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Results: 91 - 120 of 131
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, we strongly believe that it is important for economic considerations and trade to be a big part of Canada's relationship with the world, particularly now as the rules of the world economy are shifting.
As I said earlier, though, it is very important for us to understand that we are not playing in a world economy that plays by a single set of rules. We are playing in a world economy where some countries are playing by state capitalism rules. They are authoritarian at home and they take that authoritarianism abroad when they trade. It is very important that we build a trade policy that understands that, is conscious of it, and is aware of the problems that might await us.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, the OSCE currently does not intend to send parliamentary observers to Donetsk and Luhansk for the May 25 presidential election in Ukraine. We appreciate the security concerns that motivated this decision, but it is in these two regions where Ukraine sovereignty is at greatest risk and where it is most important to make sure a fair, internationally monitored vote takes place.
Can the minister tell us what the government is doing to ensure there is a senior international presence in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts during this crucial vote?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, StatsCan has released jobs data for April and the news is dire. Among young people aged 15 to 24, employment fell by 27,000. Among women between 25 and 54 years old, employment fell by 29,000. Overall, 31,000 full-time jobs were lost in April.
This is a dreadful employment picture, particularly for young Canadians and women. When will the government fix this jobs crisis and stop laughing about it?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, Patriarch Sviatoslav, head of the Ukrainian Catholic church, is visiting Ottawa today.
Vladimir Putin has said he will withdraw Russian troops from the Ukrainian border and that Russia will not interfere in the May 25 Ukrainian presidential elections.
Does the government believe the Kremlin's assurances? Will the government show it means business by adding Igor Sechin to the sanctions list? Can the minister tell us what Canada is doing to ensure this crucial vote takes place freely, fairly and that its results are recognized in the Ukraine and the world?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General's report this week says StatsCan is not collecting good enough jobs data, and the Minister of Employment himself has just admitted we need better labour market data.
The government's evisceration of data collection makes for bad policy. It is like driving blindfolded. Southwestern Ontario has seen a huge influx of temporary foreign workers, but we have no way of knowing what sectors they are working in.
Will the Conservatives reverse their cuts to StatsCan so we can have better data and better policy for all Canadians?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by thanking my colleague, the member for Vancouver Quadra for the excellent points she made. In particular as she began her presentation, she spoke of the ways in which this program, properly administered and properly managed, can be of great benefit to the Canadian economy and to Canadian business. We strongly believe that, and that is the direction in which our motion is going, to say this is a program that can work but needs to be managed very carefully with very good data and very good oversight.
I am going to speak later, as my colleagues already have, about some of the dangerous economic consequences of the mismanagement, which Canada is suffering right now. However, I would like to start with something a little bit bigger, which is the devastating and really dangerous social, political, and even moral impact of allowing this program to go out of control.
One of the things of which I am proudest as a Canadian, and I think we all are, is the way in which our society has succeeded in being a proudly diverse immigrant society. One of the things that Canada does really well, that is a key to our success as a country, that the rest of the world looks to us for, is the way in which we welcome and integrate immigrants into our society.
The temporary foreign worker program, if abused as it is now, really threatens to erode and tear apart that social consensus around immigration. We have that social consensus partly because the Canadians who are already here really believe, see, and experience that new Canadians, immigrants coming to our country, strengthen our economy and strengthen our society, that they add, not subtract. That is one really essential piece of Canada's success, and it is something we are seeing fall apart in a lot of societies, particularly in Europe.
The second reason that Canada has succeeded so spectacularly as a diverse immigrant society is that new Canadians are fully integrated when they come here. New Canadians have the path to permanent residency, to citizenship. They become part of our society. There are no tiers, no classes of Canadian citizenship, no classes of belonging.
It is those two pillars that have made Canada successful as a diverse immigrant society—really one of the key Canadian values, one of our most important national successes in the past and going forward.
The reason we are focusing so much on the abuse of the temporary foreign worker program and the reason it has attracted so much national attention is that it very seriously undermines and threatens this core Canadian value and core Canadian accomplishment.
One data point, which I think has shocked us all and which really underscores the extent to which this program is truly being abused, is what we have seen happening in southwestern Ontario. As we know, that is a part of the country where the economy is particularly weak, and yet it is a part of the country where we have seen numbers of temporary foreign workers soar. In Windsor, even as unemployment has gone up by 40%, the number of temporary foreign workers rose by 86%. In London, Ontario, unemployment is up by 27%; meanwhile the number of temporary foreign workers is up by 87%.
