44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 23, 2023 11:00AM
- Oct/23/23 11:35:52 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today I rise in support of the motion from my hon. colleague, the member for Elmwood—Transcona and the NDP critic for democratic reform.
The most crucial piece of this motion is directly related to Canada's democracy, which Canadians truly value and is marked across the world for how important and stable it has been. However, the power of prorogation and the power to deem motions a matter of confidence, which is wholly, willfully and solely used by a prime minister, is a direct concern for the New Democratic Party. We have heard very clearly from both the Liberals and the Conservatives that they would rather keep the status quo and continue a tradition that we believe is truly anti-democratic.
On prorogation, for example, back in 2008, Harper used the power of prorogation to avoid a confidence vote. In 2009, Harper again abused the power of prorogation to end parliamentary debate on the government's complicity in the torture of Afghan detainees and avoid complying with the parliamentary motion to hand over all documents on the relevant charges. These are serious situations, and no single individual should be allowed to use this power to avoid the kind of democratic justice that the House can provide. Fast-forward to today's government and, in 2020, we saw the Prime Minister use prorogation to end parliamentary investigations into the WE Charity scandal after it resulted in the resignation of his own finance minister. We cannot continue to abuse the powers of this chamber for reasons of political expediency; it is not in the interest of Canadians.
These standing orders are important for Canadians, but they may not know, in many cases, that these powers are vested in such small circles, like the Prime Minister's Office. What we have seen, and continue to see, is this continued tradition by both Liberals and Conservatives to preserve these exclusive powers of a prime minister and continue to centralize authority and power away from Parliament. It is the position of the NDP that it should be this place, the democratically elected members of Canada in this chamber, who should decide some of these things rather than be decided, for political expediency, by whoever sits in the Prime Minister's Office. However, it is clear, with the Liberals' use of prorogation for political expediency, that it has been a long tradition in Canada, as evidenced by Harper's use of it as well.
We have the Conservatives supporting the Prime Minister right now with his perseverance in the protection of his personal power. Why would Conservatives say, every single day in the House, that the Prime Minister is an evil guy and make personal attacks, but then not actually address the systems that uphold these devastating authorities and powers that weigh over Parliament and Canadians?
There is a saying that New Democrats in the House are often reminded of, which is “Liberal, Tory, same old story”. I am sure both of these parties have heard this many times before, and it does not take a New Democrat to remind them why we say it. We say it continuously, because it happens right in front of us.
We are seeing the protection of the government and the Prime Minister to hold power that we believe is undemocratic. We are seeing unwavering support from the Conservatives who wish to preserve that power, but why? Well, it is probably because they believe that maybe one day they will be in office again and can then lord that power over Canadians. They could prorogue Parliament again, like Harper did, and they could avoid the accountability and justice that Canadians deserve.
The crux of this issue is ensuring that our democratic institutions actually function for the good of Canada. The exclusive use of prorogation and the exclusive use of declaring motions a matter of confidence is beside that point. Members of Parliament are duly elected by our constituents and citizens. We should not be afraid of those facts.
If anything, we should empower our democracy, our members of Parliament and our House to continue our parliamentary work, even if it is inconvenient to the government; even if there is a scandal. If anything, it should be said even louder that these powers should not exist because of the direct connection between the scandal and the use of prorogation declaring motions of confidence.
New Democrats stand in favour of our democratic institutions and seek to empower them for everyday people. The Liberals and Conservatives continue the status quo argument that has favoured them for generations. It is time to put an end to this. It is time to ensure that all members vote in favour of this motion.
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Mr. Speaker, as this is the first time I rise in the chamber with you at the helm, I want to say congratulations for all the work you have done in Parliament as a parliamentary secretary and also for your tenure as Speaker in this chamber.
I am glad to speak on this motion, Motion No. 79, from the member for Elmwood—Transcona. I have affectionately referred to this bill as “ending Ottawa's entitlement to my entitlements” motion, because that is really what this is about. This is about the traditional gatekeepers in this facility who have kept the doors closed against many Canadians, at the same time protecting their self-interests. I will get into that a little bit later.
When prorogation was used by the Prime Minister, it could have been characterized as the “running to your mommy or daddy to protect you from the people around you” bill. They go running to the monarchy to beg for forgiveness. It was the Queen before and now it is the King. It is because “I can't handle it anymore. Please save me”. It is ridiculous. In a modern democracy we should not have to turn to our mommies and daddies as adults in this place. That is really what it is about. That is what has taken place with prorogation. It has been used to protect someone's own interests.
I think one of the biggest things that we want to see with this motion is greater accountability to the public so they understand the rules. At the end of the day, prorogation is about, “Well, I just simply don't have to do it anymore so the rules don't apply to me. I'll see you later.” I am sure a lot of Canadians can relate to that. They wish they could prorogue their laundry, their dishes or their awkward conversations with people who they do not want to be around, but they cannot. They have to deal with them.
