big problems with this agreement, when you negotiate free trade agreements with other countries, the idea is that these people can buy the products that are being produced. The situation with the Mexican end of it is that they are not making enough money to buy these products so they are going to be manufacturing goods and shipping them back into our country.
When I talk to people in my constituency and I look at the fast tracking of NAFTA, wondering why this has to be done when the United States, the big partner in this deal is saying it is not sure it is going to put this thing through. Why are we bowing down to the people who we have already made commitments to that we will get this thing through by January of next year.
As the previous speaker from Hamilton just said, I believe that we have to make sure this is a good deal for Canada. We have to renegotiate the Canada-U.S. deal. We have to make sure this is a good agreement for Canada.
I ask my colleagues who are supporting this deal wholeheartedly: What can we say to our constituents when they ask what is this going to do for me? How is this going to affect the unemployment rate in each area that we represent? One and a half million people are unemployed today. Another two million are on welfare. We are looking at large numbers of people with no jobs. What is this going to do for them? I do not have an answer for them. I do not think that anybody else in this great hall has either.
We have said that we want to see this deal made in the best interest of this country, that the manufacturers, the small businesses and the workers are going to know at the end of the day that when this thing is negotiated, everybody is going to benefit from it.
As I said we went through this in 1988. There were the same stories going across that this was going to be nothing but great benefit to this country. This has not happened. You know that, I know that and everybody in this House knows that. We look at the manufacturing heartland of our country. It has been destroyed totally.

May 25, 1993
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I say to the government that before we sign on the dotted line, let us make sure and be honest and true that this is indeed the best deal for this country.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, I was going to comment on the remarks of the member for Hamilton West who, if his party has no policy on something decides that he should attack the other, but he seems to have disappeared, so there is no value in making those kinds of remarks.
One of the main concerns of many people in this party and many people across Canada regarding this legislation is that it gives up the levers of power relative to the economy of Canada. Those levers of power are necessary for Canada to re-establish the growth of its economy and the building of its economy.
This subamendment tries on behalf of Canada to repossess some of those levers of power. Many of the clauses and agreements accepted in the free trade agreement have weakened Canada's ability to make use of the natural advantages which Canada has.
What the free trade agreements have done is weaken the position so we cannot use those natural advantages to develop our own economy and make sure that we have a stable and secure structure which will continue year after year.
I refer of course to a number of clauses, one of them being the natural treatment clause which requires governments and corporations to give U.S. companies the same treatment as if they were local. This clause lost us the ability to give preferential treatment to Canadians companies. That is the kind of negotiation that has been going on in the free trade agreement which has weakened Canada's economy. It made it less able, more difficult for Canada to establish a solid base for its economy and make sure that companies can compete in our own market as well as in other markets of the world.
Worse still is the free trade agreement's requirement to sell our energy to the United States at the same price as we sell it to a Canadian company. In other words we cannot use our cheaper gas, petroleum projects, cheaper hydro to convince companies around the world to come to Canada because we can give them a little benefit of our natural advantage in energy production. If we could offer them hydro or gas at cost, they would come to Canada.
The Quebec government has been doing this and is trying to do it still. It found itself being pinpointed by the U.S. because it had offered a Norwegian company a better deal on hydroelectric power than it was selling that power to the United States. Quebec was forced to back off that particular agreement.
This clause forces Canada not to sell energy at cost, but to charge the same as it charges in the United States. What we charge in the United States is what the market will bear in most cases. It does not help us to build a stable and effective economy at home.
The Mexicans were smarter. In the NAFTA they said: "We will not have you affecting our energy production. Our hydro and our gas and oil will be controlled by us. We will sell it at whatever price we hit and we will sell it to anybody we want to". They have taken advantage of their natural advantage in oil and gas and hydro.
In the free trade agreement we have given up these natural advantages. This subamendment, in fact this whole amendment, would at least let us try and regain some of the advantages we lost on the free trade agreement by making this bad deal of NAFTA at least a better deal.
We are discussing amendments which would try and make a bad deal a better deal if it does pass. Hopefully we can stop it from passing but with a government majority, under our present system of government, if the government decides it is going to pass it is likely to do so if the government can keep us around long enough.
By this amendment and the subamendment we will allow Canadian governments to require, if they wish, that our resources be processed before they are exported. Again this is an effort on the part of this party to put into the NAFTA the kind of levers of power which would allow us to make sure our economy can be improved and stabilized by those advantages which we do have.
Levers of power are important and most countries use them quite well. Sometimes they are levers of power just by the size of the purchase. For instance Japan buys a considerable amount of our canola. It demands all of it to be unprocessed. The seed is shipped to Japan. It would not be very profitable for us to ship that canola there as oil because then the processing would happen here in Canada.
May 25, 1993

However the U.S. tries not to buy our oil. They want the canola whole. This is a use of the levers of power. Marginally these would not be affected by NAFTA but that is the kind of power which we should be grasping here in Canada to make sure that our economy is solid and able to grow.
The point I make here is that we can only develop our economy if we have the power to require processing of our resources. That is what this subamendment does. Things like the production of grain, minerals and energy are natural advantages which could make our economy more vibrant, help it to grow and make it more stable. If we do this kind of processing at home then we have the effects of that growth and that vibrancy.
This amendment and subamendment would allow us to make sure if we decided we want to do it to be able to do it. Processing our resources, manufacturing and fabricating projects for ourselves and for the export market makes sense and is supported by all of the economists, even those who support the NAFTA deal.
They all say that what we need to do is more processing at home. That is the basis under which they say our economy can grow. All this subamendment does is say put that into this act so that we have the power to require, if possible, anyone within our jurisdiction, within the sovereign state or the sovereign provinces as it happens, to require any product shipped out of that area to be processed if that is desirable.
Why then is the government making this kind of stupid mistake in giving away an advantage and then not making it part of the law of Canada? Why is it taking an almost anti-Canadian position as far as development, as far as processing, fabrication and manufacturing is concerned, forcing companies to go where it is cheaper to buy, to build and not asking them to take at least a pro Canadian position.
The subamendment has special effects on agriculture. We could and should be self-sufficient in food. We are losing that ability of self-sufficiency quickly because we are not making use of the possibilities of processing our products at home. The philosophy of free trade carried to its final level will force all kinds of production out of
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Canada into areas where they might have a slight advantage in other ways.


Ms. Beth Phinney (Hamilton Mountain):: Mr. Speaker,
I am pleased to speak on this subamendment to Bill C-115. This amendment is based on common sense. Common sense is the approach of the Liberal Party when it comes to this whole discussion of our trading relationships with the United States and Mexico.
The Conservative government wants to barrel ahead with NAFTA just for the sake of having a deal. The Conservative philosophy is that any deal is a good deal. New Democrats are as bad as the Conservatives. The NDP will oppose any trade agreement just for the sake of opposing it.
The Liberal Party, on the other hand, looks at Canada's trading problems and opportunities with realism and honesty. We know that Canada is a trading nation. We know that fair trading relationships are important for Canada's future. We know that it is possible to sign good agreements and it is possible to sign bad agreements. That is the straightforward and rational approach we are taking to this debate.
That rational approach leads us to question the wisdom of this legislation implementing NAFTA. I believe that most people in my riding of Hamilton Mountain have the same fair-minded approach and therefore the same deeply felt concerns about this legislation.
The citizens of Hamilton Mountain are asking: What is the Conservative government's rush? Why do the Conservatives want Parliament to pass a bill implementing NAFTA when no such legislation has even been introduced in the United States Congress?
Why should Canada push ahead with the agreement when the negotiations are still going on? What bargaining room will Canada have if we pass the deal first and negotiate later?
More important, voters in Hamilton are asking why the government insists on passing the trade agreement with Mexico and the United States when the agreement fails to meet any real Canadian objectives, and fails to correct the errors of the previous free trade agreement.