Mike Moffatt, who is a professor at the University of Western Ontario, at the business school—someone who is sensitive to the needs of business—says about this program and what is happening in southwestern Ontario:
We're bringing in more and more workers into the worst labour markets in the country. People see that and think this doesn't make sense.
It certainly does not, and that is really an example of a program that is not being run carefully.
Professor Moffatt points to something else, and my colleague from Vancouver has pointed to this as well, that part of the problem with this program, part of the reason it is clearly being mismanaged, and part of the reason it is hard to manage properly, is we just do not have the data. We believe in evidence-based, pragmatic government, and we can only have evidence-based, pragmatic government if we actually know what is going on.
When scholars like Professor Moffatt looked at southwestern Ontario and tried to figure out what the heck is going on and why more temporary foreign workers are going to cities like Windsor and London, they found the data does not exist. There is no breakdown of where those workers are going. Part of the motion is designed to say that we need good data to make good policy. I think everyone in the House must agree with that. I really cannot see how anyone could fail to support the motion.
Another data point—which I think needs to worry us all and should be absolutely irrefutable evidence that, as it is being currently managed, the temporary foreign worker program simply is not working—is what reputed scholars from independent think tanks, even think tanks that perhaps lean a little to the right, have found about the effect of the temporary foreign worker program on unemployment. A study published last month by the C.D. Howe Institute stated that the temporary foreign worker program “...eased hiring conditions [that] accelerated the rise in unemployment rates in Alberta and British Columbia”.
Again, this is an independent study that found that unemployment rates are rising through a mismanaged program, and that does not speak about the downward pressure on wages for people in these occupations.
I have been focusing on unemployment concerns and downward pressure on wages for people who were already in this country when we let the temporary foreign worker program to run amok. We also need to be concerned about the threat that misuse of the temporary foreign worker program transforms the idea of immigration, integration, and diversity in our society. There is a very real danger that this program can start to create a permanent underclass of people in our country, people who are not citizens, people who do not have rights, people who are not fully integrated into our society and yet are working alongside us. That is a profound threat to the idea of Canada and social cohesion, and it is another reason that this program must be handled very delicately and managed very carefully. It is just not the Canadian way.
I have a data point, which really shows we are risking losing that balance. In 2012, 213,573 temporary foreign workers came to Canada. In that year, 257,887 people became permanent residents of the country. As we can see from those numbers, there were nearly as many temporary foreign workers as permanent residents. Liberals are a pro-immigration, pro-diversity party to the tips of our fingers and toes. Creating this underclass of workers whom we import, whom we treat differently, and to whom we do not grant the rights of other Canadians or a path to citizenship is simply wrong.
There is huge national interest in this issue, and that is for a very good reason. Canadians understand that, properly managed with good reliable data, the temporary foreign worker program is a useful and important contributor to our economy and Canadian business, but run badly, as is the case today, it is a threat not just to employment and wages but to Canada's most central values.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I mentioned quite prominently the importance of good granular data and the need to get much better labour market data. I did that because we just do not know.
I do not think my beliefs are the key issue. What matters is what is really going on in the country. Where are temporary foreign workers going, into which sectors and in which regions? What are the actual labour market conditions and shortages?
Because of underfunding, because of a lack of belief in the importance of data for good policy, which I believe is absolutely fundamental, we simply do not have the data to give a good answer to that question.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to hear that the hon. member agrees with me that we need more data to make better decisions, and I have a very specific decision that the government can act on right away to help us get that better data.
According to a Globe and Mail story published last month, Statistics Canada surveyed 25,000 employers, in a survey that cost $4.6 million to conduct, on the skills gap, employment, and future skill shortages. However, it has not actually analyzed that data because Statistics Canada, our premier statistical agency, does not have the money to do it.
Therefore, since we are in such glorious agreement about the need for better data, let us get the funding in place to actually get it, so we are making these decisions based on what is really happening in the Canadian economy, not based on Kijiji.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, Canadians have long benefited from the CPP, a cornerstone of our society. Yesterday Ontario recognized the growing need to strengthen Canadians' pensions, introducing a proposal that will—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, if the members on the other side of the House would like to hear my big-girl voice, listen up, gentlemen.
