- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- South Okanagan—West Kootenay
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 61%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $128,729.57
- Government Page
- Feb/5/24 5:46:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would simply say that I would rather we have a culture in this place where Parliament is asked about free trade agreements and negotiations before they happen, which is what I mentioned in my speech about the minister telling us here in Parliament when her team is going into negotiations with another country, in this case Ecuador, so that we can look at that situation and say what our priorities should be for Canadians and Canadian workers. That way we can have an influence over the negotiations and give advice to the negotiators before things happen. As the member said, we are just simply presented with a fait accompli, and we have to vote yea or nay on that. I think we should have more say before negotiations start and we should have a proper amount of time to examine the bill before this debate happens, and that, I am hoping, will happen in the future.
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Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise here today to speak to Bill C-57, the new Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement. I have already spoken at length about the bill, but I would like to speak once again, more briefly, about some of the highlights so far.
First, I would like to mention once again that the Canada-Ukraine friendship is very special. Over a million Canadians are very proud of their Ukrainian heritage. When Ukraine declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Canada was the first western country to recognize that act. Shortly after that recognition in 1995, Canada signed an early foreign investment protection agreement, or FIPA, with Ukraine, so we have always supported attempts to strengthen our trade with Ukraine.
The NDP supports this free trade agreement, and our primary concerns centre on the fact that negotiations began before Parliament had an opportunity to have input on our negotiation priorities and how quickly the bill came before us after the agreement was signed. Following accepted practices would not have delayed this agreement or the bill, but could have made it better for both parties. I am happy to say that the minister seems to have changed her behaviour by following proper protocols and practices of the House when announcing imminent negotiations for a new free trade agreement with Ecuador, so I hope that practice will continue in the future.
Returning to the Ukraine free trade agreement, we have heard repeatedly from Ukraine how important this new agreement would be to the country and how important it would be to rebuild Ukraine once Russia is defeated and this war is over. President Zelenskyy signed this agreement when he was here in Ottawa last September. Ambassador Yuliya Kovaliv, who came before the international trade committee, of which I am a member, emphasized repeatedly how beneficial this agreement would be to Ukraine and to Canada.
The Ukrainian Canadian Congress, which brings together all national, provincial and local Ukrainian Canadian organizations, has pleaded for parliamentarians to support Ukraine by passing the bill quickly and unanimously. Instead, we have seen the Conservatives oppose the bill at every turn using all sorts of tactics to delay its passage. I sit on the Standing Committee on International Trade, and when we were debating the bill the Conservatives tried to introduce amendments that were clearly out of the scope of the bill and, indeed, out of the scope of any free trade agreement. They emphasized what we should be doing to give aid to Ukraine. This is a free trade agreement between two countries; it is not about giving aid to countries. Acceptance of those amendments not only would have delayed the bill, but would have required renegotiation of the free trade agreement, adding months to the process for no benefit when Ukraine is pleading for quick action.
We just voted on another Conservative amendment to the bill that would have removed a small mention of carbon pricing in the environment chapter, a mention that put no requirement on either party to bring in carbon pricing or raise carbon pricing. It simply mentioned the fact that both countries agreed that carbon pricing was a good thing, and Ukraine has had carbon pricing longer than Canada. Again, if the amendment had succeeded, it would have sent negotiators back to the bargaining table, all for no reason.
When the Conservatives forced all of us to vote in every line item in supplementary estimates in December, a vote-a-thon of over 30 hours that cost over $2 billion to Canadian taxpayers, they voted against all other support for Ukraine, including Operation Unifier, where the Canadian Armed Forces are helping Ukrainian armed forces.
The Conservative opposition to support for Ukraine, including the delaying tactics on the bill before us, has not gone unnoticed by Ukraine. Two weeks ago I happened to meet with the consul general for Ukraine in Edmonton, who covers western Canada, and he specifically brought up his deep concerns with the actions of the Conservatives on this file. This is a representative of the Ukrainian government. He pointed out that Ukrainians are fighting and dying, not just for their own freedom, but for democracies all across Europe and around the world, and he pleaded with me to pass on the message that Ukraine needs the full support of all its allies.
Canada, because of its huge Ukrainian diaspora, is one of the most important of those allies. The consul general was mystified and dismayed by the lack of support from the Conservatives on this bill. Therefore, I asked to speak today to pass on his plea, from his government and his entire country to every member here, to pass this bill unanimously and to pass it quickly without delay. I am going to stop early in this speech because I am the last speaker and I hope that this debate will collapse so that we can get to the vote on this bill and pass it right away and help Ukraine by doing what Ukraine has asked us to do.
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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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Mr. Speaker, we heard the member for Winnipeg North say that we have had good negotiators and that, once they finish the negotiations, that will be it as we will not have any opportunity or reason to intercede. We have real reason to intercede beforehand, when we can talk and discuss in this place what our priorities should be in free trade agreements or any treaty regarding this country.
The member for Elmwood—Transcona brought this to the minister before we were negotiating the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement because the United States was already holding debates within their congress about what priorities they should have in these negotiations. We did not have that opportunity. There was a commitment made in policy that this would be the way things move forward, yet for this agreement, which is really the first agreement we have entered into since CUSMA, this has not been followed. I asked the member for Elmwood—Transcona and the member for Windsor West, who was our international trade critic, if it had happened. We queried the clerk of the committee on international trade on if this happened. Nobody could find any evidence of it happening.
This is what we have been pushing for. We want to help the government really form good policy to negotiate good treaties. We should have some discussions before our good negotiators take their jobs and negotiate the treaties. We should give them some direction that comes from all of us here.
We come from different parts of the country and from different backgrounds. We have to have that input in these negotiations to make sure that they will benefit all Canadians. That is what the NDP really stands for, that these agreements should help not just corporations but all Canadians.
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