It is sad because that is really what we are dealing with. I have seen this happen in the worst of circumstances with then prime minister Harper who did not want to deal with the House of Commons at that time and I have seen it with the current Prime Minister when he did not want to deal with the WE scandal, for example. It is a very serious issue, as it is a way of keeping privileges and entitlements. I was thinking about gatekeeping this morning and about protecting entitlements. There is the protection of the entitlements one gets as a prime minister with all the perks. For my Conservative friends, there are the perks of keeping Stornoway and all the privileges there. By the way, Stornoway does have a gate, because it protects the gardener, the butler, the person who is making the meals, and the $70,000-a-year budget. It has a history of being part of the entitlements that we need to get rid of.
I think that it is really important that people know that prorogation is unique and special at the workplace. People do not get to call a time out in a democracy, which is really what this is: I cannot get my act together. I cannot get my caucus together. I cannot do whatever and I get to call a time out. The problem with that is there are serious issues. One prorogation was over the documents of women and men and issues over Afghanistan. We have that legacy to this day. The devastation to individuals and what took place subsequently would have been shining spotlights on those things. The consequences are still felt now, because we have many Afghanistan men and women who served under our country's banner who are still in harm's way. Some still cannot even come to this country because we do not have our act together on that.
The legacy of prorogation goes beyond the moment of the day because all the stuff in the House of Commons ceases. Everything grinds to a halt, which costs money. To the parties who often champion their role of being the custodians of the public purse, the last unnecessary election sent another $630 million down the drain. A time when Harper did it resulted in a freeze of all of the House of Commons' operations, along with all of its work, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in that year alone between the studies that would have been done, the people who were flown in for hearings, getting witnesses to come forward and producing reports. All the work that was done in the chamber and all the hours that go into moving bills were basically liquidated at that point in time.
Dozens and dozens of important bills were killed by the Conservatives and the Liberals; some bills had to go on to the next Parliament. That is where the real damage is done. The rest of the world does not get a time out or time off. People do not go running to mommy or daddy to try to figure things out. The world still goes on. The grinding of Parliament starts and the grinding of Senate follows. What that means is that we have to start over.
I cannot say how many of those bills dealt with social justice, women's rights, housing, the environment and the auto industry. They dealt with a number of things that we are trying to compete with in the world. If the Prime Minister, right now, chose to prorogue this Parliament, we would lose the GST rebate, a modest housing initiative and work on the Competition Bureau. They would all be gone.
In the committee I sit on, there are 96 witnesses and about 140 who want to work on Bill C-27, Canada's first bill on artificial intelligence. As the entire world is moving beyond us right now, that would be the real consequence. If an election is called because we have to bend a knee to the monarchy again in the system that we have because the Governor General can decide, we would be into another costly election. none of these bills could be brought back unless there was unanimous consent. On top of that, there would be months and months, if not more, perhaps almost a full year, to get back into order the work that would be gone.
That is critical if we are trying to compete with the rest of the world and world events are taking place, as they are now. My heart goes out to those who are suffering due to what is taking place. So many people are suffering. It is not just the wars, it is famine. Canadians are dealing with an opioid crisis. There is a whole series of issues on housing affordability and people cannot afford groceries. The Prime Minister of the day could basically say he is calling a time out, everyone can deal with it on their own and he will keep all of his privileges intact.
What is funny is when that happens, the Prime Minister's salary, the perks of the residence and everything else are not prorogued. They continue. What does not continue is the hard work that is necessary to improve lives. That is why the member for Elmwood—Transcona is onto something here. It is critical that he get some type of recognition because this issue has not gone away.
The member's father, the former member for Elmwood—Transcona, Bill Blaikie, would be proud of him today. I stood in this chamber with Bill Blaikie many times and listened to his statesman approach, which is missing in many respects, and his maturity in trying to work toward trying to better this place and establish some rules, which is the legacy that current member for Elmwood—Transcona is carrying on. That is what Bill often did in this place: He brought sense and logic to it.
At the end of the day, this motion is about creating a balance of rules. It does not end all the rules but improves upon them in taking a credible step forward. That is critical, because we just cannot have what we have today. Imagine if Parliament shut down tomorrow. What is at stake is our lost voices.
I want it to be clear that this is a reasonable, modest, sensible and practical approach to changing the rules. Conservatives and Liberals should think about this. I know they do not often end some of the privileges in this chamber because they think they can constantly switch back and forth. There will be a new day when they are not there and they will be wishing for this legislation, because all their constituents will need it, instead of the ego of the member who occupies the Prime Minister's seat.
With that, I move:
That the motion be amended by replacing the words, “(iii) in Standing Order 45(6)(a)”, by adding, after the words “An exception to this rule is”, the following: “the division on a confidence motion pursuant to Standing Order 53.2(9) and”, with the words, “(iii) in Standing Order 45(4)(b)”, by adding after paragraph (v), the following: “(vi) a confidence motion pursuant to Standing Order 53.2(9).”
These are housekeeping amendments to improve this bill and make it even stronger.