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The United States is continuing to push for new arrangements that will suit American objectives. Why is the Canadian government not pushing for new arrangements that will suit our country's objectives?
For the people of Hamilton Mountain these are not academic questions. These are questions that affect their ability to earn a living, put food on the table for their families and ensure a bright future for their children.
Hamiltonians know better than anyone else in Canada that we suffer when the government signs bad trade deals. Hamiltonians know better than anyone else that unfair trade rules can cost jobs.
Hamiltonians know we need trade rules that will allow Canadian businesses to compete fairly and without harassment from other countries. Hamiltonians certainly know better than to trust the promises made about trade agreements by the Conservative government.
During the last election the Conservatives promised that the free trade deal with the United States would do wonders for Hamilton's economy. The sad fact is that 19,000 more Hamiltonians are jobless than were jobless at the time of the last election. Hamilton's businesses and workers have been hammered time and again by unfair American trade actions, despite all the promises made in the last election by the Conservative Party.
We do not blame the Americans for that. They are just being hard-nosed business people. We blame the Conservative government for not actively pursuing the means to close the loopholes that allow our American neighbours to take those actions in the first place.
The government does have another choice than to try to just ram NAFTA through Parliament. The government could take the opportunity presented by ongoing negotiations to fight for a proper definition of subsidies, to fight for new anti-dumping rules, and to fight for an agreement on countervail regulations and trade remedy laws. Hamiltonians cannot understand why the Conservatives are not seizing the moment to do just that.
A proper definition of subsidies would ensure that Canadians could take steps to help our weaker regions, strengthen our social programs, build up new entrepreneurs or cut taxes without worrying that the United
States or Mexico might claim that these measures represent unfair subsidies to Canadian businesses. With a proper definition of subsidies Canada, the United States and Mexico would all be playing by the same rules and we would all know the rules. Without a proper definition this trade deal is hardly worth the paper on which it is printed.
We all know that even with new definitions of subsidies it would still be possible for someone to break the rules. In that case the country which suffers must be able to cry foul.
People in my riding of Hamilton Mountain understand that and they favour that. What they do not understand is why under current arrangements the United States can cry foul and then impose such an incredible temporary penalty on Canadians without proving any damage to American firms.
Our steel companies in Hamilton are frequently wrongly accused by their American competitors of selling steel below the actual cost of production in order to capture customers. The American steel companies, backed up by their government, use anti-dumping laws to charge our Hamilton companies with unfair competition.
After a few years of complicated hearings Canadian companies are found to have done absolutely nothing wrong. Unfortunately under current American trade remedy laws our Canadian companies have paid a heavy price for their innocence. They are forced to raise the prices during the time of hearings and to post a bond. The bottom line is that Canadian businesses lose customers and money and Canadian steelworkers lose jobs while waiting for a final determination of the case.
There is a very simple comparison. It is as though all the American teams in the NHL playoffs were allowed to charge the Maple Leafs and Canadiens with a penalty any time they felt like it. Players from Canadian teams would be sent off the ice to the penalty box until later in the game when the referee finally decided there was no infraction after all. Meanwhile the American teams would have been on an unjustified power play.
May 25, 1993

Those kinds of rules do not make any sense in a hockey game. They make even less sense when jobs are at stake, when businesses are at stake and when the future of our Canadian economy is at stake. That is why it is shocking to have the Conservative government try to put such rules in place through the North American free trade agreement.
Simple plain common sense would tell the Conservatives not to try to rush NAFTA through Parliament but instead to continue to negotiate with Mexico and the United States for rules which are fair to everybody. Simple plain common sense would tell the Conservatives not to rush through a deal which fails to correct the weaknesses of their previous deal. Simple plain common sense would tell the Conservatives to learn from past mistakes and take the time to get a good deal, not just any deal.
There is too much at stake for my riding to act in haste. There is too much at stake for the future of our country.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to follow up very directly on the comments of my colleague from Hamilton Mountain who painted a very accurate picture of life under the Brian Mulroney-Michael Wilson-Kim Campbell-Jean Charest trade agreement.
I was in the House about 1.30 this morning when the Minister for International Trade actually had the nerve to say when asked very specific questions about how the trade deal was not working for steel: "Well, where is Hamilton anyway?"
Hamilton just happens to be the community that employs the greatest number of people in steel and steel-related products. The minister may not know where Hamilton is but I can tell him that the voters of Hamilton, Hamilton Wentworth, Lincoln, Burlington, Hamilton East, Hamilton Mountain, and Hamilton West certainly know where this government is. They know where they are going to find it after the next election, on this side of the House not on the other side of the House.
I was examining the job losses and outlining the fact that in my riding alone 10,000 people have lost their jobs in the steel industry directly. I did not have an opportunity in the 10 minutes allotted to outline the fact that
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according to a recent study in one year alone, setting aside the primary jobs directly related to the steel industry, in secondary steel-related industries 17,000 people lost their jobs between 1990 and 1991.
A couple of days ago I raised a question in the House about a decision by a local Hamilton-based company, Dofassco, to make an investment decision in Kentucky. You will remember the question, Mr. Speaker. The minister stood in the House and sounded like the president of the Chamber of Commerce of Kentucky when he cited seven or eight reasons that the decision was made to locate in the United States.
One of the reasons outlined very directly by President John Mayberry in his comments to the shareholders at the annual general meeting two weeks ago was the fact that the silly trade disputes the company is being embroiled in are costing them orders. My colleague from Hamilton Mountain underlined the difficulties.
We do receive trade remedies, but the very cumbersome process put in place by this free trade agreement and exacerbated by the NAFTA put in place trade remedies that can take a year to two years to resolve.
In a business where time is of the essence, where people expect delivery on time, they cannot wait two years to find out whether Stelco is going to be treated fairly. As the trade war began last year the Steel Company of Canada lost orders to the United States because it could not guarantee the kind of on-time delivery that was necessary because this trade cloud was looming over our heads.
One would think that the Canadian Minister for International Trade would be there fighting in Washington to ensure that Canadian companies get a fair deal. No, what we saw, and heard reiterated in the House last week, was the minister of apologies for the Americans.
I have in my hand a steel industry trade paper that has been worked on for the last year and a half by members of the Liberal team, including the member for Haldi-mand-Norfolk, other members of the steel caucus, and the next member for Sault Ste. Marie, Ron Irwin, in which we outline very specifically some of the problems related to the steel industry and some of the solutions that we intend to implement as a government.

May 25, 1993
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Unlike the NDP we do not simply call for a debate and go home to bed. Let us hearken back over the last few weeks. We have heard a lot from the member for Esquimau-Juan de Fuca. He has been on all the national media talking about the fact that he is the real opposition and his party has the beef.
When the opportunity came to show where the beef was where was he? He was at home sleeping. He belled the cat and then ran home for a snooze.
In the meantime we had a team that has been working in public and in private to prepare a very solid document. It is about a 100-page document on Canadian steel policy. I understand why the member is concerned because like his colleague, the member from Juan de Fuca, I would be embarrassed too.
I do not know how many years the member for Port Moody-Coquitlam has been a member of the NDP. He actually ran for the NDP leadership. The situation is so desperate for the NDP in British Columbia that he is now putting out literature that neglects to mention the name of his party.
He is a former Liberal, actually at one time he was an intelligent guy. He put out a brochure and neglected to mention the fact that he is an NDPer because it is so embarrassing in British Columbia now to be an NDPer that they do not want to say so.
I want to talk about some specific steel facts that I would like to put on the record. I heard the Minister for International Trade last week say: "Kentucky can get them cheaper power rates". This is a given. He said: "Kentucky has more productive person power". That is false. He said: "Kentucky has all these things to offer that Hamilton does not". My colleagues and I went to the source. We went to the z line and saw the greatest new investment in jobs for Canadians. In fact, the Canadian steel producers are facing unfair subsidies from the United States.
If the minister took the time to do his homework he could pick up a copy of a study, not done by the Liberals but by Ernst and Young. For the record I would like to table some of the information about the grants, loans, subsidies and direct payments that are going out to U.S. steel producers that are costing Canadian jobs.
These are strictly federal. They do not take into account state or local subsidies by the Americans, the
great free traders: grants, $236 million; concessionary financing, $300 million; tax concessions, $7.7 billion; assumption of obligations by the federal government, $3.7 billion; regulatory concessions, $2.5 billion; subsidized services, $500 million; procurement, the figure has not been dated but it is a potentially large one; upstream assistance, $2 billion; downstream assistance, $2 billion; and trade protection assistance, $8 billion.
The subtotal and total of those two columns give a grand total of $27 billion in subsidies to American steel producers, those fantastically fair traders.
If we pursue those subsidies over to the state and local level, Ernst and Young suggest that state assistance to the steel industry in the United States was to the tune of $30 billion and local assistance was to the tune of $5 billion, for a total package in rounded out figures of over $60 billion. These $60 billion in subsidies were given to American steel producers who now have the gall with the defence of the Canadian Minister for International Trade to come into the marketplace and say: "Yes, but we are fair traders".
Can we believe the Canadian trade tribunal last week ruled that they were dumping in Canada but that it was not hurting us. It may not be hurting the minister. He has already made his decision to leave politics. He will not be facing the electorate in the next election. He will be in his big house.


