44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 23, 2023 11:00AM
- Oct/23/23 11:55:07 a.m.
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Regrettably, the Chair saw the parliamentary secretary before seeing the member for Elmwood—Transcona. I regret this is the case. It happens from time to time. I do make an honest attempt to make sure I recognize the first person on her or his feet. In this case, I saw the parliamentary secretary.
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- Oct/23/23 11:55:41 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, do not feel too regretful, as the member for Elmwood—Transcona gets a five-minute right of reply and did get the opportunity to address the chamber for 20 minutes about the issue.
I want to highlight something I did not during my first 10 minutes of debate about the issue. Members talk about and mock, quite frankly, the use of proroguing a session. In fact, it is something that can be justified on occasion. We saw that the last time it was invoked with the current Prime Minister. We need to realize that the pandemic was not something unique to Canada; it was happening around the world. It was important that the House of Commons refocus, from what was taking place in the House to was happening around the world and the impact it was having on Canadians. That is why there was a need to do it.
Members will recall there was a throne speech that followed, which set the agenda and provided the assurances Canadians were looking for, given the very nature of what was happening in communities from coast to coast to coast. As members will recall, the Government of Canada made it very clear it wanted to have the backs of Canadians. We wanted to focus our attention on a team Canada approach in dealing with the worldwide pandemic.
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- Oct/23/23 11:57:10 a.m.
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The hon. member for Winnipeg Centre has a point of order.
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- Oct/23/23 11:57:14 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North knows exactly what he is doing, which is being rude and cutting into the member for Elmwood—Transcona's time. I would like to—
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- Oct/23/23 11:57:36 a.m.
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I would like to reassure all members that the member for Elmwood Transcona will have his full five minutes for his right of reply. The House started its session at 11:04 today; Private Members' Business will continue until 12:04.
The parliamentary secretary, the member for Winnipeg North.
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- Oct/23/23 11:58:01 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as you have indicated, the member does not lose any time whatsoever. This is private members' hour and we will use the full hour, as we have often done.
The emphasis I was trying to make is the fact that the Prime Minister and members of the Liberal caucus made it very clear that we wanted to focus the attention on the pandemic that was hitting Canada from coast to coast to coast. That was the need and it was justified.
At the end of the day, I am somewhat sympathetic to what the member for Elmwood—Transcona is saying, but I do not necessarily believe there is a need to change the rules.
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- Oct/23/23 11:58:45 a.m.
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I would like to recognize the member for Elmwood—Transcona for his right of reply.
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- Oct/23/23 11:58:52 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all the members who participated in the debate on this motion, not just today but in the previous hour of debate as well. I do think that it has been an important occasion to reflect on one of the most important tenets of our parliamentary system, including some of the ways it does not serve Canadians well. We have heard, among the arguments on this particular motion, that it is a significant change. I would agree and say that a change of little significance is usually no change at all. I make no apologies for the fact that I am trying to fix something that I think is broken.
The member for Perth—Wellington in particular talked about what it means to unilaterally change the Standing Orders. I want to offer him some reassurance that, in fact, in a minority Parliament, there is no possibility of unilateral changes to the Standing Orders because one cannot pass a change to the Standing Orders without having at least two parties agree. Maybe he meant that changes to the Standing Orders have to be unanimous, but, of course, there is precedent for not having unanimous changes to the Standing Orders. I think that it is important that they not be unilateral. In this case, they would not be. With the Bloc supportive of this motion, all it would take would be for the Conservatives to vote for it. We would have three recognized parties in the House together forming a majority, making what I think is an important change to the Standing Orders.
If we take Conservatives at their word, what they are saying is that they do not want to put any constraints on the prime minister's power without the prime minister's first agreeing, and I think that puts the cart before the horse. As the opposition, we hold the government to account all the time and seek to limit the possibility of abuse of power by the government. We do not ask the government's permission. I find it strange that the Conservative leader is now suddenly saying that he needs the prime minister's permission and agreement before he can do anything to limit his power over this place.
This is the leader of the Conservative Party who just last week challenged the Speaker's authority to make a statement because question period might start late, and who made an appeal to the sanctity of this place. However, he is happy to have the Prime Minister and any future prime minister shut this place down without so much as a wink of parliamentary accountability. Spare me the platitudes about the importance of Parliament, because actions speak louder than words. When we have a vote on this particular measure, it will be an opportunity for Canadians to evaluate the seriousness of the Conservative leader, both when he talks about holding the Prime Minister to account and when he talks about how seriously he takes Parliament and the House of Commons.
