44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 24, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, along those same lines, I wonder whether the member also wants to talk about not just instances of particular investor protection agreements, but also the cumulative effect of constantly building these types of provisions in, whether they appear as independent agreements or as ISDS provisions in trade agreements, and the kind of chilling effect that has on government decision-making long before anything is brought to a trade tribunal.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to contribute to the debate about changes to the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement.
I will start by stating again our full support for Ukraine in the war against Russia, which started with an illegal and unjustified invasion on Ukrainian territory in February of last year. Our support is not only in response to some of the atrocities committed by Russian forces in the region but also is a firm stance in favour of international law and a rules-based order that Ukrainians are very literally on the front line of today. It is important that when we choose our allies, we choose allies that are committed to those values and to the application of international law and that we hold them to high standards when it comes to their observance of international law in what they do.
There are many ways we can support allies. Of course, Canada has sent various kinds of aid, whether financial or military, to Ukraine, but being a helpful trading partner in times of strife is also something that is important. However, at the high level, while we are very committed as New Democrats to supporting Ukraine, details do matter, which is why there are established procedures for the House and departmental guidelines for ensuring that parliamentarians have time to do their job of proper scrutiny.
We know that sometimes, under the auspices of good causes, governments have been known to sneak a few things in, which is why the department's own policy on tabling treaties in the House of Commons requires 21 sitting days between the tabling of the text of the treaty and the tabling of enabling legislation. Given that the text of the treaty was tabled on October 17, just a few days ago, normally that would mean that we would not be seeing enabling legislation until November 22. Instead, it has come much more quickly. It has been about a week since the text of the treaty was tabled, and we find ourselves in the second day of debate. This is a contravention of the department's own guidelines on tabling treaties in Parliament, a document that, as New Democrats, we take very seriously because we take the work of this place seriously.
One of the practical consequences is that, even though we are on the second day of debate about changes to an international trade treaty, caucuses have not had the opportunity to meet since the bill was tabled, so it is a very tight turnaround. To ask parliamentarians to be speaking with authority on just a few days' turnaround to such a large document with some important implications and a lot of detail does not manifest in spirit, and in this case not even in the letter, the government's words about taking Parliament seriously as part of the trade process. I think this is an important thing for Canadians to know and understand.
Often in this place, there are debates that touch upon the role of Parliament and the seriousness with which government takes Parliament, and I think this is one of those examples. These are the times not because it is a big controversial thing but precisely because it is not. We know that the government had signed this treaty well before it was tabled in the House of Commons. There were opportunities to bring Parliament into the loop and follow the appropriate policy, but for whatever reason, the government chose to take a pass on that as it too often has in the past.
For those in government who mean it when they say that they take this place seriously, we would exhort them to talk to their colleagues in cabinet to make sure they are following, at the very least, the established procedures for conducting these kinds of debates and discussions in the House of Commons. When they get good at, at least, following through on their own commitments and their own established policies, then we can talk about how to do it better. There certainly are ways to do it better, ways that involve the legislature much earlier on in the process, and build a tighter mandate for enabling legislation when it hits the floor of the House.
There has been a lot of talk already about some of the language in this agreement. I thank the previous speaker for pointing out that flowery language in preambles and elsewhere, if not accompanied by proper enforcement mechanisms that have teeth that would catch the attention either of our own government or the governments with which we are entering into treaties, does not really amount to much.
I am going to lay out what I think is a small but symbolic test of the government's commitment, not just on its process for trade treaties but also in the context of this particular one. In some of the flowery language, there is talk about an indigenous chapter and indigenous rights. I know the government also had flowery language on that file when it came to the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement.
However, I moved an amendment to the enabling legislation that would be a non-derogation clause for indigenous rights. It just said that nothing in that legislation, nothing in the agreement, would impinge on the already established rights of indigenous people in Canada. When I did this, I watched the Liberals vote with Conservatives to not have such a clause, just a reminder that indigenous people do have rights in this country and that nothing the Liberal government does in the context of an international trade treaty could undermine that or take away some of those existing rights.