An hon. member:: Where is the minister now? Where is he?


Sheila Maureen Copps: There is not a government member on that side of the House because they do not want to hear the real news. The real news is that this agreement has been working to the benefit of the Americans and the second stage of the NAFTA will give us more of the same.
We are asking the government to put in place a reasonable dispute settlement mechanism and to set in place a reasonable definition of what constitutes a subsidy and what constitutes dumping. We can trade with the best in the world. We can go to Wilcox Street. We went to Hilton Works. The Canadian minister of trade stated in the House that Hilton Works was an old plant and should be moth-balled. Hilton Works has upgraded to state of the art technology. If the minister does not know where Hamilton is, he can come with me and I will show him. We will get something done when we are in government.
May 25, 1993


David Barrett: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
I have no objection to anything being said about me except lies. I was in the House last night. Furthermore, a fake phone call-I was in my office-was made to me by the member from Ottawa alleging to be a constituent from British Columbia. In that fake phone call he said a number of things about what he thought of the debate and then hung up. The laughter led by the member from Hamilton went on and then he admitted he made the phone call.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I am very happy to rise so that people do not hear those remarks.
I ask for the co-operation of all members. The night has been very long. I ask them to show patience and fairness.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the applause from the Liberal members. I know they are anticipating my speech and I appreciate the standing ovation they just gave. It is suitable and fitting because the amendment that is being proposed to the motion in front of us has the effect of giving countries, and in this case Canada, the right to control commercial entities within our sovereign territory.
That is a vital part of any trade agreement or any international agreement, particularly in this so-called new environment when we have globalization, the new world order and so on. It is time we began to question what the new world order and globalization involve. We have been closing our eyes to what is really meant by globalization. The parties in the House have not always stated clearly what they see as globalization in the current context.
What is it that we are preparing for? To whose benefit? Are we creating an upgraded global economy for people within our own sovereign territories? Are we doing it for the business entities within our own territories? Just who is going to benefit from this kind of globalization?
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I note that there have not been many statements on what we are aiming for, what are our goals. The NDP use of globalization has always been for the benefit of people. Yet the international agreements we have been seeing signed on our behalf by our sovereign elected governments whether Conservative or Liberal in the past have tended to free up and unshackle corporations and corporate entities.
It is veiy strange because we have not had a reassessment in the past several decades of the role of the corporation. Those who have looked at the economic history of the corporation will know that for several hundred years a new entity was being developed. Corporations in this country were so special in the early days that it took an act of Parliament and the approval of the Senate before a corporation could get the privileges we grant to that kind of business entity. They are special privileges, privileges with a capital P.
They allow for a competitive edge over the ordinary private entrepreneur because first of all the corporation never dies. A corporate entity lives forever and as a result has a great many benefits. It does not have to restructure every generation. It simply goes on and on. It does not have to worry about finally paying deferred taxes because the head of the family business unit has died. The corporation goes on and on. It virtually never pays the deferred taxes that our tax system permits. As well the corporate sector is granted in this country and virtually every other country around the globe a special privilege on the amount of taxation it pays.
I have heard arguments in this House from members on the Conservative side-we are not sure where the Liberals stand on it-that corporations should pay zero taxes and it is the shareholders who ought to be paying the tax. I could perhaps see the logic of that if it were made illegal for corporations to maintain and build up funds to be there for the use of the corporation on its own account and to do its own expansion. However that is not the way it works. If the expansion of the corporation were dependent upon the input of more money, more capital investment from the shareholders, perhaps we could justify that kind of system.

May 25, 1993
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In reality what we have is corporate entities competing against private individuals running their own small businesses. The rules of the game are not fair. Yet in the name of the new world order and the new kind of globalization we are still struggling with to understand, some of us of simple mind can see already that the new order of globalization is an attempt to take away any sovereign control over those very entities, those very corporations our national governments established.
The new rules, including the rules that are being proposed under the current NAFTA before this House today and the Canada-U.S. trade agreement that went through here four and a half years ago, let the corporation run unhampered and unshackled by any rules set by national governments.
The only impediment to trade between the United States and us, as I pointed out earlier this morning, as a result of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement are those impediments which exist because of the U.S. constitution that gives the Congress the right to change rules established internationally by presidential decree and presidential signature. No matter what we sign with the United States the Congress can always overrule it. That is the source of most of the trade irritants that have existed between us.
Whether the Liberals form the next government or the New Democrats form the next government, the reality is that the constitution of the United States will prevent the leader of the current opposition from making it a better agreement because he is not going to be able to convince Congress to change its constitution and transfer its rights into an international agreement. It is dreaming in Technicolor to think we are going to be able to sign a better agreement or negotiate something better. We are simply going to have to live with the giant beside which we were put by fate and by birth and figure out ways of getting around it.
The kind of institutions this country's people have tried to establish to be able to better compete globally include those that are best known to me as a farmer and from a farming community in western Canada. The globalized institutions that permit us to operate in a global economy as producers in western Canada are institutions such as the Canadian Wheat Board and the Canadian Grains Commission. They permit us to go into other countries to provide them with guarantees as to the quality and the type of the product we are selling, thanks to the Canadian Grains Commission standards,
and provide them with guarantees as to price and delivery, thanks to the guarantees presented and available through the Canadian Wheat Board, guarantees that very few other countries can offer.
They are only getting better. They are absolutely necessary if we as Canadian producers and farmers in this country are going to compete globally. They are institutions which give us an edge in a global economy. Now is not the time to take away the power of those institutions. We need those tools if we are going to be players in the global economy. I wish that government members would understand that and start defending the position of the government because I think it is indefensible. I understand why very few of them have bothered to speak on the North American free trade agreement because it is an indefensible agreement.


An hon. member:: And they haven't read it either. [Translation]


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, there are a few comments I would like to make. I will make another speech on the substance of this bill tomorrow, but at this point I would like to talk about the procedural problems we are facing with this bill.