Of note is that when the Conservative leader decides to stand up for Parliament, he usually likes to talk not about anything that has happened in recent decades but about the Magna Carta, a document that is about a thousand years old. It is also, incidentally, a document that, when it was signed, democracy was not for the working people whom the Conservative leader pretends to stand up for. It was a bunch of aristocrats getting together to protect their own right to keep the taxes they levied on the backs of working people, on land that belonged to them.
I do not think it is a coincidence that when the Conservative leader stands up for democracy, he stands up for an aristocratic version that serves his own interests very well. He does this even as he protects the gatekeeping power of the prime minister, to keep the seat warm until he thinks he will get an opportunity to take it so he can abuse those powers in a similar fashion, just as his Conservative predecessor, Stephen Harper, did when that guy sat at the cabinet table. Give us a break on the sanctimony of Parliament as we watch this particular Conservative leader stamp on it when it does not suit his interests and then pretend to care a lot about it suddenly when it does serve his interests. That, fundamentally, is what this is about.
We heard also that it is a political decision, not a decision for the Speaker, on confidence. This does not make it a decision of the Speaker. What it does is make it a decision of the House, whether the House has confidence in the government, instead of leaving it to the prime minister to decide whether the House has confidence in him or not. That is not his decision. It is a decision for this place and it is why, if this motion passes, prime ministers would not be able to prorogue Parliament without having to face a confidence vote either before or after. That is the point. The point is that it is a political decision. It should be a political decision of the House of Commons, as it has always been in the past, not a political decision of the prime minister.
Let us change it. Let us have the Conservatives get behind actually doing something to stop gatekeeping power instead of just ranting against it and hoping it will still be there for them when they get the chance.
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- Oct/23/23 12:03:58 p.m.
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The question is on the amendment.
If a member participating in person wishes that the amendment be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
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- Oct/23/23 12:04:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we request a recorded division.
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- Oct/23/23 12:04:53 p.m.
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Pursuant to Standing Order 93, the division stands deferred until Wednesday, October 25, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.
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moved that Bill C-57, An Act to implement the 2023 Free Trade Agreement between Canada and Ukraine, be read the second time and referred to a committee.
She said: Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today in support of Bill C-57, an act to implement the 2023 Free Trade Agreement between Canada and Ukraine. This is not the first time I have stood in this House to introduce a new trade agreement, but this trade agreement is special. I rise today to enter into the record the story behind this agreement, because all members in the House, all Canadians and, especially, the 1.3 million members of the Ukrainian Canadian community, should know how it came about.
The story of this agreement begins with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's first visit to Canada back in 2019. During that visit, President Zelenskyy and the Prime Minister announced a mutual intention to modernize the existing Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement. Following that announcement, public servants in both countries went about doing their respective homework to prepare for renewed negotiations.
That homework often takes many months. It is just part of the routine for our respective civil servants and trade negotiators. However, there was nothing routine about the way these negotiations unfolded.
First came the pandemic, which stalled progress for over a year. Then, when we were finally ready to launch negotiations, Russian troops were massing along the Ukrainian border.
On January 27, 2022, I held a virtual event with Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine's deputy prime minister and minister of economy, to announce the start of negotiations on this agreement. Russia had not yet invaded Ukraine at that time, but it was already clear that the situation was reaching a precipice. The world was seeing that an invasion was imminent, and there was a lot of uncertainty.
A short time before that announcement, I asked my Ukrainian counterpart if she and her government were still willing and able to move forward with negotiations. Her answer was candid and unequivocal: She told me that her government was determined to move ahead, and she told me how much it mattered that Canada was showing confidence in Ukraine at a time when many were beginning to question its resolve.
Ukraine knew then which path it wanted to take for its future. Ukraine had chosen the values of democracy, openness and transparency, as well as a rules-based international order. A sovereign Ukraine was seeking to modernize its infrastructure, its economy and its laws. A comprehensive and progressive free trade agreement would be an important step toward modernization for Ukraine, and Canada would be its gateway.
