DISSENTING OPINION BY THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY

The Government members of the Standing Committee on International Trade choose to offer a dissenting opinion to the Committee’s Eighth Report. However, in order to be clear, this dissenting opinion refers only to the final recommendation. The Government members believe that the report contains many excellent and focused recommendations which the Government should strongly consider when forming its future policy. We have heard from witnesses that support these recommendations and we believe their testimony is encapsulated within the previous 21 recommendations. On the other hand, this dissenting opinion takes issue with the 22^nd and final recommendation of the report which cannot stand to pass without offering our opinion.

Briefly, there are two fundamental issues at stake here, both of which deal with recommendation 22. The language of the recommendation is as follows:

All of the above recommendations should be implemented taking into consideration the importance of democratic debate on issues contained in the report; the quality of life of all Canadian families and closing the prosperity gap; and the importance of working to raise social, labour and environmental standards, both in Canada and internationally with our trading partners.

Firstly, this recommendation contains a number of propositions which were never the subject neither of witness testimony nor within the overall purview of the Standing Committee on International Trade. These propositions could become the subject of other studies by our committee but at this stage would be premature to pass recommendation on them as we have no evidence submitted to support or refute this claim.

Secondly, technically, by the use of the phrase, “All of the above recommendations,” this recommendation would completely subsume the previous 21 recommendations. This has significant implications for the entire report. All previous recommendations deserve to stand on their own and are clearly supported by the testimony of the witnesses. One recommendation shouldn’t be allowed to colour all the other recommendations.

Again, while noting that the majority of the report offers clear, focused recommendations for Canada’s trade policy, the Government members concur that recommendation 22 is out of order and should not be included in this report. For these reasons, the Government members choose to attach this dissenting opinion to the Eighth Report of the Standing Committee on International Trade.