First, I would like to say thank you to the member for Mackenzie who just recognized that within a few months we will form the government.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: We understand very well why he has decided to call it quits. His electorate wants to give him his ticket. I just want to say that this morning we had more good news. Not only is the NDP recognizing that we will form the government, but the Prime Minister did the same thing last night. He now has to rush everything because he knows the Tories will not form the government next fall.
We are in the House today debating the NAFTA because he does not want to wait. He knows his party will not be the government any more. The President of the United States wants to wait. The President of the United States wants to have some modifications to the NAFTA before proposing legislation to Congress. That makes sense. The NAFTA will not be the same after he has his side agreements on environmental conditions and labour conditions, two of the points that we made.
May 25, 1993

The government recognizes that it will not be the government any more because it is pushing in the House closure and closure and closure on this bill. Yesterday the Prime Minister showed what little confidence he has in his own party to win the next election. Yesterday he asked three senators to resign. He told them: "Don't wait until the fall. You will be replaced by Liberals. But if you resign right away you will be replaced by Tories".
I have never seen a Prime Minister, a leader of a party, showing so little confidence in the people who want to replace him. What a slap in the face to the Minister of National Defence and the Minister of the Environment. The Prime Minister tells the nation: "You two will never win, so I want to play my little patronage game right away".
He wants to do today what was outrageous in 1984. It was scandalous, it was unacceptable. You know, it was awful. We remember in 1984 what he did to the member for Vancouver Quadra because there were some appointments. He used it every day and he thought it was not acceptable. Today he is worse. Never in the history of the government have we seen senators resigning to make room for other senators. He does it every day.
The spouse of his former personal secretary had been appointed for three years. She resigned so that the Prime Minister could give to the husband and wife a little gift of a seven year appointment. Again he recognized that he has no confidence in the Conservative Party to win the next election.
NAFTA is a monument they want to erect to themselves. They want to force a vote right now. Last week there were negotiations in Ottawa. The Canadian minister of trade said it was completely unacceptable what the Americans were asking and today we are voting on that problem when the minister has not been able to resolve the difficulties with the Americans. What kind of a government do we have here?
It wants us to vote on a program and it does not know what will the results will be. That will be an amendment to these two accords which change fundamentally the NAFTA. The minister was offended, rushed to the
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United States, was on TV in the United States yesterday telling them they were pushing too much, that it was unacceptable and it was to destroy NAFTA. He will force us to vote today because they want the triple crown.
Do you remember the Prime Minister in his seat talking about the triple crown? He chickened out on the triple crown for himself because he wanted to win three elections in a row. He knew that it was done so he quit.
Now he wants another type of triple crown. He wants NAFTA, he wants the GST, and he wants the FTA. I am telling you we are opposing this NAFTA deal. The Liberals are not like the NDP which wants to build a wall around Canada and are so unrealistic in their position that they would like to go back to the 18th century.
We are the biggest trading nation in the world. There is not one nation in the world which trades more than Canada on a per capita basis. We offer a lot of trade, free trade, good trade, fair trade but we need rules. When we have rules in place we can beat anybody. The Canadian people can be the best but we need rules.
Tomorrow I will have the occasion to debate on the substance of the deal. Today I have only 10 minutes. I wanted to get up today to say that we have done this debate and I would like to congratulate my team. They have been around all night unlike the one who proposed the adjournment and went to bed.

The Liberals were here. They conducted the debate. They rose in the House of Commons. They kept this debate going because we must tell the nation that the government is being irresponsible to an incredible degree. At a time when the Americans are preparing to block the North American free trade agreement, at a time when the President of the United States-and this is quite clear if you read the American newspapers-will not be able to settle the problem before Congress before this fall, the Canadian government, in order to erect a monument to the Minister for International Trade and the Prime Minister is forcing Parliament to vote on this bill, although it knows perfectly well the agreement will not be finalized until very late this fall.

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The U.S. Congress will not be given the bill for consideration until September or October. What is the rush here in Canada? Meanwhile, there will be an election. Canadians will have had time to change governments.
In any case, the new government will have the power to proclaim or not to proclaim. This is a useless gesture on the part of the government, and it shows contempt for democracy. Let them finish the negotiations and then come back to Parliament when Canadians know exactly what they will be asked to vote on, but not now. If there is an agreement in August or September, we can discuss questions about the environment and labour issues at that time, but not now, when we do not know the answers.
The government has no excuse for calling a vote on time allocation. That is why we intend to object to every single vote that is held until the end of this debate, a debate that has no legitimacy whatsoever at this time and that reflects abuse of power on the part of a government that will be defeated in the months to come.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Point of order, Mr. Speaker. I listened with interest to the comments of the Leader of the Official Opposition. It was a pleasure as a matter of fact that we had this opportunity to have this debate on NAFTA. I just wanted to indicate to my hon. friend that the reason we had the debate last night was because the New Democratic Party asked for a debate. The Liberals did not ask for a debate.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It is not a point of order.


Roy MacLaren: Mr. Speaker, that was a remarkable speech by the Leader of the Opposition. We have heard as we heard from a number of our colleagues over the course of the past 24 hours that the government is proceeding in a wholly irresponsible way.
I want to say something about two other aspects of the debate on NAFTA. Before doing so I want to underline once again that the procedure this government follows is wholly reprehensible. The fact is that we are severely
limiting our negotiating possibilities as Canada proceeds through the discussion of the side agreements on the environment and on the labour standards.
This government has placed Canada in a situation where its hands are tied. It will be the one country of the three which has endorsed the agreement. The other two are negotiating from positions of strength leaving Canada in a weak position at the bargaining table.
Let me also add that the government's decision to proceed now is wholly incomprehensible when one considers not only where the United States is on the side agreements but where the United States is on introducing its own implementing legislation. We do not know when that will be. The government does not know when that will be. The people of Canada do not know when that will be. It is quite conceivable that there will be further change and further amendment to the circumstances of the NAFTA, yet we will have gone ahead and implemented the legislation to make a reality of the NAFTA.
I want to turn to two subjects that we have not spent a whole lot of time on but are fundamental to any understanding of NAFTA, indeed any understanding of what Canada's trade policies should be.
One subject is obviously that whole area called adjustment assistance, a name that has a rather bureaucratic ring about it but covers a reality for a great many Canadians. This government has introduced freer trade without introducing the measures that can make Canadians beneficiaries of freer trade rather than the victims of freer trade.
Let me suggest that the government in introducing its legislation on NAFTA has consistently referred for example to the de Grandpre report on adjustment assistance. If you take the trouble to read that report of five years ago it contains a range of proposals, new programs and new activities that would have helped Canadians adjust to and benefit from freer global trade.
I speak not just of the continental approach that this government has taken but rather a truly multilateral approach. Education and skills training. Obviously this government has not proceeded in a dynamic and national fashion to make a reality of a training culture in Canada.
May 25, 1993

We have seen its failure consistently to develop good understanding between organized labour and business in such a way as to ensure that freer trade is implemented in a method that gives the possibilities to Canadians to benefit and not to be victimized.
In research and development, in science and technology, in the whole area of technological innovation this government has consistently failed to match its commitment to freer trade with the programs at home in science and technology that would have helped Canadians to be yet more globally competitive.
One of the major issues that this government consistently has failed to address over the past five years is the issue of interprovincial trade barriers. How can we hope in Canada to compete effectively globally when we cannot even create a freer trade environment in our own country? We have barriers across our country to the free movement of people, goods, services and capital which militate against the rise of effective Canadian companies that can compete globally.
The government has taken a dab at that issue in recent months but throughout its time in office it never did address in any effective manner the whole issue of the barriers that the Canadian governments of the past have allowed to be erected across our country.
However there is no area where there has been a greater failure than in the area of small business. We have had all sorts of discussion and comment in this House about a jobless recovery. It is true to a degree that as larger corporations accept the challenge of global competition, they are scaling down on their work force and looking for a greater degree of productivity in that sense.
At the same time the jobs will find creation. They will be created in the small and medium-sized companies. What has this government done in the way of helping small business? It has put up interest rates to unprecedented levels. I speak of real interest rates and not the nominal interest rates this government always refers to. It has put up real interest rates. It has only tinkered with the Small Businesses Loans Act in recent months. It has not effectively addressed the ways in which the national government can play a major innovative role in assisting small business to fulfil its employment goals and its entrepreneurial tasks in our society.
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Let me turn to a second major area of failure of this government. It has made a commitment to continental freer trade but it has neglected the opportunities around the world. It has eschewed the multilateral approach in favour of a continental approach. It has played a minor role in the Uruguay round of the GATT It has not played the dynamic role that one would have expected Canada to play, given its history of innovation and commitment in the GAIT since 1948.
Beyond the GATT and the Uruguay round which will have a far more pervasive effect in Canada than continental free trade or hemispheric free trade that this government has pursued beyond the Uruguay round of the GATT remains a whole range of issues that should have and could still have been taken with the Pacific Rim countries and Europe of 1992, the new single market Europe.
What has this government done to match its commitment to continental free trade or hemispheric free trade with real initiative in Asia and Europe? Some years ago it launched a Pacific rim initiative. We have heard nothing more about that. It came to nothing. The lack of commitment to developing new trade relations with Europe is so obvious it needs no particular emphasis from me.
Beyond that it has failed to provide the structure in our own country to give export orientation to our corporations and small businesses. There are all sorts of opportunities it could have taken in co-operation with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce which has come forward with a number of innovative ideas. It could have supported the export association in its proposals. It supported none of that.
It has turned its back on Asia. It has turned its back on Europe and concentrated entirely on its preoccupation with the continent and now the hemisphere.
Let me draw attention to an initiative the United States ironically has taken in recent weeks. It has gone to the ASEAN countries of Singapore and Malaysia, among others, and asked if they could work out freer trade relations, closer trade relations between NAFTA and the ASEAN countries.