I was disappointed at the reticence of the government members to endorse that as a basic principle and to put it in the legislation. Now we see flowery language about indigenous rights. Let us be sure that, at a minimum, we are including that non-derogation clause in this enabling legislation. That is an important point.
I want to talk a little about one of the issues that I know certain Conservative colleagues have raised in respect of the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement and, since the war began more largely, the supply of Canadian oil and gas to Ukraine. I want to point out that, regardless of whether someone supports more natural gas and oil development in Canada for export to Ukraine, when Conservatives talk about this, they are implying that we should have a greater role for government in deciding who the customers of Canadian oil and gas companies are. I do not find that particularly offensive, in principle. I think that is a conversation we should be having.
We should talk about what a reasonable level of extraction for oil and gas is, in barrels per day or barrels per year, and we should have a conversation about the best way to use those finite resources. They are finite because they are not renewable resources and because, if we are doing it right, we should have some kind of cap on how much extraction could happen in a year. This should be devised with our climate commitments in mind.
Oil and gas becomes a very precious resource indeed, as Canadians already know, with the prices they are being forced to pay. Conservatives would have us believe this is because of carbon tax, but, in fact, if we look at the record profits that oil and gas companies have been experiencing over the last number of years, price gouging is actually a much bigger concern, or should be a bigger concern, for Canadians.
Whatever government is taking in the form of a carbon tax and delivering back to Canadians in the form of a rebate is a hell of a lot less than what oil and gas companies are taking out of their pocket and sending off to international tax havens. That is costing Canadians a heck of a lot more.
It is rich for the Conservatives to get up and pretend that, somehow, they are in support of talking about how a public regulatory framework could guide export relationships and contracts for the oil and gas industry. That is not something they support. They support getting more oil and gas out of the ground faster. They support those companies selling it wherever they can make the best buck. However, for the government to get involved and actually say that we should not be buying oil and gas from these countries, that we should be exporting oil and gas to those countries, invites a lot more public involvement in the oil and gas industry than I think they have the stomach for.
This is a debate that I welcome. The best, most efficient and most prosperous use of finite oil and gas resources is something that, from many perspectives, we should be talking about. However, I do not believe this is a conversation they are serious about having. In contexts such as this, the Conservatives use it to score cheap political points, and Canadians should pay attention and not take them at their word on it.
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Madam Speaker, it is true that it was signed off on just last month, when President Zelenskyy visited Ottawa, but our understanding is that, in fact, the terms and conditions of that agreement were finalized much sooner. It is important for members of the government not to confuse their own communications imperatives and their desire to have nice press conferences and fancy signing ceremonies with the imperatives of a war; that does a disservice.
It seems to me that, actually, the agreement was in a position to be signed off on sooner, and then the members of the government could have followed their own policy and had the legislation in Parliament sooner. We can honour the imperatives of the war without taking seriously the government's own communication strategy.
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Madam Speaker, I am very happy to repeat myself. I actually said that this is a conversation I am open to.
However, the member just did the very thing that I have warned against. He says that Canada could be sending oil and gas to countries that are currently burning coal, which is fair enough. This is to talk about the government's selecting places in the world where we think we have a strategic best use for our own oil and gas reserves. That is fine; let us have that conversation. However, I do not think that is a conversation Conservatives really want to have, because they actually want a free market in oil and gas. They are not interested in having that kind of government intervention.
It is telling that the member found my comments disparaging; they were disparaging not of the oil and gas sector in this case, but of the Conservative Party. He conflated my critique of the Conservative Party with a critique of the industry. It is telling that the Conservatives feel those two things are so closely tied at the hip.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Courtenay—Alberni for highlighting once again the incredible impact that outsized profits in the oil and gas sector have been having on Canadian household budgets. I would also say that, often, one of the ways that their lobbyists in the Conservative Party like to defend that is to say one cannot help a wage earner without helping the wage payer. However, these guys do not need help; they are making money hand over fist. Not only that, but after the last Alberta election, they turned around and laid off 1,500 employees. They did this even though they were making more money than ever before.
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