Scott Brison speaks to the trade agreement between Panama and Canada
Wednesday, February 29, 2022
House of Commons Debates
OFFICIAL REPORT (HANSARD)
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Hon. Scott Brison (Kings—Hants, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak to the trade agreement between Panama and Canada. However, before I speak to that, I would like to speak about the general trade policy of the government.
It has been said in debate in the House that for the first time in 30 years, under the Conservative government, we have seen trade deficits. This is in part due to our over-dependence on the U.S. economy and the U.S. downturn, but it also has something to do with the failure of the government to effectively defend Canadian interests, the Canadian economy, Canadian companies and Canadian workers, against U.S. protectionism. We know there is a knee-jerk protectionism in the U.S. that crosses party lines. It is in the Democrats, the Republicans, the Tea Partiers and the occupiers in the U.S. There is a knee-jerk protectionism when times are tough, and we know that times are tough in the U.S.
We have to do a better job on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue: at one end, the administration, the White House, and at the other end, Congress. We have to do a better job in defending Canadian interests legislator to legislator, senator and member of Parliament to senator and congressperson, government to government, minister to minister, prime minister to president. We have seen stronger relations between presidents and prime ministers than we have between the current President of the United States and the current Prime Minister of Canada.
The reality is there needs to be more attention placed in Canada on defending ourselves from U.S. protectionism. We have seen more than one set of legislative actions in the U.S. in buy American type provisions, which have threatened, hurt and, in fact, eliminated Canadian jobs and cut Canadian companies out of participating in U.S. government contracts. That has had a pernicious effect. We have seen buy American type provisions rear their heads again just recently and there is tremendous concern among Canadian manufacturers.
Looking at the overall Canadian economy, it is important to realize that while the macro numbers look reasonably good in some areas, if we go just below and break them down by region, we are having a very strange sort of recovery in Canada. In fact, what the world is going through now is not an ordinary recession and recovery, but is really a global economic restructuring.
Part of what is happening in Canada reflects that global economic restructuring with the rise of China and India and the demand for natural resources, such as oil, gas, potash and minerals of all sorts. We are lucky in many ways, as a country, to have so much natural resource wealth. The positive side of it is we do have that natural resource wealth and we do have the capacity to meet the demand for those resources. We do well within those sectors and within those provinces that have those resources.
If we look at Alberta, Saskatchewan and parts of Newfoundland, the economy looks much better than it does in the traditional economic heartland of Canada, Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes, where we see a real falling back and a falling behind. In many ways what we are going through as a country reflects what some people call the Dutch disease, where our dollar is being driven up by demand for our natural resources and there is a crowding out of traditional manufacturing and value-added jobs. That is something we have to look at as a country. We have to consider that as parliamentarians. We have to understand the growing disparity between have and have not provinces.
One of the ways to address that is through a more robust trade policy. The current Conservative government spent its first three years in office chiding China and ignoring India. The government has turned around on both India and China as of late. It is going to take a while to rebuild relations with China. Canada's relationship is at a historic low after 40 years of remarkable relations with China, going back to prime minister Trudeau's opening up of China in 1968. He was the first western leader to establish diplomatic relations with post-revolution China. Before Nixon built a bridge to China, Trudeau had done that.
Much of that goodwill was damaged in the first three years of the current Conservative government. I do see that it is working assiduously to try to rebuild those relations, and that is the right thing to do. However, it is important to recognize that damage was done to those relations early on.
If we ask many global economists where they see the growth coming in the next 10 to 15 years, it is broadly believed that Africa represents tremendous opportunities. We have had a traditional aid relationship with Africa. We have to move from simply aid to an increased discussion and movement forward on trade with Africa. It is a continent with which Canada has had traditionally strong and historic relations and friendships. We need to redouble those relations. We should see the great commercial opportunity in Africa, opportunity that can benefit the people of Africa and the people of Canada. We could be partners in progress as Africa moves forward.
The Conservative government has focused largely on Latin America. Deepening our trade relations with Latin America is generally a good idea. It is not mutually exclusive, however, with having deep trade relations with China, India and Africa.
I see an opportunity for Canada to be a centrepiece in terms of global trade in many ways, to be a more central and leading figure in global trade for a number of reasons.
First, we have the best banking system and financial services system in the world. Not only are our banks successful in Canada, but they are successful globally, in China, India and Latin America. In some of the fastest growing economies in the world, Canadian banks are present and they are growing. A few months ago Bank of Nova Scotia bought 20% of the Bank of Guangzhou in China. A little over a year ago Bank of Nova Scotia bought all of Royal Bank of Scotland's Colombia assets. More recently, Bank of Nova Scotia bought a significant retail operation in Colombia. Bank of Nova Scotia can be found everywhere throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. It is not just Bank of Nova Scotia but Royal Bank, Bank of Montreal and TD Bank, particularly in the U.S.
One of the things that gives us influence in other countries is the presence and the strength in the reach of our financial services sector. We could be doing more to harness the power of the success of our financial services sector to affect positive change and influence in those countries.
Second, as I mentioned earlier, we are blessed in Canada with tremendous natural resource wealth that the China's and the India's of the world need. We have become very good at extraction. Our expertise in the extractive sectors is second to none in the world, not just in terms of oil and gas but also in mining. Much of the way we have developed our extractive sectors and our oil and gas sectors in Canada has given us the capacity to export wherewithal and technologies to other countries that have the benefit of natural resource wealth and are in the process of developing that wealth.