Ontario showed leadership that has been lacking from the Conservative government. Will the Conservatives finally follow Ontario's lead and help all Canadians achieve financial security when they retire?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, unemployment is sky high in southwestern Ontario, and manufacturing jobs for Canadians are scarce, but temporary foreign workers are being hired at record levels. Over the past five years, their number has doubled in Windsor and is up 43% in London. There are now more than 16,000 temporary foreign workers in manufacturing, nearly twice the 2005 figure.
Can the minister explain why he is importing temporary foreign workers in a sector and in cities where thousands of Canadians are being laid off?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, since the government seems unusually interested in statistical definitions this week, let us talk about a simple concept, the median household income. The most recent StatsCan data shows that the annual median household income has only increased by a paltry $100 since the Conservatives came to power. As for the bottom 20%, their income has fallen by $500 a year.
Do the Conservatives have a plan to help these clearly middle class Canadian families?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the government to consider a few more simple, yet worrying, statistics. The percentage of working age Canadians who today hold jobs is lower than when the government took office. Youth unemployment is at 14%, more than 2% higher than when the Conservatives came to power. Meanwhile, the number of adults working for the minimum wage has risen by 50%. What is the government's plan, apart from denial, to create better opportunities for these Canadians?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, the hugely successful Canadian pension plan was built through constructive negotiations between the federal and provincial governments. The previous finance minister refused to continue that tradition and work with the provinces on a CPP expansion.
Now many Canadians are hoping that the new minister will reach out and finally get this job done. We can make a CPP expansion work with money the government already collects from Conservative hikes to EI premiums.
Will the new finance minister finally correct his predecessor's mistake?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Chair, I want to start by talking a little about what has happened in Ukraine and how we should understand the incredibly turbulent, incredibly tragic, and incredibly helpful events that have taken place over the past three months.
The most important thing in thinking about Ukraine today is to appreciate that the conflict we have seen has been a very clear political and even moral fight. This has been a fight about what kind of a regime the people of Ukraine want to live in and be a part of. Did they want to live in a democracy that respects the rule of law, the rights of individuals and individual freedoms, or did they want to live under an authoritarian regime?
This conflict began over a simple trade and association agreement. However, it was about this bigger issue. This is important to underscore because sometimes in the account of what is going on, particularly outside of Ukraine, the struggle is framed as a battle over nationalism; it is framed as a battle about religion, language, or culture.
Ukraine certainly has disputes over some of those issues, but it was not the central theme and not what was centrally at stake in this conflict. The Maidan spoke in Ukrainian and the Maidan also spoke in Russian, which is a central point to emphasize.
Part of the reason I underscore this is that we are hearing, and we will continue to hear, a very strong point of view expressed by some Russians, but not all. Many Russians would also like to live in a more democratic regime and have followed the events in the Maidan with great sympathy. However, what we have been hearing, and will continue to hear from some of the Russian authorities, is an effort to frame this conflict as a nationalistic clash; as a civil war scenario.
We are already hearing this. I follow the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Twitter, and we have already seen it starting to label the people of Ukraine as terrorists and as Nazis. Let us be very careful not to give way to that sort of propaganda.
I know that the people in this House and the people in Canada who are listening to us are interested in this issue. Therefore, I am going to offer a footnote to my comments and suggest that people who are interested in this particular aspect of the conflict in Ukraine read a brilliant piece by Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale, which was published recently in the The New York Review of Books. It addresses precisely this subject. We are going to be hearing a lot of backlash that says something different about Ukraine and it is very important to be well informed.
We have watched the events in Ukraine closely with fear and anguish for the lives that were lost. What does Ukraine need now?
Everyone who wants democracy to flourish in Ukraine, and I am certain that is everyone in this House, needs to focus now on three things: we need to support and help with new elections; we need to support Ukraine economically; and we need to support the territorial integrity of Ukraine, particularly in relation to some of the claims we are already hearing and may be hearing from Russia.
On the election point, a new election date has been set, which is in May. It is important that we focus on it, that Canada be present and that a high-level Canadian delegation be there in advance. This is going to be the moment when we see a new, fully legitimate government of Ukraine be formed. This is a crucial point. Let us keep our eyes on that prize. International observers are truly essential to give that legitimacy and, to be sure, not only to put our good housekeeping seal of approval on the process, but also that it is in fact genuinely fair and open.
