SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 238

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 24, 2023 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 238 - Oct/24/23
Mr. Richard Cannings (South Okanagan—West Kootenay, NDP)
  • Oct/24/23 3:25:14 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-57 
Mr. Speaker, I think we can all agree that we want to help Ukraine in every way possible and that modernizing the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement is one way we can do that. I think this is a good step forward. What concerns me about the bill we are debating today is that the whole process of bringing the new agreement to the House was flawed in every way in terms of the standard policy around bringing new trade agreements to this place. First of all, we were supposed to have a period of debate before beginning the negotiations so members could have some input into that. Second, there is policy around enough time after the treaty has been tabled, to see that, and then time to debate here. None of that was done for this bill. It has been done in the past, so it is not impossible. It is important that people here have a chance to properly debate our free trade agreements. I just wonder whether the member could comment on that.
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Context: House Hansard - 238 - Oct/24/23
Mr. Richard Cannings (South Okanagan—West Kootenay, NDP)
  • Oct/24/23 3:57:47 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-57 
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask more or less the same question that the Bloc member just asked about the investor-state dispute mechanisms. He said it was not like the investor-state dispute mechanism that the Americans wanted. I wonder if the member can explain more about that. How does it differ from the investor-state dispute mechanism in the Canada-Europe treaty and the CPTPP? Those are things the NDP is not in favour of. Is this some sort of ISDS light? What is it that we can and cannot do, and can face as governments being sued by multinational corporations?
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Context: House Hansard - 238 - Oct/24/23
Mr. Richard Cannings (South Okanagan—West Kootenay, NDP)
  • Oct/24/23 4:13:53 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-57 
Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned off the top that the Bloc was supporting the bill, and it seems to be a fait accompli, that everything was done behind closed doors and we are just implementing it. However, there is a section in the bill he was concerned about on investor-state dispute mechanisms, which is the foreign investment protection agreement of 1995 rolled into this new version. I am wondering if the Bloc will support this and then ask for amendments in committee. What are they going to do about this? These are things that both the NDP and Bloc seem to be concerned about, where we would have foreign corporations that could sue Canadian governments at all levels for legislation that we want to bring in to protect our environment and protect our citizens. I am wondering what the Bloc's attitude toward that is.
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