One month after that announcement, on February 24, 2022, Russia moved in with its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and it invaded for all the reasons I just listed: Ukrainian territorial and economic sovereignty, values of openness and democracy, and a rules-based international order. Vladimir Putin despises all these things, and he could not stand to see Ukraine embrace them, uphold them and blossom into a great modern nation. That is why he invaded Ukraine.
On that day, I knew, the Prime Minister knew and the government knew what we had to do. As long as the government of Ukraine stood, we would stand with it. Since the war began, Canada has committed $9 billion in military, humanitarian, financial and development assistance to Ukraine. We also understood that standing with Ukraine meant that we would see these trade negotiations through to the end.
At the outset, it was not easy. The war made travel dangerous and even routine calls impossible for our Ukrainian counterparts. Negotiations had barely begun; suddenly, they came to a standstill. They stayed at a standstill for four months, until I travelled for meetings at the OECD in Paris. That is where I met Ukraine's chief negotiator, Taras Kachka.
It is important to understand that we did not plan a formal meeting that day. He and I, along with Canada's chief negotiator, simply sat in the cafeteria of the OECD building and talked. Mr. Kachka recounted the first 120 days of the war and the challenges he had to overcome just to make that one trip to the OECD. I again asked if Ukraine was able and willing to begin negotiations. Mr. Kachka said yes and I said yes, and negotiations began in earnest.
A few weeks later, at the G7 summit in Germany, I finally met Deputy Prime Minister Svyrydenko face to face. We revisited our earlier conversations and talked of how our earlier hope of avoiding the conflict had been so savagely dispelled. We reiterated our mutual intention to reach an agreement, and then we hugged.
The private conversations I had with my Ukrainian counterparts moved me in ways that are hard to describe. If they had told me that they were not yet ready to begin trade talks, of course we would have waited. Canada would have given Ukraine as much time as it needed.
Ukraine's quiet resolve to move forward was unmistakable and unbreakable. These negotiations were driven by the very values of openness and self-determination that Ukrainian soldiers were and are fighting and dying for. I can tell the House today that, even in the midst of an all-consuming war effort, Ukraine's commitment to those values never wavered and neither did Canada's.
I am proud to say that this agreement was achieved in record time, a mere 12 months from start to finish. That shows the resolve that Canada and Ukraine share on this crucial matter. This process reached its conclusion just a few weeks ago, when our Prime Minister and President Zelenskyy signed this agreement as part of President Zelenskyy's second visit to Canada. It is my true honour to speak to it in this House.
It is not just that we reached a deal in 12 months; it is that we reached an exceptional deal. In trade circles, it is known as a “high-quality agreement”. It includes provisions for trade in services and investments, a binding dispute settlement mechanism to ensure fair treatment, and labour protections. It recognizes the importance of small- and medium-sized businesses, women-owned businesses and indigenous-owned businesses, and it includes environmental protections that are the strongest of those in any of Canada's trade agreements currently on record.
In terms of its contents, it is on par with best practice agreements such as CUSMA, the CPTPP and CETA. With this agreement, Canada becomes the first country to sign a comprehensive trade agreement with Ukraine.
Ukraine has told us that this trade deal would serve as a model for further agreements with other prospective partners. That is one of the reasons I said this agreement is special.
Above all, this agreement is special because Canadians support Ukraine's fight against Putin's barbaric invasion. They demonstrate their support through their government with military, humanitarian and financial aid. However, support for Ukraine is not limited to government alone. Here in Canada, many individuals and organizations are helping by welcoming Ukrainian families fleeing the war. Many more Canadian organizations and businesses want to join that effort, both here at home and in the Ukrainian heartland.
This agreement opens up new avenues for Canadians to support Ukraine. It establishes the rules by which Canadian companies could invest in Ukraine's reconstruction, modernize its infrastructure and create jobs in Ukraine, as well as here in Canada. There are Canadian companies already active in Ukraine, and more are joining as we speak. The Canadian construction firm of Aecon is now forming partnerships in Ukraine under a memorandum of collaboration for the construction of a hydro power plant in Ukraine.
The presence of Canadian companies will help Ukraine persevere amid the strife of war. Thanks to this agreement, more can and will join them. Through all these activities, Canada and a victorious Ukraine will strengthen our shared values in our pursuit of peace, mutual success and prosperity. At the end of the day, trade is not just about business; it is about shared values.
Ukrainians and Canadians both want a free, modern and democratic Ukraine. This trade agreement is a manifestation of those shared values. I am truly proud to have been a part of it.