The second issue, which we have already spoken about today, and which I cannot emphasize the importance of too strongly, is that Ukraine now has succeeded in overthrowing an authoritarian regime; a regime whose bloody intentions became ever more evident as this conflict escalated.
What Ukraine does not have yet is a functioning, effective new government, and the real difficulty for this government is that Ukraine was not in great economic shape when this crisis began. The crisis itself has deepened Ukraine's economic difficulties. If we care about the Maidan, if we believe in those values—and surely we all do—we really need to support the democratic authorities of Ukraine now. It needs to be a multilateral, multi-partisan effort. We need to have the IMF and the EU there, and Canada needs to be a part of it.
I cannot emphasize this too much. Ukraine has already had, in our lifetime, over the past just over 20 years, two democratic revolutions. This is the third one. Ukraine became an independent state in 1991. Ukraine then, in its Orange Revolution, overthrew a government that was leaning into authoritarianism in 2004–05.
Let us support Ukraine now so that 10 years from now we are not debating in the House what to do about yet another Ukrainian revolution. Because if that happens, the Ukrainian people who have shown thus far an incredible commitment to democracy, an incredible belief in it, an incredible unwillingness to give way to cynicism, they are going to have enough. They are going to get fed up too. This is a really important moment and it is important not to give way to democracy fatigue, to mission-building fatigue. The really hard part starts now.
One of our hon. members, whom I hope we will be hearing from later tonight, has tremendous experience with Poland and with Poland's own revolutions. The real lesson of Poland is that a powerful civil society is essential for overthrowing an authoritarian regime, but the second lesson is that institutional support from the outside can be the difference between success or failure of those new democratic authorities. The relationship between the EU and the way in which that desire to be part of Europe and the support Europe offered for the building of democratic Poland cannot be overstated. We have to give Ukraine similar support, a similar goal.
The third thing that Ukraine needs now, which is really essential, is we have to support the territorial integrity of Ukraine. The events in Ukraine were not what the Kremlin wanted or anticipated. I really believe, based on statements that we are hearing from the Kremlin, this was a complete surprise. It is very hard for Russia's current authorities to even imagine the Ukrainians as a separate people. We have heard from Vladimir Putin that he considers Ukrainians and Russians to be one people, and Vladimir Putin does not understand that Ukrainians would want to live under a different regime.
We have to make clear to the Russians that the territorial integrity of Ukraine is something that the international community stands behind, and that the Ukrainian people have made their decision in blood and we need to support it. That is essential for Ukrainian democracy and it is essential for geopolitical stability in that entire region.
In closing, I want to make a plea to my colleagues across the aisle. I believe that we have consensus in the House on Ukraine. We have consensus not only because a lot of us are Ukrainian Canadians or have Ukrainian Canadians in our ridings—the hon. member for Edmonton—Strathcona has many of my Ukrainian Canadian family members in her riding—but also because we all believe in democracy. It is such a core Canadian value.
Let us fight here about the political issues where we generally disagree. Let us fight about income splitting. Let us disagree about Keystone, but let us not make Ukraine a political football. Her people have died for this revolution; let us not diminish their sacrifice. I do not think anyone in the House wants to do that. If we can say to the people of Ukraine that we are united in supporting them, what a strong message that would send to them.
It says to them that it is not about party politics in Canada. The whole country supports them. We can set a fine example for the people of Ukraine. Sure, we disagree about things, but there are also some values that we share, and we are willing to set those disagreements aside to support them.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Chair, I have to say that I am really disappointed that this is the response from the hon. member about remarks that were meant to address not our own partisan squabbles but the very real issue of democracy and the future of Ukraine. This is a really big issue. This is an issue that has historic significance. Passing remarks on TV shows are not going to have historic significance.
I want to quickly respond to the in-passing slight about my “claimed” Ukrainian-Canadian heritage. This is not a debate about me, so I am not going to go into it, but I would like to assure the hon. member and everyone in the House that my own personal commitment to Ukraine is lifelong, sincere, and deep, as is my commitment to the Liberal Party.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Chair, I thank the member for her remarks. I am really grateful to her for mentioning my late mother, who did indeed devote a big portion of her life to helping to write the democratic constitution of Ukraine.