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Leave it to the United States to take such an initiative. Why is Canada not out there talking to the ASEAN countries about new trade relations? Why is it not a Canadian initiative to seek out those opportunities which are so important to Canadians and certainly important to western Canadians who are fully conscious of the opportunities that are rapidly opening across the Pacific.
It is that sort of dynamic trade policy that we in the Liberal Party and the official opposition are committed to. When we form the government we will be taking initiatives on a multilateral basis across the globe that will make a real reality of Canadian opportunity.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on the motion before us on this extremely important piece of legislation. I am proud that members of the New Democratic Party have forced a further debate on this legislation. We want to have the opportunity to pose those questions and raise the issues that Canadians have not had the opportunity to raise. This government has made sure Canadians do not have a voice. It has decreased the time for debate and indeed has not televised public hearings as we have asked.
I think what we are debating here today is extremely important because it is not just a debate about trade. It is a debate about how Canada will go into the 21st century. The Conservative government would see us go into the 21st century as the 51st state and we are here to say that is the main intention of NAFTA. We do not accept that as the future of Canada.
There are many things about the procedure of this legislation that are really open to question. One of those questions is why this legislation is being rushed through the House of Commons at this time. There is no logical reason. There is no necessity. We know this has not come before Congress and in fact Congress will not review this legislation until all negotiations are completed. Yet the government persists in ramming this legislation through the House of Commons now. Why? I think there can only be one reason and that is this government has some hidden agenda.
We remember that the Canada-U.S. trade deal was predicated and developed on the basis that we would have about a 75-cent dollar. We have not had that since the Canada-U.S. trade deal was signed. A lot of questions were raised about whether this government had agreed to keep the dollar high, although not specifically in the Canada-U.S. trade deal but it did stay high. A former minister of that government raised the question that perhaps there was an agreement by the government to keep the dollar at a high level.
I am asking today in raising this question with the government and the people of Canada, what is the hidden agenda of this government? Why is it trying to ram the legislation through? Has it made some deals? Has it made some commitments? Who has it made the commitments to?
Canadians have a right to know if this government has made some promises or commitments to the government of the United States or the international business community that they are not sharing with Canadians. I challenge the government side to come clean with Canadians and tell us why it is ramming through this legislation. There certainly is no other reason that one can draw the conclusion from.
There are many things in this legislation that we believe will be very detrimental to the future of Canada. There are issues of sovereignty. How ironic it is that on the one hand we are negotiating and in some cases concluding self-government agreements with Canada's First Nations and on the other hand we are giving away the sovereignty of Canada through the NAFTA agreement.
What is this government's intention? That is the real question. It will say it is to increase jobs in Canada and make Canada more productive but in fact we have lost jobs. We continue to lose jobs and the rate of unemployment continues to go up.
I would tell the government to get out of Ottawa. Sit down at the kitchen table with the 3,000 workers from that Scarborough plant and their families who were just laid off because the plant moved to the United States. Talk to them about what effect bad trade deals have had on their lives.
There are other implications that are of equal concern because this is not just a commercial deal. We are entering into a trade agreement with Mexico that has, as my predecessor has very often pointed out, an extremely bad record in terms of human rights.
May 25, 1993

We in this country are free to speak out, to have debates all night and that is something we should be proud of. Canadians of any political party can speak their minds, say what they have to say in this public forum and have it recorded. That is not the case in Mexico. In Mexico, whether one is a journalist or a politician one is not always free to speak one's mind.
I must say this is a very concerning aspect. I think everyone agrees we are entering into much more than a commercial agreement with a country that has been shown by the United Nations to have not complied with United Nations' standards on human rights. There are documented cases of torture and death. In this new world, this new community as we move into the 21st century, what are the relationships that we see between countries and among countries? Surely there are certain principles and standards that we wish to see developed such as human rights, democracy, the freedom to participate, the ability to have a job and the ability to have basic social standards.
We know that in NAFTA there is no provision, as there is in the European Community's agreement, for social rights and a social charter to protect workers and health standards and indeed to work with those regions that might lose jobs because of the NAFTA deal.
The debate on this of legislation is extremely important because it will set a direction for the future of Canada. It is a direction which I profoundly believe will be absolutely disastrous for this country. This is not an agreement that can be renegotiated as some would say. This is not an agreement that can be fixed up by some kind of side agreement. There are no band-aids to fix this agreement. It is bad for Canada, it is bad for the workers of Mexico and it will not offer this country a prosperous future.
I suppose if there is any one question I hear most often posed as I go around the country it is the uncertainty people feel about their own future and especially the future of their children. Will there be jobs for them when they grow up? I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, many people feel there might not be a future. Trade deals like this set that direction, take away hope from
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Canadians and increase the insecurity that so many Canadians feel.
The other question is not just that one can be opposed to this but what is the option, what is the alternative? Some people will say: "Well there is no alternative. We are powerless. It is a global world. We just have to accept what happens to us". But we are not powerless. I want to say that as Canadians we do not have to accept bad trade arrangements. If we do not have the NAFTA the GATT rules will apply. We will be able to enter into sectoral agreements. We will be able to expand our trade beyond the borders of North America into Asia and the rapidly growing markets.
The alternative is that if we accept these kinds of agreements, which mean lower wages, are we in Canada going to go to the standard of Mexico at $3 or $4 a day? Who is going to buy the products? Anybody can understand that this is absolutely ludicrous and will not work.
This debate is not just a wake up call for the government. It tells Canadians: "Stand up now. Call your member of Parliament and say no to NAFTA because that means saying yes to Canada and our future".