There is a lot of natural resource wealth in Latin America. Many of the countries in Latin America face some of the same challenges we have faced over decades in Canada. Many of them have a lot of natural resource wealth and need to now face the reality and the opportunity that there is unprecedented demand for that wealth. We can help, work with and partner with these countries.
Colombia is a country like Canada, with a lot of natural resource wealth in mining and in oil and gas. However, we also share a history with the people of Colombia in that neither Canada nor Colombia is a colonizing country. We are countries that were colonized. We also have a history of indigenous and first peoples in both countries.
Thirty years ago in Canada, most first nations and aboriginal peoples and their leadership were opposed to the development of natural resources and extraction in oil and gas. Today they are business and financial partners in the development of those extractive sectors. I would like to see us working co-operatively with the governments of Latin America to help them and us learn and partner in terms of best practices around the responsible development of natural resource wealth in a way that shares that wealth with first nations and indigenous peoples.
In these countries and in Panama there continue to be challenges. There have been issues around tax havens in Panama. There has been progress on that, but there needs to be more. I am of the belief that, in the same way there were and are challenges in Colombia, we have to ask ourselves, as people outside of these countries, how can we best influence and effect change in those countries. I believe that free trade agreements, with robust rules-based frameworks on things like labour, environmental practices and human rights, can strengthen our capacity to effect positive change and to partner with good people in those countries who want to move forward and to help their people move forward. Free trade agreements with strong labour and environmental frameworks give us more influence and the capacity to help in these countries, not just to build wealth for Canadian business people or to create jobs for Canadians but also to help those countries develop their economies and societies.
I share concerns that people in the House have expressed, from all parties sometimes, about some of the challenges faced in these countries in the past and present. The drug trade is an example. If we do not provide legitimate trade opportunities to these countries, the only opportunities that people have growing up in their villages and cities to make a living will be through the drug trade, narcoterrorism. If we are concerned about the drug trade in these countries, one of the best ways to help these governments and people fight narcoterrorism and the drug trade is to extend to them legitimate trade opportunities to buy their legitimate products. If we are not willing to do that, we are leaving many of those people stranded, potentially with their only lifeline being the drug trade, which is destroying their country and their society.
Free trade agreements with strong rules-based approaches to labour, to human rights and to the environment can help wean some of these countries away from the criminal activities that have sadly been part of their history over far too long a period. There has been a lot of progress in Colombia. Throughout Latin America, the economic growth in places like Colombia and Panama has been incredible in recent years.For decades, Latin American countries were basket cases in terms of their economies. Whenever there was a World Economic Forum panel on Latin America, it was always on the basis of what we would do with Latin America. There was always another financial crisis, another series of government bailouts and country defaults. Last year, I served on a panel on the future of Latin America with President Martinelli from Panama. Last year, at the World Economic Forum, the focus of the panel was on the remarkable growth, opportunity and progress of Latin America.
I can tell the House that people like President Santos of Colombia and President Martinelli of Panama speak quite openly to the challenges they face in their countries. They speak quite openly to the challenges they face with corruption, organized crime, narcoterrorism, issues around FARC and other organizations, but at the same time as they acknowledge those challenges, they have put in place a road map to move forward.
Since the drug trade issue has been raised in the House as part of this discussion, I want to close with some consideration of drug policies in Canada, in the U.S. and in much of the developed world and their pernicious effect on Latin America. There have now been two different panels conducted by two different groups of former Latin American presidents, countries like Panama, Colombia and Mexico, on the impact of North American drug policies on their countries and the remarkable destabilizing impacts of our war on drugs on their countries.
I will provide a couple of facts. Prohibition did not really work that well with liquor. During the time of prohibition, Americans continued to drink but the biggest bourbon factory in the world was in Chihuahua, Mexico. However, after prohibition was lifted, it went back to Kentucky. The reality is interdiction, policing and incarceration did not work in terms of prohibition and it does not work in terms of our war on drugs. It costs a lot of money, it is hugely expensive economically and societally, and it is remarkably destabilizing to the countries of Latin America.
Colombia was largely successful due to the planned Colombia initiative, which was initially launched by President Pastrana and President Clinton and then further implemented by President Uribe and President Santos as a minister. In Colombia, the war on drugs was quite successful. However, Colombia's success in the war on drugs drove the drug cartels, which are very mobile, to Mexico. That is one of the reasons that Mexico and President Calderon have faced such challenges in the last couple of years. Production and distribution can be stamped out in one country but it goes somewhere else.
We need to actually develop rational approaches to drug policy in places like Canada and the U.S. and understand that interdiction, arresting and putting people in jail for this will not be as successful as treating drug issues as addiction and health issues. If we were to invest a fraction of what we are spending on police and incarceration in our war on drugs into treating drug addiction as a health care issue, treating mental health and helping people with addictions, we would have better results in Canada and we would stop punishing people in countries in Latin America who are penalized by our continued failed war on drugs policy in Canada.
When we are talking about that region of the country, I think it is important that we are open about all aspects of our engagement. One of the areas where are playing a negative role is in our drug policy here in Canada and in countries like the U.S. where we are playing a negative role in terms of our relations with Latin America.
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