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Mr. Speaker, Conservatives have a very long, storied and proud tradition of supporting free trade. We only have to look back to the negotiations of the original Canada-United States free trade agreement, which was, of course, something Conservatives were in favour of and that Liberals campaigned very hard against. I was a young lad back then, but I remember a commercial from the Liberal Party on this, talking about free trade. It said that there was only one more line that we had to remove, and then it erased the border between Canada and the United States. That was a long time ago, but I just want to talk briefly about how strongly Conservatives support free trade. We believe in free trade between free nations as an integral part of improving the prosperity of all people.
We were also the people who started the negotiations on CETA. The CETA deal is a Conservative deal that was started by Prime Minister Harper as part of our aggressive trade expansion. The same thing with the CPTPP, which was a Conservative initiative. Conservatives are very supportive of free trade.
This original free trade agreement between Canada and Ukraine was originated by a Conservative government under Prime Minister Harper. The member for Abbotsford, from the Conservative Party, was the lead negotiator on that. He will speak to this, and we will have some wonderful insights on this agreement.
When we talk about the importance of the Canada-Ukraine relationship, we have to talk about the 1.3 million Canadians of Ukrainian origin who live here in Canada. Many of them were integral in the development of western Canada. They are an incredible and important part of the social fabric of Canada, and their contributions to Canada cannot go unnoticed. As a result of that, in part, we have very strong people-to-people ties between Canada and Ukraine. Of course, we are strong supporters of Ukraine during the illegal invasion being prosecuted by Russia.
With respect to this agreement in particular, this modernization would build on the 2017 agreement, which updated or added 11 new chapters to the free trade agreement. The updated chapters included rules of origin and procedures, government procurement, competition policy, monopolies and state enterprises, electronic commerce, digital trade, labour, the environment, transparency, anti-corruption and responsible business conduct.
There is also a significant number of new chapters, 11 new chapters, in this trade agreement, and I will talk a little more about that later in my remarks. However, these are on investment; cross-border trade and services; temporary entry for business people; development and administration of measures; financial services; services and investment, non-conforming measures; telecommunications; trade and gender; trade and small and medium-sized enterprises; trade and indigenous peoples; and good regulatory practices. This is a substantial change from the original agreement that was signed in 2017.
On that, I would echo some of the comments made by the NDP, which is that this agreement is actually substantial. It is a very large trade agreement. Of course, we have to take our time to make sure we study free trade agreements in detail and thoroughly. However, it does seem as though the government is trying to rush this forward, and I am not sure that is necessarily the way Parliament should look at things. We should do our jobs as parliamentarians.
I would like to talk about the original trade agreement. In 2022, Canada's total merchandise trade with Ukraine was $420 million, $150 million in exports and $270 million in imports. The way the original agreement was designed, as it was negotiated by the Conservative government, was that this would be, in a sense, a bit of an asymmetrical agreement.
It was set up such that Ukraine would have a little more advantage in the early stages of the agreement, with the anticipation that there would be a final agreement in which more things would be added. Originally, this was primarily a merchandise agreement. We can see now that a lot of chapters have been added on the services side. I suspect that as a result of that, we will see the trade balance perhaps narrow between Canada and Ukraine, but in general increase the trade between the two countries.
After the ratification of the original agreement, exports to Ukraine, other than coal, grew about 28% between 2016 and 2019, which reinforces the view that trade, especially free trade, is good for both countries. We saw a significant increase in the two-way trade between two countries as a result of the free trade agreements, which goes back to why Conservatives absolutely and unequivocally support free trade agreements.
Interestingly enough, the top three exports to Ukraine were motor vehicles and parts, fish and seafood, and pharmaceutical products. The top imports from Ukraine were animal and vegetable fats, oils, iron and steel, and electrical machinery and equipment. Canadian businesses certainly have an opportunity to expand their trade with Ukraine.
I have undertaken to consult with industry with respect to this. I have spoken with agricultural companies, agricultural industries, etc. The challenge of course is the very condensed time frame, and I should explain this.
What we have before Parliament is the enabling legislation to implement the free trade agreement, but that is probably not what we are debating today. We are not actually going to look at and debate whether “subsection 42.1(1.1) of the act is amended by adding the following paragraph after (a).” I suspect that is not what we will debate here today.
The implementation legislation is how we implement the changes to relevant statutes and other things to implement the actual free trade agreement. This implementation bill's enabling legislation does not seem to have much in it that any of us will spend a lot of time debating in this chamber, although I could be wrong, as some members do enjoy debating those kinds of things.
The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan might enjoy going through and deciding whether “paragraphs (b) and (c) of the definition Ukraine in subsection 2(1) of the act are replaced by the following” is a good or significant change, but that is not what I will talk about today.
What we can talk about are the general principles of supporting free trade and the free trade agreement itself. In that is some of the difficulty that was expressed by the NDP member. He said he had not had the time to discuss this legislation with his caucus and colleagues, which takes me back to discussions with stakeholders.
As part of looking at whether this will be a trade agreement that benefits Canada, we want to talk to stakeholders to see whether they view some of the changes to this free trade agreement as being good or bad. In particular, in the agricultural sector, we are going to be talk about things like sanitary and phytosanitary measures. We are going to look at whether the quotas that will be allowed, the products that are coming in without tariff, are appropriate. This could be in the beef sector, the pork sector or in a whole bunch of agricultural sectors.