I do agree that it is a strong message that Canada could send. I would like to emphasize that I have tremendous respect for many of the members of the House in other parties, and particularly for those of Polish descent who have great and hard-won experience of what it means to fight for democracy and who have been great friends of Ukraine.
A great conclusion to our own debate this evening would be to set an example for the people of Ukraine. We are asking them to come together after literally killing each other. Surely having just heckled one another and fired a few cheap verbal shots, we could say democracy and the future of Ukraine are more important than that.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Chair, the hon. member for Edmonton East makes an excellent point about Ukraine, and as someone who went to high school in Edmonton, I think it is delightful that the Edmonton caucus, if there is such a thing, speaks about Ukraine with such good information and such insight and warmth.
I very strongly agree with the hon. member for Edmonton East. The Maidan really was a multilingual place. It was a place where Russian was spoken proudly as part of the conversation.
Something that I learned living in Ukraine was the extent to which Ukraine is truly a bilingual culture and society. There is almost no one in Ukraine who does not understand both Russian and Ukrainian perfectly, and most Ukrainians speak both languages. It is helpful that those languages are not too far away from one another. If one begins, as I did, as a reporter arriving in Ukraine speaking only Ukrainian, learning Russian is not as hard, and if one begins as a speaker only of Russian, learning Ukrainian is not as hard. The Ukrainians start from a strong base.
I strongly agree with the hon. member for Edmonton East that something we need to do as an outside friend of Ukraine is to urge Ukrainians today, the Maidan having won, to double down on the democracy part of the message and be as inclusive as possible. That is absolutely essential.
I absolutely agree with the suggestion of the hon. member for Edmonton East, which I think was also a suggestion by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, that one thing Canada may be able to share with Ukraine is its experience living as a bilingual country and multicultural society, particularly given that Ukrainians trust us, given our strong Ukrainian-Canadian community and given our record as a country of supporting Ukraine. They trust us to have Ukraine's best interests at heart, and sharing our experience of bilingualism and multiculturalism is something Canada could uniquely do to help. Let us show them Canadian unity and help them with that.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Chair, the hon. member is from Winnipeg, another city that has lots of great Ukrainian Canadians.
The first line of the Ukrainian national anthem is “Shche ne vmerla Ukrayina”. That means Ukraine has not yet died. To me, that says a lot about the extent to which Ukraine as a nation and Ukrainians as a people have lived on the edge of survival.
We now have an opportunity—Ukrainians themselves have fought and died for it, and the rest of the world can help them—to get them to a place where, from now on, that anthem will be about their history, not about their present. Let us work—
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Chair, I want to ask a question that is pegged to the comment made by my hon. colleague from the New Democratic Party. I was especially struck by his comment that he is not Ukrainian Canadian and does not have Ukrainian Canadians in his riding. I think it is great to hear that hon. member speaking this evening.
As a Ukrainian Canadian, I am proud of the work that the Ukrainian Canadian community has done to directly support the people in Ukraine and to inform our parliamentarians. However, it is essential that we not see this as an issue simply for Ukrainian Canadians or people elected by them. This is an issue for all Canadians. I would love to hear from the hon. member on the opposite bench as to whether he agrees with that.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Chair, I would like to start by saying that I believe I just heard the commitment of the hon. member for Parkdale—High Park to Ukraine impugned, and I think I heard a suggestion that she is somehow a Johnny-come-lately to the Ukrainian cause. Of course, I sincerely hope that Parkdale—High Park will become a Liberal riding again one day. Having declared that partisanship myself, I am Ukrainian Canadian. I go to all of our events. I have seen the hon. member for Parkdale—High Park there. She has been very committed to the Ukrainian Canadian community for a very long time and has worked very hard to embrace our community.
Given her knowledge of Ukraine and her commitment to it, I would like to ask about her views on the evolution of the Ukrainian-Russian relationship. It is very easy right now for Ukrainians to feel tremendous animosity toward Russia, given the role Russia played in fomenting this conflict. It is easy for us also to try to see this as a replay, as a new Cold War. I believe that is a bad outcome for the Ukrainian people, for Ukraine, and for the world. Does the hon. member agree, and how does she see this relationship evolving?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Chair, I would like to thank the hon. member for Mississauga East—Cooksville for quoting Ukrainian poetry. I wish I were able to quote Adam Mickiewicz in response, but I am not that advanced.