Today, I urge the House to reaffirm its commitment to those values and its support for Ukraine by ensuring the swiftest possible passage of this bill. Slava Ukraini.
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Mr. Speaker, article 13.10 of the trade agreement, subsection 8(d) says, “promote the rapid transition from unabated coal power to clean energy sources.”
We know that the Russian war machine has been powered by energy exports. This certainly seems to contemplate the transition from coal to other less-polluting fuels. To me, this is a massive opportunity for Canada to work on exporting LNG from Canada, which many European countries have asked us to do.
This would not only to starve the Russian war machine of funds but also be good for the environment. Does the minister now admit that this is something Canada should do?
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Mr. Speaker, that is a very important question from my hon. colleague, the critic on the trade file.
We see in this agreement an effort to establish a framework that would not only enable Canadian businesses to participate in the reconstruction of Ukraine, but also, indeed, include the highest environmental protections of any trade agreement on record. It would very much allow Canadians to participate and allow Ukrainian businesses and investors to rapidly pursue that transition to a greener economy.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for her speech and for these negotiations, which are very important. I would like to ask her a two-part question.
First, supply management was included when the order to import products from Ukraine duty-free was adopted. The groups that were impacted and the opposition parties fought hard to have this removed when the order was renewed, and it was in fact removed. Can the minister assure me that supply-managed products are not covered by this agreement? That is the first part of my question.
Second, I would like to make a comment. The section on investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms puts multinationals and governments on the same footing. This means that, technically, it would be possible for a multinational company to sue a government that is hindering trade. I find that unacceptable.
Does the minister not feel that this would have been a good opportunity to make this clarification?
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague and all members in the House. At a time when Canada chose to unequivocally support Ukraine, there was a tariff-free ability for them to export into Canada, including the supply-managed sector. I know what a commitment that took for Canadians to permit that to take place, and that really did show the support that Canadians have and that my hon. colleague had, for Ukraine. Of course, in this agreement, it is clear, just like in our other trade agreements, that the supply-managed sectors are not, and are excluded from this agreement, just as they have been with others.
I believe that this is a very important and progressive agreement and a good agreement. It has provisions for investment protections. There is a chapter that deals with binding dispute settlements. Therefore, this is very much the modern agreement that we have negotiated with Ukraine, and it would facilitate what Canadians want to do, which is to participate in that reconstruction in due course.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the minister's speech on this important free trade agreement. The NDP supported the previous agreement, and we are looking into what this new agreement looks like.
One thing we do like about the old agreement is that it did not have the investor state dispute mechanism in there. That is something that we have held as essential for any new trade agreements going forward. CETA and CPTPP both have that in them, and we do not like that. The NDP supports free trade, but we do not like foreign corporations telling governments what to do.
One thing I am disappointed with is the speed at which this is coming before us. I have not had time to bring this before caucus to even have a basic discussion. Why was this being rushed through without following any of the standard procedures about introducing treaties and agreements before the House?
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Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I am really proud about in this agreement are the highest standards in environmental protections of any trade agreement that we have on record today. We would agree that is really important, particularly in the trade agreements that we negotiate today, in which we can indeed support an economy and protect the environment at the same time.
What is also remarkable about this agreement, which members heard me say in my opening remarks, is the speed at which we were able to reach an agreement with Ukraine and how much the Ukrainians participated in this, despite the fact that they have been and continue to be in a war effort.
I am encouraged by the work that we always do in ensuring good debate on something like this, which we all agree with, and is continuing to support Ukraine.
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Mr. Speaker, the minister has rightly highlighted the unique nature of trade with a democracy on the front lines of the fight against totalitarian threats. This is important. Ukraine is not the only country in that situation. I wonder if she can share the government's position on Taiwan's application to the CPTPP?
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Mr. Speaker, the CPTPP is an excellent agreement and many Canadian firms and exporters have benefited. It is not just a good agreement because of its commercial success, but it also has some of those very high-quality provisions for the environment, for inclusiveness.
As my hon. colleague will know, CPTPP colleagues around the table, who party to that agreement, make those decisions about accession together. We are very pleased that the first accession candidate is the United Kingdom, another of Canada's trading partners. We have just finished that very important work.
No doubt we will continue to work, along with our partners, with all the other applicants for accession.
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