Those consultations are ongoing right now. I have reached out to the industries that would be affected by that to find out where they stand on it.
When I attended law school, we had professors very clearly say that the devil was often in the details. I am not 100% sure that Parliament should just pass things without any scrutiny whatsoever. We have learned that when other trade agreements were put forward by the Liberal government and passed rapidly, we ended up with some challenges.
If we look at, for example, free trade with the European Union, we have all kinds of challenges now with the sanitary and phytosanitary measures surrounding beef and pork. It is a particular issue right now in our negotiations with the U.K. It is almost impossible for Canadian beef or pork producers to export into the United Kingdom. They also have great difficulty exporting into the European Union. Why? It is because there are sanitary and phytosanitary measures preventing those exports from taking place. We would think that after this amount of time that these things would be resolved. However, for both things, there are very complicated dispute resolution procedures in place to try to resolve issues of sanitary and phytosanitary measures.
Sanitary and phytosanitary measures are important. They are put in place to ensure the health of people consuming the products. They are also protections put in place to protect biodiversity, to ensure things are not contained within certain products that could harm biodiversity. These measures are important, but sometimes these sanitary and phytosanitary measures are used as non-tariff barriers, or NTBs. NTBs have become sort of the new way to frustrate free trade. As we look around the world, we see that NTBs are growing in number and there are challenges in resolving those free trade agreements.
I took the time to look at the section in this free trade agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary measures. I am pleased to see that this section sets out that they will be resolved within the rules set out by the World Trade Organization. That is quite a difference from the measures that have been put in place for the resolution of sanitary and phytosanitary measures within CETA, which the U.K. benefits from in the transitional agreement. Trying to resolve those issues through that process has proven to be, if not incredibly complicated, almost impossible. It is good to see that is in this agreement.
If we look at the opportunities for Canada, one of the things I raised in my question to the minister was that the agreement talked about the phase-out of coal. However, in Europe, we have seen the rise in the use of coal by a number of countries as a result of them trying to stop buying Russian gas. As we all know, the purchase of Russian gas is providing revenues and profits to Russia so it can use those monies to fund its illegal war in Ukraine.
Many European countries have asked Canada to export more LNG, and the United States has actually taken that up. It has built a number of LNG export facilities over the last number of years to take advantage of the demand for LNG, including that demand in Europe. Unfortunately, Canada has not taken advantage of that and, in fact, has lost all kinds of opportunities.
However, when talk about transition, we do not transition from coal to a solar panel. Those kinds of transitions generally do not work. We do not transition from coal to a wind turbine and solar. Those things do not work. Both of these things provide intermittent power. Intermittent power makes maintenance of the electric grid more expensive and it is unreliable when there are surges in demand. We need a strong baseload of electricity generation.
I hope that when I have the time to go through this agreement in full, I will see this addresses a great area of potential opportunity for Canada and Ukraine with respect to electricity generation. We have amazing expertise in the production of nuclear reactors, as does Ukraine. Canada has all kinds of uranium that it can export. I really hope there will be some things in the agreement that talk about furthering this kind of development and partnership. It would be both good for Ukraine and good for Canada.
However, transitioning from coal would be beneficial to the world. When we look at energy transitions, we know they do not happen rapidly. In fact, they take a long time. All we have to do is think about how coal was discovered 200 to 250 years ago. We have had gas, natural gas and nuclear for a much shorter period of time, but they have not completely displaced coal even though the power density for both gas and nuclear is far more dense than for coal. Therefore, it makes sense to transition to these things.
This is the challenge in suggesting we transition from coal to solar or wind, because the actual energy density is so much smaller. An electricity plant that would use LNG or nuclear would take up 20 acres, but to get a similar amount of energy from wind or solar, we would be looking at 10 to 100 times that amount of land. The suggestion that we can make those transitions quickly from coal to wind and solar is not feasible and it does not make sense. We should be exploring the opportunities that Canada has with LNG and nuclear.
The Conservative Party is 100% behind supporting Ukraine, supporting trade and free trade. Free trade between free nations is something we support 100%. I look forward to going through this agreement and to the debate on this agreement in the House.
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Mr. Speaker, eight out of 10 people know one can make up statistics about anything. That is effectively what this member is doing in saying they have done the most. Anyone can make up statements about anything.
It is great that they came to the trade party, but they came to the trade party late. I still recall their vehement opposition to free trade with the United States. I led in my speech with what they said about the one final line they would like to change, and they erased the border between Canada and the United States. The member is saying not to go back in time, yet every time we talk about things, they talk about former prime minister Harper, from 2006. It is typically Liberal: They want it their way one way but everybody else has to have it a different way.
I am glad this free trade agreement has been modernized. I look forward to looking at it, examining it and doing the due diligence that it seems like parliamentarians want to do, whether they are in the NDP or the Bloc. The only members who do not seem to want to study this agreement are the Liberals, because as usual, in their arrogance, they believe they have birthed the perfect child and nothing could be wrong with it. We want to verify if that is true.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today in the House to speak to Bill C‑57, which seeks to modernize the 2017 Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement, or CUFTA. I rise as the Bloc Québécois international trade critic, and I am pleased to speak on behalf of my political party today.