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, the leader of the New Democratic Party is looking very refreshed this morning as is the leader of the Liberal Party. I thought he was in excellent form no doubt buoyed by the results in Nova Scotia yesterday. I would like to tell him that we have an old saying: "As goes Nova Scotia, so not necessarily goes the nation".
Nothing more poignantly illustrates the position of the New Democratic Party in this whole debate on the issue of NAFTA than the subamendment before the House right now. I intend to speak to this subamendment because I think it clearly and unequivocally illustrates the problem that the New Democratic Party has, not only in the area of trade but indeed in many other areas of policy as well.
The motion which this subamendment proposes to amend is an illustration of the unrealistic of the approach the New Democratic Party is taking. The New

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Democratic Party proposes to raise great walls around this nation to protect us from the horrors beyond and
keep out the evil traitors from abroad. It may be its intent and part of its party policy as well that Canada should withdraw from the GATT. Maybe it does not think we should be a part of the international trading community. The reason why the main motion is unacceptable is the unequivocal fact that it violates the GATT with respect to trade restricting practices.
As a sovereign nation Canada of course can decide it is not going to be a part of this. We can make whatever rules we want but if we are going to make rules that are in contravention of the international trading community then obviously we cannot expect to be a part of that international trading community.
The impact of the subamendment, were it to be implemented, would be to give governments the right to go to corporations or companies such as fish companies and tell them they cannot export raw fish. We would not want to see that happen.
On the other hand, like it or lump it, one of the realities of the world-and the government, unlike the opposition, is bound by reality-is that the GATT is very important to Canada and we have to be a part of the GATT. That is why, even if we might like to impose restrictions such as the one proposed in the amendment and the subamendment, it would not work. It would be unacceptable under the GATT as we found out in the B.C. salmon and herring case not so long ago.
It is interesting to note however that this does not necessarily work to the disadvantage of Canada, as could be implied by my friends opposite. If we look at the outcome of herring four years later in British Columbia-my hon. friends from British Columbia in the House will know-we have had more raw fish coming from the United States into Canada in British Columbia than the other way around.
The same thing is happening right now in my own province of Nova Scotia where we are very frustrated to see raw fish being exported from Nova Scotia to New England. It is really quite annoying. On the other hand, if we were to put on an imposition and say they cannot do that any more, what would happen to the fish that is
coming from the United States into Nova Scotia right now, particularly pollock and cod from Alaska?
If we want to play in the big leagues and be a part of the international trading community then unfortunately we have to be bound by its rules. That is why I think the New Democratic Party will have a permanent spot in the comer of the House and will never even move up to the centre part let alone to this side.
Canadians, when push comes to shove, judge the realities that are before them. Canadians judge who they can safely entrust their country to in terms of future directions. When they look at those kinds of policies that ignore international legal reality, of course they say: "Well we cannot go with these fellows, even though what they want to do sounds kind of warm and fuzzy". However, the reality is that if we put these fellows in power and give them an opportunity to try to implement their ideas, we have seen what happens in a province like Ontario.
The hardest thing to find in the province of Ontario I understand is somebody who voted for the NDP in the provincial election. It is pretty hard to find those people I am told. Obviously some people did but they do not want to admit it any more. That is the reality of the situation.
I listened with great interest to my good friend the Leader of the Opposition who obviously had his wheaties this morning, as they say. It struck me that he was in pretty good form. I have not seen him in such good form. Perhaps he was buoyed by what happened in my province yesterday. I want to take this opportunity to publicly congratulate Mr. Savage on his victory and to congratulate all those who were elected in the Nova Scotia election.
I want to say to the five new members of the legislature elected from South Shore, three of whom are new MLAs who I want to congratulate particularly on their election, politics is politics. Four of those people are Liberals and we all have to do our political thing but when it comes to serving the public I say to them as I have said to those who were there during the last four and a half years that I have been a member, I look forward to working with you on behalf of the people of South Shore. When we have to do our political thing we do our political thing, but we are all here to serve the people we represent first, regardless of our particular political stripe.
May 25, 1993

I listened to the Leader of the Opposition and the one question that he did not answer in my mind was where the Liberal Party stands on this business of NAFTA. I was listening to the debate and he congratulated his members for carrying the debate last night.
I must say there were a few Liberals here last night who did an excellent job. The member for Hamilton East was here most of the night as well as the member for Haldimand-Norfolk, the member for Kenora-Rainy River and of course the hon. member for Etobicoke North. There was a little rump of Liberals but I notice an awful lot of them look pretty well rested today just as there are a few New Democrats in the House who are pretty well rested because there was only a handful of them here last night. I must say there were only a handful of us over here as well, but we did have a good debate. When people talk about the lack of opportunity to debate this thing I find it amazing but I think there will be other speakers who will speak to that point.
There is a question that Canadians really should be putting to the leader of the Liberal Party. When the leader of the Liberal Party and the New Democrats stand and ask why we are rushing this legislation through the House, I want to remind them of something. 'Hie practical reality is that this House is going to rise some time in the near future. It could well be Parliament does not sit for a while. It could be Parliament does not sit until after an election.
What happens if the Americans and the Mexicans implement NAFTA and Canada is stuck not having dealt with the situation?
Should we set our legislative agenda by the Americans? Should we let the Americans call the shots in our legislative agenda? The position over here is very simply no, we should not. We set it by our own agenda.
That is why if my hon. friends opposite will take the time to read the bill they will notice the last article, 247.1 want to read it into the record:
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247. (1) Subject to this Act, this Act or any provision thereof, or any provision of any Act as enacted by this Act, shall come into force on a day or days to be fixed by order of the Governor in Council.
(2) No order shall be made under subsection (1) unless the Governor in Council is satisfied that the Government of the United Mexican States and the Government of the United States of America have taken satisfactory steps to implement the Agreement.
In other words this is enabling legislation. It does not take effect until it is proclaimed. Therefore we get the framework in place because it is in the interest of Canada.
Should there be an election before it is implemented we know if the New Democrats are elected to power that will be the end of it. It will never be proclaimed. We know that if the Progressive Conservative Party is reelected as I fully anticipate it will be, when the American and the Mexicans have done their thing it will be proclaimed.
We do not know what the Liberals are going to do. Of course, we will never find out because we know the Liberals are not going to be elected in the fall. We know that Canadians will come to the team of men and women who have stood for Canada and have taken the tough decisions.
They have shown true leadership and will return, with a third successive majority, the Progressive Conservative Party on dynamic new leadership, whatever it may be. I invite my hon. friends opposite to stay tuned. I look forward to their comments in the debate.


Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, my how the empire is crumbling on the other side.
This debate on NAFTA is as much about trade as it is about how this government has chosen to govern this country and Canadians. The Leader of the Opposition said a few moments ago when he concentrated his remarks on the process that it shows an abuse for legitimate authority to have it discharged in this way.
The president and the American trade representative have said as clearly as they can that this agreement will not be going to Congress. Moreover, the American administration is pushing for the so-called side deals to