The next line of the poem Zapovit, which the member quoted, is:
[Member spoke in Ukrainian and provided the following translation:]
Sprinkle freedom with the blood of the enemy.
[English]
Let us sincerely hope and pray Ukraine does not go there.
I would like to ask the hon. member for Mississauga East—Cooksville to comment on the Polish experience, because Poland, in addition to being a tremendous ally of Ukraine, and Polish Canadians, in addition to being tremendous allies of Ukrainian Canadians here, has the experience of building a democracy at a time when democratic institutions were weak or nonexistent and building it in the shadow of a hostile neighbour.
Are there any lessons from Poland for Ukraine today?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Chair, I will start by assuring the hon. member for Edmonton—Strathcona that we in the Ukrainian community have a saying that everyone is Ukrainian, but they just may not know it yet; so there is still a chance for the hon. member for Edmonton—Strathcona.
I was very interested in the hon. member's comments about creating democratic institutions and creating institutions with civil servants who are able to enforce the rule of law rather than break it.
I wonder whether the hon. member could comment on what specifically Canada can do to help Ukraine in building up its civic institutions, which are clearly one of the things missing in Ukraine, one of the reasons it has come to this real crisis situation.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, yesterday's budget turned a blind eye to our economy's biggest problem, stagnant growth. The finance minister himself admitted that our economy will miss the target he set in his own fall forecast.
Contrary to what we have just heard from the Prime Minister, the experts agree. The IMF says we will lag both the U.S. and the U.K. in growth this year. The OECD predicts we will fall behind its average for growth in 2015, ranking just 16th out of 30. Why did the government give middle-class Canadians a do-nothing budget?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, today the average Canadian owes an all-time high of $1.64 for every dollar she or he earns. Middle-class Canadians are borrowing more because they are earning less. We have seen this story before. As in the United States before the financial crisis, ballooning personal debt is masking our economy's underlying weakness.
Why has the government built our economy on this unstable mountain of personal debt, and what is it doing to move us to a more sustainable footing?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, this month, IMF economists warned that the declining competitiveness of Canada's non-energy exports is “something that concerns us”. The IMF pointed to a widening productivity gap that has “eroded Canada's external competitiveness, particularly in...manufacturing”. Middle-class Canadians know this. They are feeling the effects in their paycheques.
Will next week's budget finally do something to address these problems and help Canada's struggling middle class?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, this month the IMF released a report on Canada's economic outlook. The story the IMF tells is of a lost decade. To quote from the report, “Canada’s exports have barely recovered from the Great Recession...”. The IMF warns that low productivity growth has, and I quote the IMF report, “eroded Canada’s external—”
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I see the government is not interested in the view of IMF economists, but I think Canadians are. Let me continue to quote from that report. The IMF warns—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, why does the Minister of Finance continue to ignore this harsh reality, as documented by the IMF, at the cost of Canadian jobs and economic growth?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, Liberals support Bill C-20. The Liberal Party is strongly in support of the principle of free trade as an essential part of Canada's economic growth in the 21st century.
I would like to talk a bit about our broader vision of what we need to do with trade and how that fits into our overall economic vision, and then I would like to talk about this specific agreement and how we need to work hard in implementing it to live up to the principles of Canadian democracy and how Canada wants to conduct itself in the world.
On trade, 19.2% of Canadians work in jobs that are directly in the export sector, and up to 80% of the Canadian economy, depending on how one counts it, is dependent on exports. We are a small country in a vast globalized world economy, and without being open to that world economy, without being an active energetic participant, we have no chance of thriving and, crucially, no chance of creating middle-class jobs, which we need and which we are failing to create in sufficient number and quality right now.
However, what we need is not just a number of piecemeal agreements with small countries like Honduras. What Canada needs to be successful is an economic and trade vision that is much more ambitious, wider reaching, and which fully and ambitiously integrates Canada into the global economy. Therefore, while Liberals support this trade deal with Honduras, we believe our country needs to be more energetically engaged with other emerging market economies that are growing strongly and where we see the rest of the world competing now for a position.