I just want to remind the House that our party is continuing a tradition, because Quebec's independence movement has been advocating for free trade since the 1980s with a view to exiting the Canadian economic framework, which is too narrow. It has been a quite a deal for our SMEs, whose expertise is as valuable as it is diverse. I should note, however, that our position is not categorical: A trade agreement may be bad, and it is what it contains that determines whether or not we support it. If an agreement is going to be harmful to our key sectors, commodify our public services to an unreasonable degree, give multinationals the upper hand or hurt the environment or workers' rights, we would not support it merely because we believe in the virtues of international trade.
In the present case, I will say right now that we will be voting in favour of the principle of the modernized 2023 agreement, since we are still at the principle stage. However, we have a major concern about something that I will talk about a bit later, something that we will be urging the government to commit to changing.
Let us first look at the context. We are talking about modernizing an agreement that dates back to 2017, but we could basically call it a new agreement. The 2017 CUFTA, which was essentially negotiated by Stephen Harper's Conservative government, was mostly about extending a hand of friendship to Ukraine, a symbolic stance, since trade with Ukraine was rather marginal at the time. The negotiations ended in the summer of 2015, just before the election, but the agreement was signed by the current government during the Ukrainian Prime Minister's visit to Ottawa in 2016 and it took effect in 2017. The Bloc Québécois supported that agreement. Given that we wanted to move forward quickly since Ukraine was looking for international support, the 2017 CUFTA was pretty bare-bones. More work could have been done, particularly with regard to the implementation mechanisms that were meant to ensure compliance with the agreement. They were rather weak.
What we have before us today is a real trade agreement. Bill C‑57 is 15 pages long and merely amends Canadian legislation to align it with the agreement's requirements so that the government can go ahead and ratify it. Bill C‑57's clauses are largely technical, as most of them change references to the 2017 CUFTA or other agreements, replacing them with references to the modernized 2023 agreement for consistency. It also authorizes the establishment, recognizes the authority and allows for the funding of the various institutional mechanisms provided for in the agreement, including the secretariat responsible for overseeing the agreement and the various dispute settlement bodies.
The modernized 2023 agreement is a comprehensive agreement. We are talking about 1,000 pages. It contains 30 chapters covering trade in goods and services—including special provisions in a number of areas—as well as investment, government procurement, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, labour law and environmental law. It also includes provisions to favour SMEs or businesses owned and operated by women and indigenous people. It casts the net wide.
For starters, we were pleased to see that the content of the June 2022 order was not included in this agreement. Countries in difficulty or at war are often exempted from Canadian tariffs, but this was the first time supply management was included. Ukraine became totally, or almost totally, exempt from supply management in relation to Canada and its borders. Chicken farmers were very concerned, and for a year, they suffered the ill effects of that access. It was unacceptable. There was no reason for this to happen, especially given the rather ridiculous reasoning behind it. For example, it was alleged, on the basis of studies from several years ago, that there is no bird flu in Ukraine. However, we know that viruses can mutate and that one of the main sources of bird flu in Europe is Poland, which is right next door. Until proven otherwise, birds, such as chickens, do not respect borders. They are not screened at the border. If there were a major outbreak in Poland, it would be surprising if there were no cases, contrary to what was being said in Ukraine.
In short, this agreement covers the components of trade and various related sectors likely to impact trade. Among its 30 chapters, 11 are new since the 2017 CUFTA. The “Cross-Border Trade in Services” chapter sets out the rules applicable to services. The chapter entitled “Development and Administration of Measures” ensures that administrative practices are predictable and consistent. The “Investment” chapter protects investments and replaces the 1994 bilateral agreement for the protection of investments.
The annexes on services and investment non-conforming measures complement the chapter on cross-border trade in services. They clarify its application in specific areas and list the exceptions that both countries wish to retain.
The “Temporary Entry for Business Persons” chapter is a necessary provision for business to occur between the two countries. It did not appear in the 2017 CUFTA.
Although the “Telecommunications” chapter does not completely open up access to the telecommunications market, it guarantees access to the telecommunications infrastructure. It does not cover broadcasting and therefore has no impact on cultural policy. Fortunately, the cultural exemption, as we call it, remains intact, and a good thing too, because we certainly would have fought this provision if it violated the cultural exemption.
The “Financial Services” chapter, which complements the chapter on cross-border trade in services, sets out the rules applicable to financial services without completely opening up the market. The Canadian banking market remains essentially protected. This chapter sets out the rules that facilitate the use of financial services in the other country and the simple flow of capital.
Three chapters are being added to the 2017 CUFTA concerning the participation of certain groups in trade, specifically SMEs, women and indigenous people. This allows preferential measures to be put in place.
There is also the chapter entitled “Good Regulatory Practices”, which codifies the manner in which regulations are adopted to ensure transparency and predictability.