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correct the flaws and without those side deals there is basically no deal.
Rather than responding to that in the best interests of our nation by trying to keep our negotiation cards for Canada and protect number one, this government instead pushes the House of Commons, Canadians and our country into ratifying a deal that is very far from being complete.
The minister of defence suggests there is an era of new politics, the politics of inclusion that will listen to all the voices in the debate within the Canadian family. Those words are hollow. They are a pale piece of rhetoric when they fly against the reality of what this government and this administration is about to do.
Rather than taking the time to negotiate properly and cement an agreement that speaks to and for Canada this government is basically making us a hostage in the face of the two other partners which have not had their debates. They have not ratified their deals and are not prepared to ratify them until it is time to cross the t, dot the i and put the signature on that piece of legislation.
The leader talked this morning about the triple crown. He said this is more an agenda of the Prime Ministers to complete the triple crown. He defined the triple crown as the free trade agreement of 1988, the GST and now NAFTA. It is more a crown of thorns for the country.
It is not because this party is against trade and not because Canadians do not understand the importance that trade provides to our national economy but the government has placed the emphasis too much on the words free trade when instead it should be emphasized as fair trade.
Trade should be conducted by a set of rules and regulations that provide a level playing field for Canadians as well as Americans and Mexicans. If it is done on the basis of fair trade we do not have anything to fear in this country. Our businesses do not feel insecure when
they have to compete with Mexicans, Americans or any other business from any part of this world.
When a trade deal is flawed and there is a bad negotiating strategy it gives rise to insecurity and fear. The Tories are basically asking Canadians to trust them. They are taking a "trust us, we know what we are doing" attitude once again.
Canadians are not as stupid or gullible as this government would like to portray them. Those very same Canadians are living day in and day out the ramifications of the first round of negotiations, the free trade agreement.
They remember the Tories saying in 1988 in this House and during the campaign that if we did not grab the FTA we would miss the economic whirlwinds that would be ours. If we did not get into the free trade agreement the Americans would take their business south. If the employees did not support the big multinational corporations their jobs would be lost.
Where are those promises today? Where are those promises in my own city of metropolitan Toronto that during the recession lost half of all the jobs that the country lost? There were over 225,000 jobs lost in the metropolitan Toronto area alone. Most of those lost jobs and opportunities were in the manufacturing sector.
Do you not think the free trade agreement exacerbated that economic recession? Do you not think the free trade agreement has aggravated the loss of manufacturing jobs in Toronto, North York, Etobicoke and other parts of our manufacturing centres? Do you think Canadians believe that the free trade agreement did not aggravate the job situation, the number of plant closings, the direction of dollars and profits in research and development to the American head companies situated in American cities and towns?
What about the adjustment programs? The Prime Minister in this House and during the campaign actually had the temerity to suggest if the free trade agreement was blessed by Canadians he would have the best transition programs in the western hemisphere. Imagine.
Where are those workers today who have been displaced by the free trade agreement? Where is their adjustment assistance? Where are the adjustment programs? Where is the adjustment training to help Cana-
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dians through this point of transition into a so-called newer economy? They are on the roadside. On top of it this the government gets tough with the UI recipients. The hon. member for Don Valley North gets tough with the food bank recipients. The government gets tough with the refugees. That is who it gets tough with.
Where are the promises today? It does not matter that the Americans are still dealing for their sake or the Mexicans. The government comes to Canadians and to this House saying: "Trust us. We know what is good for you". The message from Canadians in any public survey about NAFTA is thanks but no thanks. They are living the practicality of a badly negotiated deal already.
They are not saying it in theory. They are not saying it in the abstract. TTie breadwinners who are still looking for that job are living it and they are unfortunate testimonies to a flawed negotiated free trade agreement.
Even Statistics Canada-not Liberal Party research- says that in January to February of this year we lost in our trading relationship with the United States $393 million in trade deficits on top of those that were already provided in the past number of years. The government's own statistics do not live up to the rhetoric that it is espousing during this debate.
In conclusion, we are not suggesting that anybody is against trade for goodness' sake. People know that our country depends on trade, but we require fair and honest trade and a level playing field trade practice.
We need a government to look after number one and number one happens to be this country. If it can learn anything through this debate, it is to simply hold on. There is no mad rush to sign, seal and deliver a deal simply because the Tories want to use this on the Friday night of their convention to paint the Prime Minister in some kind of godlike light.
Take a look at the country. Feel the pain. Talk to the businesses and those who are going down. Talk to the employees who are searching for work. Be smart and take a page out of the American play book because they are looking after number one as they should and we are saying that the Canadian government should do la meme chose.


Mr. Paul Martin (LaSalle-Emard):: Mr. Speaker, today I would like to register my opposition to the bill to implement the North American free trade agreement.

In terms of trade, NAFTA represents a tremendous opportunity lost for Canada. Today, however, I would like to limit my remarks to its environmental aspects.

NAFTA has failed miserably to reconcile economic and trade objectives with environmental concerns. What should have been a model for future free trade agreements has become a lost opportunity. If we want better trade agreements, they will have to promote environmental protection as well as the trade objectives contained in these agreements.
When it condemned this development almost a year ago, the Liberal Party clearly identified what we considered to be key environmental concerns that had to be an integral part of NAFTA.
Our four basic conditions were as follows:

The conditions we have posed for the successful integration of environmental and trade matters are as follows. There should be: first, clear principles for the harmonization of environmental standards between all countries in the agreement; second, a clear commitment that the objective of this harmonization should be to establish the highest level of environmental protection; third, the incorporation of environmental considerations openly and publicly in the dispute settlement resolution process; and fourth, the establishment of an environmental threshold for new country accession to the agreement. Unfortunately the legal text of the NAFTA has failed this test on every count.
The environmental provisions now contained in the NAFTA are simply inadequate and incomplete. The promotion of a multi-party environmental protection agenda is more than a simple matter of altruism. It is a matter of the economic self-interest of this country.
In the words of Hilary French from the Worldwatch Institute: "Trade is neither inherently good nor bad, but how it is conducted in the future is now a matter of deep concern and unprecedented opportunity. It can spread wealth and knowledge or it can accelerate the destructive trends that are now underway. To those who have come to recognize that the list of living systems and materials that make up the earth's environment, constitute the global economy's main inventory of economic assets, there is no question what that choice must be".

May 25, 1993
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For this government to push ahead now without us knowing the contents of the environmental side agreement, without fair and reasoned debate within the country, it is very clear that this government once again has made the wrong choice.
There are now wide expectations that environmental issues will feature prominently in future GATT negotiations. All parties concerned with the environment and trade must begin to grapple with the innovations needed to merge these two fields. It is a merger which is so required and so paramount in contemporary policy but unfortunately operates all too often in two solitudes.
The negotiation of the environmental accord to NAFTA offers an unparalleled opportunity to achieve this reconciliation. It is now obvious that nothing less than a strong agreement on the environment will win approval for the NAFTA, the U.S. Congress and its President. This situation offers Canada a challenge which is virtually unheard of and we must now respond with a strong agenda of our own.
Where is the Conservative government's agenda on these side agreements? What are its priorities? Who has it consulted to formulate its bottom line?
The truth is, as in everything else this government does, that its entire environmental accord has been driven by the American agenda and Canada's position has simply been a knee-jerk reaction to another country's pressure.
We on this side of the House believe that Canada should stand firm behind principles that are designed to further the interests of this country, behind our own priorities and behind our own national objectives.

In this respect, we believe that a North American agreement on the environment should first of all create a North American environmental commission with the power and responsibility to promote environmental cooperation among the signatories to the agreement and to investigate trade and environmental issues related to NAFTA. Second, we must adopt a common set of basic principles to deal with environmental problems. Third, we must clarify potential interpretations of the present wording of NAFTA. Fourth, we must aim for the highest
possible common standards for environmental protection. And fifth, we must provide for greater environmental expertise, in other words, openness and dispute settlement mechanisms that include environmental concerns.

These proposals and those made by other interested parties have been on the table for discussion for some time now. Unfortunately neither this House nor the relevant House committees have had the opportunity to debate many of these issues.
It is morally reprehensible that this government has so stymied debate in the country. It is morally reprehensible that this government is now seeking to go ahead before Canadians know what the final environmental side agreement will be.
The serious examination of instruments to integrate environment and trade objectives in international agreements has only just begun. The implication of various options are only now being explored. In fact the environmental accord now under negotiation appears likely to have significant implications for Canada's trade and its environmental regimes.
This underlines our dismay that the NAFTA legislation is being brought before the House now before negotiations on the environmental accord have even been concluded.
Options for this accord deserve a thorough and a reasoned debate and the development of a pro-Canadian agenda. The haste of the Tories to push NAFTA through Parliament has foreclosed this prospect. It is disgraceful for those on the other side of the House to label those who oppose NAFTA as enemies of trade. For many of us the prospect of a freer, fairer and environmentally sound trade agreement is a very worthy goal.
However those of us who look down the road as we Liberals do see a great deal more that should have been covered in this debate and in this agreement.
The Liberal outline for a North American environmental accord offers a modern approach to environment and trade. This is one that can usher in a new era in our trading relationships by forming links between the environment and trade.
May 25, 1993



Measured against Brundtland and our major commitments at the Rio summit, NAFTA stands as an initial, disappointing attempt to merge environmental and trade concerns in a single agreement.
Once again, this failure demonstrates the ever widening gap between the government's free trade rhetoric and its meagre achievements.
This bill does not meet any of the objectives identified by the Liberal Party and environmentalists as a prerequisite for Canada's signature on an international trade agreement of this kind, any more than it prepares us for competing on the global market of the 21st century, which is our main objection to this bill.