In particular, I would like to draw everyone's attention to what is happening right now in Africa. A lot of us are accustomed to seeing Africa as a development story, a poverty story. The reality of the new Africa today is that it is one of the world's hottest emerging markets. Some of the leading countries in Africa have had, for more than five years, 5% economic growth year on year. This is real; this is huge. We are seeing investors pouring in, and we are seeing a competition between the big and ambitious countries in the world, notably China and the U.S., for a strategic position in Africa. Where is Canada? Africa is a continent to which we urgently need to turn our attention when it comes to trade deals, and what a great way for us to have a positive impact on the world.
The other part of an ambitious global economic agenda and global trade agenda for Canada is thinking about where we want to position our country in the world economy. Right now we are living in a winner-take-all global economy. That applies to countries, and it applies to individuals and companies. Frankly, we are not seeing from today's government a sufficiently ambitious and forward-looking economic agenda for our country.
One of my favourite books at the moment is a book by economist Tyler Cowen called Average is Over. His central contention is that we are living in a moment when if a company is the best in a space, the top talent in a space, the top city or top country, it will succeed. However, if one is in the middle and just average, there is no future. That is a lesson that Canada desperately needs to learn and that the Canadian government needs to make as the centre of its policies.
We need to be building an overall trade agenda, an overall economic vision in which we are creating in Canada a platform for being fully engaged in the world economy, but also a platform for which we have companies headquartered in Canada doing business around the world, rather than the old branch plant economy. That is not going to work. It is not going to create enough great jobs for the 21st century. This reality of an ambitious trade agenda, an economic agenda fit for the 21st century, we believe, is going to become ever more apparent in 2014.
Already this week, the first week of our new session, we have heard a lot of assertions from the Conservative benches about Canada's economic excellence, how we are better than anyone else in the G7 and so on. That is going to be less true in 2014, as the other G7 economies, which suffered so greatly from the financial crisis and from which Canada was spared thanks to the wise bank regulation policies of the Liberal government in the 1990s, have now healed. We are going to see that in 2014. We are already seeing a very strong comeback in the U.S. and the U.K., but our relative performance is looking much worse already, and we are not even through the first month of 2014.
That says that we have coasted. We have coasted on the fact that we did not have a financial crisis and we have not put in place a powerful, forward-looking economic agenda that is going to build prosperity for the middle class in the 21st century, and that includes trade. Piecemeal agreements with small countries are a good start. However, we need to be a lot more ambitious and have a much broader vision.
When it comes to the Honduras deal in particular, my hon. colleagues in the NDP have raised the important point that this is a trade deal with a country that has a very troubled record and very troubled reality on many political labour and environmental issues. We in the Liberal Party believe that it is important for us to do this deal. Not every country in the world is perfect, and we have to trade in the global economy. We believe that having a strong trading relationship can and must be a way to be a positive force in those economies. However, it will only work if it is more than words.
In implementing this trade deal, we have to be very aware of what is going on in Honduras and to the possibility that by having a trade deal with this country and having our companies engaged with it we could be complicit in political, environmental and labour violations. We do not just sign a deal and walk away; we have to watch closely and be absolutely certain that we and Canada are behaving well.
I would like to point to the fact that rather than having a binding mechanism for labour and environmental standards in the side agreements, article 816 of the free trade agreement states:
Each Party should encourage enterprises operating within its territory or subject to its jurisdiction to voluntarily incorporate internationally recognized standards of corporate social responsibility in their internal policies....
That puts a great onus on us to be aware, to watch and to be absolutely careful that those political, environmental and labour standards are watched and observed.
As the MP for Toronto Centre, I would like to draw particular attention to the tremendous abuse and repression that the LGBT community faces in Honduras. Even as we broaden and deepen our economic relationship with Honduras, this is something that we have to be absolutely aware of and watchful about. We have to take great care that the Canadian companies that will be working and trading there, and will have a relationship with Honduras, are not party to that and are in fact acting against it through their example.
Regarding the environmental standards, we have to be watchful about this. If, as the Labour Party believes, we are to use our trade agreements with troubled countries to be a force for moving those countries in a positive direction, we have to take incredible care. We have to take incredible care about the labour and environmental standards as well. This is how we ensure that free trade is a great deal for the Canadian middle class. Without watching those labour and environmental standards, trade with a country which is poorer than Canada, like Honduras, can be dangerous for the middle class.
Again, we cannot simply sign a piece of paper and walk away. This trade deal has potential. That is why we support it, but we have to be extremely vigilant. We must also move toward a broader vision, something much more than one single deal.
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