Eight of the chapters in the 2017 CUFTA are being amended. The chapter entitled “Rules of Origin and Origin Procedures” relaxes the rules of origin for products containing materials that come from a country with which a free trade agreement has been concluded. The chapter entitled “Digital Trade” clarifies the rules that apply to electronically transmitted data to ensure more efficient flow. The chapter entitled “Competition Policy” clarifies the competition rules that could hinder trade, particularly in the case of Ukraine, where mass privatization occurred after the fall of the U.S.S.R. State monopolies were replaced by private quasi-monopolies that were difficult to break into. The agreement will help address that. The chapter entitled “Designated Monopolies and State-Owned Enterprises” includes the provisions of the 2017 CUFTA, but in a separate chapter to facilitate its implementation.
The chapter entitled “Government Procurement” was in the 2017 CUFTA, but in the form of a statement of intent only. The new agreement includes provisions from the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement, which takes it away from the WTO's dispute settlement bodies, which have been paralyzed for years, and gives it instead to the panels under the Canada-Ukraine agreement. This chapter is very important, considering the huge contracts that will be awarded for rebuilding Ukraine, presumably in the near future, as soon as the war is over, which we hope is not too long from now.
The chapters on the environment and labour, which were also statements of intent in the 2017 CUFTA, will now be binding.
Now let us talk about the chapter entitled “Transparency, Anti-Corruption, and Responsible Business Conduct”. The 2017 CUFTA contained anti-corruption measures. The 2023 agreement adds provisions on responsible business conduct. We know that the government is boasting about this chapter. This section encourages businesses to adopt internationally recognized guidelines and principles of responsible business conduct and corporate social responsibility, but these codes are purely voluntary. It is merely a fine principle. It is completely empty. There is nothing in it but encouragement to follow lofty principles. There is no body to oversee or verify compliance with this chapter.
In other words, we should disregard the siren songs of the Liberals, who are bragging that this chapter will do even more to help in the fight against corruption in Ukraine. That concludes the overview of the new and amended chapters.
Now, there are some potentially predictable effects that would encourage us to support the principle of this agreement. Even though trade between Canada and Ukraine is up by one-third since the 2017 agreement was signed, Ukraine remains a small trading partner for Canada. In 2022, the value of Canada's merchandise exports to Ukraine was $150.2 million, or 0.02% of the $760 billion in goods Canada exported last year, even in the context of a country at war. The top three exports to Ukraine were motor vehicles and parts, fish and seafood, and pharmaceutical products. Again in 2022, imports from Ukraine were valued at $271.2 million, or 0.04% of the $780 billion in Canadian imports. Canada's top imports from Ukraine were animal and vegetable fats and oils, iron and steel, and electrical machinery and equipment.
The trade impact of this new agreement will therefore be marginal, especially given that most of the goods and services are already subject to free trade, because, until proven otherwise, like Ukraine, we are still part of the World Trade Organization. However, this agreement will bring greater predictability than the previous 2017 agreement, which should make things easier.
I will point out that the 2023 agreement provides one extra year of guaranteed access to the Ukrainian market for 20,000 metric tonnes of Canadian pork, a major production sector for Quebec. These provisions should please pork producers. The chapter on government procurement could also become very important during Ukraine's post-war reconstruction, especially for Quebec engineering firms, some of which are very successful internationally. They could be enlisted to help rebuild the country's infrastructure. Dam building, for instance, is an area where our expertise is internationally recognized.
I will now address the concerns we have. As usual, the main one is transparency. Parliament's ability to amend Bill C-57, the subject of today's debate, is fairly limited. Amendments must relate only to the bill and cannot affect the agreement itself. This limitation of parliamentary powers is not exclusive to the Canada-Ukraine agreement; indeed, the people's elected representatives in this House, the issue of a monarchical culture, have very little involvement in international treaties. Their power is limited to saying yes or no to whatever the government has signed. We have this agreement before us and there is very little we can do. We cannot say that one item or another needs to be improved or that we are opposed to certain aspects. It is just not possible. We cannot influence the contents of these agreements in any way. By the same token, while provinces are responsible for implementing the parts of the treaty that pertain to their jurisdictions, they are not involved in the negotiations, as opposed to what is done in Europe, for instance, where member states play an integral part. Even if the treaty is with the European Union, negotiations happen with the parliaments of member states.
Again, these democratic shortcomings are not exclusive to the Canada-Ukraine agreement. The entire Canadian approach to signing treaties has to be reviewed. Regardless of the issue or political stripe, governments do not really appreciate it when their opponents look too closely at what they do. When it comes to trade agreements, secrecy is in order. Canada, with its deep-seated monarchical traditions, keeps the treaties it signs in the dark, afraid that they might turn to ashes like vampires if they see the light of day. As a member of Parliament, I have had the unfortunate opportunity to experience that first-hand. In November and December 2020, at the Standing Committee on International Trade, we were forced to examine the Canada-United Kingdom free trade agreement without seeing the text of the agreement. During that sad bit of absurd theatre, we had witnesses, experts and groups telling us about an agreement about which they knew as much as we did as elected representatives, which is nothing at all.