John F. Brewin: Mr. Speaker, we have actually been witnessing quite a remarkable debate in this Parliament. In fact this debate is the longest continuous debate in the life of this Parliament. It began yesterday afternoon as a result of a motion by one of my colleagues in the NDP. The hours were extended. The debate has gone on all night and will continue as long as we have breath or the government does not use its majority to cut off the debate.
During the course of this debate we have heard speeches, intelligent and otherwise, on the issues in front the House. We have covered a wide range of the issues that are raised by the legislation here before us. This is legislation which would implement the North American free trade agreement.
The legislation before the House is of profound importance to Canada. Among other elements in the legislation are provisions which effectively turn over to a secret or private group appointed by the three governments which will have the power to override the Parliament of Canada or any of the legislatures should they have the temerity to try to adopt legislation which would be deemed by this group to offend against NAFTA.
Given that power it becomes therefore doubly important that the people of Canada and this Parliament understand what has been given away in this agreement. We have all become familiar over the last four and a half years with the giveaways in the free trade agreement the devastating effect on manufacturing jobs and on other jobs across Canada.
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The NAFTA legislation continues that process and makes it worse. It ties the hands of provincial and federal Parliaments to protect the regions of this country, to protect existing jobs and to develop social, economic and environmental policies which reflect the values of the people of this country.
It is true that of course we live in a world in which the barriers are slowly coming down. Part of that is of course our own fault as a country. We have joined over the last 40 years, despite the opposition I may say from this corner of the House, step by step in enacting an economic agenda driven primarily by corporate America which has turned the assets of this country over to private multinational, transnational corporations. As we have given virtual open access to the ownership of our assets this bill, and its predecessor the free trade legislation, reduces even further our capacity to protect our values as a country.
One of the historic challenges of Canadian governments is the challenge facing any government of a country that lives next to a substantially larger country. We look at Finland, Norway and Canada as different examples of smaller countries next to giants. From the beginning of the history of this country, almost 126 years ago, one of the key objectives was to develop sensitive, effective policies so that we could have in this country some measure of independence and some capacity in this country to develop institutions and values different from our neighbour to the south.
None of this was in any disrespect to our neighbour to the south. The peoples of that country have a democratic government. They choose the way they want to do business. However, if we wish to choose the way we want to do business then we have to act with courage and skill. Step by step over the last 20 years we have seen successive governments, Liberal and Conservative, fail in that fundamental historic test of Canadian governments. It is the test of preserving our capacity to develop our own country in the way we wish to do so.
The vision that most Canadians have of Canada is a country which shares its resources among its people on some basis of equity. We have not done terribly well at that but we have tried. We have a number of programs that have given effect to that value.

May 25, 1993
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Over a period of time we have debated frequently in this House and around the country other ideas to improve the equity and justice and social justice that we see as important values across Canada. There were regional development policies so that areas like Cape Breton or Newfoundland are not forced to have 70 per cent unemployment. We across Canada have accepted the importance of trying to share the wealth in this country.
We have looked at social programs such as medicare and at new areas where we have not been able to advance such as national child care programs and programs to bring justice to our aboriginal people. These at least we debate in this Parliament and on the hustings. We thought we were at least making step by step progress.
However, over the last number of years we have seen not further progress in this regard, but the beginning of a significant erosion of these programs which have given voice to this value of social justice and equity in Canada. Accompanying it has been the erosion of our capacity internationally to make that kind of contribution.
Consider if this was a theoretical debate on economic policies or if the government could say at least: "Well, we may have lost a little bit here but at least we have gained on the economic side". Then at least Canadians would see a trade off.
However, the opposite has been the result of this government's policies. It was totally predictable because in trading away our capacity as a country to hold on to the social values and to try to provide us with a capacity to enact those and the environmental standards we would like to see in this wonderful country of ours, we have also traded away our capacity to protect and develop our economy.
The economic vision of the multinational corporations of corporate America is against the interests of Canadians and Canadian families across this country because as we begin to trade away the good manufacturing jobs they get replaced with less satisfactory jobs such as part-time jobs, occasional jobs, ancillary jobs, temporary
jobs and low paying jobs without benefits or pensions or without the protection of unions.
Therefore we have seen not only the continuing high unemployment, but a higher level of underemployment. We are building that Reagan, Thatcher and Mulroney vision which is of two nations living within one: a rich nation of a few privileged people and a class of people who are increasingly living in poverty.
That has been the vision which has been enacted by this government. It is a vision which will take clear, precise alternatives. But the first fundamental change which will have to take place if we are going to redirect our country is the abrogation of the free trade agreement and the defeat of the North American free trade agreement. To those two policies we in this party are pledged. We will fight for that for the rest of this debate. We will fight through the rest of this Parliament for that and we will fight in the next election on that and on that basis we will win.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, let me say on behalf of the government that we thank the table officers, the staff, the translators and everybody else involved in maintaining the operation of this institution while we went through the prolonged debate.
For the record, in terms of the debate yesterday afternoon when we commenced report stage my staff had passed on to the staff of both parties opposite a consent motion suggesting that we sit extended hours to allow people to get on the record. Shortly thereafter the New Democratic Party member moved Standing Order 26(1) to not see the normal hour of adjournment and of course we supported it.
Nevertheless I think it is a good idea that in fact there is the time for debate for people to get their views on the record on this very important issue.
The hon. member who just spoke made some comment about worrying about manufacturing jobs. I was surprised that he did not mention the fact that last Friday Statistics Canada reported that over the last year Canada's manufacturing output has outstripped that of any other industrialized nation. He should be applauding the fact that in manufacturing over the last year we have done better than any other nation.
May 25. 1993

He also should be applauding that under the free trade agreement, not only have our total exports increased, but the percentage of exports made up of manufacturers increased as well. Not only do we have a higher percentage of North American trade, the percentage made up by manufacturers' high valued goods is even higher. The tremendous success and proof that in fact we can trade and trade well and create jobs is there for everybody to see if they have eyes to see and a willingness to accept facts for what they are.
This particular treaty and legislation has been under discussion for some considerable time. The Standing Committee on External Affairs and International Trade had 27 meetings, 203 witnesses and 95 submissions. The subcommittee on international trade had 29 meetings, 124 witnesses, 95 submissions, 23 exhibits, four appendices and visited 9 cities.
The number of days in the House of Commons on which the NAFTA was mentioned at least once was 234 times. The number of times it was raised in Question Period was 300 and that does not count supplementaries.
The number of statements by members was 22. The number of petitions was 14. Second reading debate was 4.5 hours. Committee study was 17 hours and 31 minutes. Report stage as of 8.30 this morning was 19 hours.
To ensure that members of the House were knowledgeable, briefings were offered to the opposition. On March 19 there was a confidential NAFTA briefing in Room 307 of the West Block. On March 31 there was a special NAFTA briefing. On April 1 we had a briefing by John Weekes who is our chief negotiator, on exports. There was a briefing on May 12 and on May 21.
The interesting thing about these briefings offered to Parliament was that the Liberals attended each of them, but the New Democratic Party members attended none
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of them. Not one of these briefings did they attend. They said that we were trying to sneak or jam something through. They were offered five briefings and they attended none of them. Does that say something about their sincerity, their wish to know the truth, their willingness to look at both sides of the argument and their willingness to accept the facts or are they simply locked into a philosophy imposed on them by Bob White et al?
Debate and getting one's views on the record is fine, but in fact if there is an obvious unwillingness even to listen to the other side-the New Democratic Party will not even go to briefings to hear what it is all about- then one has to question how long it should go on.
I think this has been a good opportunity for everybody to get their views on the record. I am glad it happened but I think it is time to bring it to an end. I move:
That this House do now adjourn.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: In my opinion the yeas have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Call in the members.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I declare the motion carried. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. today, pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 12.43 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
[Editor's Note: Proceedings for May 26 commence at page 19811]
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, May 26,1993