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BLOC QUÉBÉCOIS SUPPLEMENTARY OPINION
ON THE REPORT OF THE SUB-COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE, TRADE DISPUTES AND INVESTMENT, STRENGTHENING ECONOMIC RELATIONS BETWEEN CANADA AND THE AMERICAS
TABLED TO THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE
June 2002
It was in a positive and open-minded spirit that Bloc Québécois took part in the proceedings of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade dealing with Canada’s economic links with the Americas. The Bloc Québécois supports most of the observations and recommendations in the report, but would like to complement them with the following additions:
The Bloc Québécois presented a brief summing up the Bloc’s vision of globalization and the FTAA to the parliamentary committee of Québec’s National Assembly that held public hearings on the FTAA in the fall of 2000.
Five principles guide our position on globalization and free trade: Yes to globalization and free trade, but subject to four other principles:
| | 1) | Québec’s place in the world: Québec’s government and the elected representatives of the people of Québec must have access to the negotiations and international forums where issues under Québec’s jurisdiction are discussed. |
| | 2) | Globalization with a human face: Clauses must be included in international treaties protecting social rights, labour rights and environmental rights. |
| | 3) | Mandatory transparency: If the process of adopting international treaties is to be genuinely democratic, information must circulate as widely as possible and be available to everyone concerned (no more negotiations behind closed doors), and parliamentarians must debate and vote on treaties before they are ratified by governments. |
| | 4) | Equal access for all stakeholders: Business enjoys special access to information and to the political players who negotiate international treaties. Every group in civil society should have the same access. |
The Bloc Québécois would have liked the report to contain a recommendation for consideration of a social development fund for the Americas. Such a fund could be set up to help poorer countries to adjust to the impacts of economic integration in key sectors. The adoption of a Tobin tax might be one way of financing the fund. There are two undeniable advantages favouring adoption of a Tobin tax:
The revenue generated would go directly to help poorer countries
For example, on the basis of 240 working days a year, and international currency transactions averaging $1,600 billion, reduced by 40% following introduction of the tax, a tax of 0.1% would bring in $230 billion a year. If half this amount went into a social development fund, it would represent twice the total current international development assistance budget..
Crises brought on by speculation could be avoided through currency stabilization
At the present time, quite a small difference in interest rates can provoke a massive flight of capital from one country to another. Taxing currency exchanges, even at a very low rate, could reduce these highly speculative movements of capital.
With respect to democratic rights, the Bloc Québécois considers that the report does not go far enough because it does not stipulate that not only democratic rights but also labour and environmental rights must be protected. Every free trade agreement must include social clauses requiring the signatories to respect, among other things, fundamental democratic, labour and environmental rights. For example, governments must agree that the benefits of the FTAA will apply only to those countries that make a commitment to respect labour rights based on fundamental International Labour Organization conventions, forbidding forced and child labour and various forms of discrimination, and guaranteeing freedom of association and freedom to bargain collectively. A social development fund could be a primary source of assistance to developing countries that wish to live up to these commitments.
The same approach could be taken to environmental rights. Already the fact that the United States is refusing to respect its commitment to the Kyoto Protocol is posing major economic and environmental problems for Canada and Québec. Clearly we cannot consider economic integration until we have established a basic minimum of mutually agreed-upon rules in the social and environmental domains. Most governments now agree that globalization is not merely economic but also has cultural, social, environmental and even political implications.
The International Labour Office and the United Nations Program Secretariat should in the future be involved in FTAA and WTO negotiations, to contribute their social and environmental expertise.
With respect to the role of parliamentarians, the report should have stressed the fact that, as the democratically elected representatives of the people, they have a fundamental right to be informed and to debate the major issues affecting their communities, including international treaties. One result of intensifying globalization is that Canada is signing numerous international treaties. In fact, treaties — whether dealing with trade or human rights — are proliferating at an extraordinary rate. Paradoxically, full democratic discussion of the contents of these treaties has been declining since the arrival in power of the Liberal Party of Canada.
The Bloc Québécois would have liked the Committee to accept its recommendation on the place of the provinces in international negotiations. The Bloc has frequently expressed its concern at seeing the federal government go to the negotiating table alone, especially given the Liberal government’s demonstrated willingness to centralize at the provinces’ expense.
This gives the central government the tools to craft social programs and economic and cultural policies in accordance with the international agreements it signs on Canada’s behalf, which bind Québec and the other provinces. We insist that the federal government make a place for the provinces at the negotiating table. In this regard, the Bloc Québécois would like to see the following recommendation added to the report:
That the government of Canada create an agreed-upon mechanism for consultation with the provinces in all areas of federal jurisdiction. In all areas of exclusive or shared jurisdiction, decision-making and negotiating powers must be granted to Québec and to any province that wishes them.
Such a mechanism would be an application of the thesis put forward by Québec’s Education Minister in the early 1960s, Paul Gérin-Lajoie, on the international extension of domestic jurisdiction. These Canadian-Québec negotiating teams could receive their mandates from both governments, drafted after consensus between Québec City and Ottawa, as is done in Europe when negotiating mandates for the European Commission are defined.
This having been said, it is clear to the Bloc Québécois that the only option by which Québec can truly and fully defend its interests and values on the international scene in an era of globalization is to achieve sovereignty as soon as possible.
We would also like the Committee to include our recommendation for a full report on the positive and negative effects of NAFTA, which will soon be 10 years old. This seems to us an essential condition for pursuing construction of the FTAA. Finally, in recommendation 7, when fiscal conventions are mentioned, we would like to make it clear that negotiations must lead to the exclusion of countries considered as tax havens. In recommendation 8, we would have liked to see included the fact that the liberalisation of sugar should be excluded from the negotiations with the 4 countries of Central America, and that it should rather be negotiated in a multilateral framework such as that of the FTAA or the WTO.
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