When Canada's foreign affairs department was created in 1909, the minister was supposed to table before Parliament an annual report on the department's operations. This report would logically include an overview of Canada's international discussions and commitments.
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Mr. Speaker, I disagree with the member's assessment. For those people who might be following the debate, let us be very clear on the whole issue of energy. In 10 years of the Stephen Harper government, how many miles of pipeline were put into place to tidewater? It is a bit of a trick question, but the short answer is zero. In 10 years, it was zero.
We can contrast that to the first few years of this government, and there is absolutely no comparison. Conservatives are trying to spread misinformation, I would suggest, to say that we do not support industries. It is just not true, and we have demonstrated that. We are talking about hundreds of miles compared to not an inch, under Stephen Harper, in 10 years.
When we take a look at it from the perspective of Ukraine and the war, the other thing I would highlight to the member is that one does not just wish pipelines and infrastructure into existence. They take time to develop. In fairness, we need to recognize that.
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Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to this implementation bill for the modernization of the Ukraine free trade agreement.
I always welcome opportunities to talk about trade. It is one of my passions, which is why I was somewhat disappointed by the disparaging remarks made by my colleague from Winnipeg North regarding the previous Conservative government's record on trade, especially Stephen Harper's focus on trade as the linchpin of Canada's economic strategy.
During the Harper years, the government set an unprecedented pace for negotiating trade agreements. When the Conservative government was first elected back in 2006, Canada had trade agreements with five countries: the United States, Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica and Israel. By the time we were finished some nine years later, we had free trade agreements with 47 additional countries, an astounding number. That included the Canada-Europe free trade agreement. It included the TPP, which morphed, of course, into the CPTPP. It also included South Korea, which was a very difficult negotiation but was successfully concluded.
One of the agreements that former prime minister Stephen Harper really wanted to get done was between Canada and Ukraine. Even back in 2010, Ukraine was facing difficult challenges. It had a very weak economy and was struggling in trying to deal with Russia. The Prime Minister at the time, Stephen Harper, said the government was going to negotiate a trade agreement with Ukraine that would be unique in that the outcome would be asymmetrical. What that meant is that the benefits flowing each way were not necessarily going to be equal or balanced, at least at the beginning. The phasing in of market access and the elimination of tariff barriers would be done on a differentiated basis so that the outcome was not a quid pro quo in the perfect sense of the term. The Conservatives did that because we wanted to give Ukraine a leg up and help Ukraine re-establish itself as economically viable and strong.
I should indicate that I will be splitting my time with the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.
When the former Conservative government negotiated the trade agreement, the negotiations started in 2010 and were concluded in 2015. We left office in 2015. These agreements sometimes take a number of years to come into force, so the agreement came into force in 2017 and has served Ukraine well. Our trade with that country has increased. It was not completely unexpected that when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, trade flows declined. In fact, the current government and Ukraine stopped negotiating for a while because of the invasion by Russia into Ukraine.
Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and made sense out of the fact that Ukraine still needed to move forward economically and put in place the economic structures that would allow it to be successful. Negotiations were then recommenced in 2022, and here we are, a year later, in a position to pass the implementing legislation.
The purpose of modernizing this free trade agreement is that the free trade environment around the world, the playing field, is evolving rapidly. Some things are happening that are not necessarily good. For example, the world is becoming more protectionist. We are putting up more and more tariff and non-tariff barriers.
The United States, under Donald Trump, turned inward. In fact, members may recall that it was former president Donald Trump who pulled the U.S. out of the TPP negotiations. Why? I do not know. He was running for office. I suppose he saw it as politically beneficial.
The whole premise for the TPP was to take advantage of what is called comparative advantage. Every country has its own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to manufacturing goods and delivering services. If we can take the strengths of each country and cobble them together into a coherent trade strategy, we can ensure that the outcome for partner countries is optimal.
Unfortunately, the United States has pulled out, and since that time, it has really turned inward. It is not negotiating free trade agreements. When we go to the World Trade Organization, we notice that large countries, such as Brazil, China, South Africa and India, often block consensus on trade liberalization.
This causes us to reconsider how we engage with the world and open up new opportunities for Canadian companies to do business abroad and expand exports. That is why this agreement with Ukraine, which was negotiated under the former Conservative government led by Stephen Harper, is now being modernized. Many of these factors that were not in play back when we first negotiated this agreement now call for us to update the agreement and modernize it.
For example, there are 11 new chapters included in this agreement. There is a chapter on cross-border trade in services. There is a chapter on investment, which is very important. There is a chapter on temporary entry for business purposes, to facilitate the travel of business people back and forth between our countries. Financial services are covered, as is telecommunications. There is a chapter on small and medium-sized enterprises.
There is also a chapter on digital trade, because digital trade has evolved so quickly that it has left a lot of our trade agreements behind. One of the reasons that our free trade agreement with the United States was updated is that we had no chapter on digital services. People are doing business online now. Amazon has become an obscenely profitable company. Why? It is because of online purchasing, which is digital trade. There is a separate chapter on that.
There is a new chapter on how labour and workers will be treated, and the high standards that both countries want to set. There is also a chapter on the environment.
The bottom line is this: We as Canadians need to step up and stand in the gap for Ukraine. Canada has a large Ukrainian diaspora that expects us to partner with Ukraine in its time of need. That is what this agreement does. That is what the original trade agreement did.
In my home city of Abbotsford, many Ukrainians have fled their home country and made their home, or at least their temporary home, in Abbotsford. We now have something called the Ukrainian village, which is reinforcing why it is so important for all of us to work together with our Ukrainian diaspora and with the people of Ukraine to put in place a trade agreement and structure under which the Ukrainian economy can be lifted back up. Both of our countries can benefit from that.
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Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that the member across the way played a significant role in a lot of the trade negotiations that took place. He would be very familiar with the individuals who have the type of expertise that I said is second to no other in the world. I would challenge him with regard to his conclusions on the trade agreements, but we will leave that for another day.
What I would not challenge him on is that a trade agreement was signed with the Republic of China, and it was done in a very secretive manner. I noticed the member did not make any reference to that particular trade agreement. Can he provide some insight into why Stephen Harper signed that particular agreement without anyone knowing at all that there were discussions taking place between Canada and China?
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Mr. Speaker, I am glad the member used the word “trade”. One thing I recognize, and I think there is some merit to it, is that the importance of this whole debate goes far beyond the issue of trade; it is also in regard to Ukraine.
The previous speaker talked about the powers of this particular agreement and the benefit not only to Canada but to Ukraine, which is going through a very difficult time because of the war. Every one of us has opposed this illegal occupation and the terror that Russia is putting on Ukraine. This is a silver star that we can all look to as something of great benefit. I am pleased the member made reference to that aspect.
I am sure the member would be aware, because she was part of the Stephen Harper government, that defence military spending went just below 1% then. We have never come close to that. Does she believe Stephen Harper was wrong to let it go below 1%?
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Mr. Speaker, I did mention trade in the last minute of my speech. In fact, I think I mentioned it twice.
During the time of Stephen Harper, our military was the best equipped it had been since the conflict in World War II. We got Globemasters. We got Chinooks. We got LAVs. We got other planes. We finally got our TAPVs. All those were initiated then. We also got the national shipbuilding strategy. We would not have any functioning vehicles or equipment for the military were it not for the days of Stephen Harper and our past defence ministers Gordon O'Connor and Peter MacKay.
I thank the member opposite for reminding us what a great military we had and how strong it was under the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
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Mr. Speaker, can the member provide her thoughts on the less than 1% spending on defence by Stephen Harper? Was that a good thing or a bad thing?
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Mr. Speaker, during the leadership of Prime Minister Harper, more money was spent on defence than there had been since the decade of darkness. The country is stronger and envied by many because of what we have in our professional military and the women and men who make Canada look good on the world stage.
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Madam Speaker, I completely disagree with a good part of the member's speech.
Let us talk about facts. He just finished saying “the 43 agreements” under Stephen Harper that they signed off on. That is just not true. Because the member stands up inside the chamber and proclaims something, that does not change history. The history is that it was not Stephen Harper who signed the 40-plus agreements. The member is trying to take credit for those agreements, yet he is being critical of the agreements we signed off on.
The bottom line is that no government in the history of Canada has signed off on as many trade agreements. That directly has an impact on the number of middle-class jobs that have been created, somewhere around a million-plus, prepandemic, and the trade agreements did contribute to that.
I wonder if he could—
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's speech but just because he gets up and says it does not mean it is true.
In fact, by giving the United Kingdom accession to the CPTPP, an agreement that was negotiated by the Harper government, signed off, barely, almost failed, as a result of the Liberal Prime Minister, they are going to deteriorate this agreement by bringing in non-science, non-tariff trade barrier implements into the CPTPP from CETA because of this, by putting the United Kingdom into this agreement without addressing these issues first.
The CPTPP works because it is science-based. Yes, the Liberals also signed CETA, which has been probably the worst trade agreement we have had as a result of their playing with the end result, same with CUSMA.
Under Harper, we signed trade agreements that worked for Canada. Under this government, they are failing Canada.
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Madam Speaker, if one wants to get the Conservatives upset, just tell them the reality that when it comes to trade agreements, the government has signed off on more trade agreements than Stephen Harper did. That is a clear fact of history, yet the member gets all excited about the importance of trade agreements. I agree; we should be excited about them, especially this one, because it is the first time a trade agreement would be expanded upon when one of the countries is at war. There is a great deal of appetite from a wide spectrum of stakeholders to see this legislation pass.
My question to the member is this: He says he wants lots of time to be able to debate this—
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Madam Speaker, I did not hear a question there, so I will take it as a comment. I will simply emphasize and close my remarks with this: In 2014, a year after the process started with the initial free trade agreement, Stephen Harper led the world in a show of strength when he stood face to face with a dictator and despot, telling Vladimir Putin to “get out of Ukraine.” That is the leadership the Conservatives have shown continually and the leadership we will continue to show when the member for Carleton is prime minister.
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