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Results: 1546 - 1560 of 1564
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.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, our central point and our central argument about economic policy for Canada is going to be that what we need is a big global vision, a vision fit for the 21st century. That is why we are supporting the agreement but saying that it is not enough and that we need to be working on bigger deals that fit in with a broader agenda.
I do, though, have to respond to the earlier comment criticizing us for supporting the member's policy. What I would say there is that the Liberal Party is moving past the rancorous major attack politics that, sadly, we have seen dominate this House for far too long. When we think a policy is a good one, we are absolutely willing to support it. That is case, absolutely, with free trade.
Since I hope you are pleased with our support for the free trade deal, I would encourage you to support our very bold and incredibly popular move on the Senate. You gentlemen could do the same thing today. You could show how broad-spirited you are and show that you too can be bipartisan.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, first, I am sorry for not addressing you. I promise to learn the rules better as the days go on.
With regard to the Ukraine parallel, obviously I have been thinking about that a lot. It is very relevant to the current situation.
I would draw the attention of my hon. colleague to the fact that the current battle in Ukraine was actually precipitated by the willingness of the European Union to sign an association agreement, which included some trade provisions, with the current Government of Ukraine, led by President Yanukovych. That current government, even before all of this, was not an angelic regime. In fact Yulia Tymoshenko, of whom we have been speaking, was imprisoned. It was a difficult, finely-balanced decision for the European Union. It was prepared at that point to sign an agreement Ukraine, and indeed was very enthusiastic about it, because the EU felt that agreement would help Ukraine, which was tentatively building a democracy, to become fully democratic.
The same applies to Honduras now. It is absolutely not perfect. That is why I raised, and we as a party raised, some significant points, and we think this agreement has to be closely monitored. This is not something that we sign and walk away from.
At this moment, we think that this deal is good for Canada and good for Honduras.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for those points. I would just like to repeat that Honduras is absolutely far from being an angelic and perfect country, and we are fully aware of that. It is our judgment that at this moment a trading relationship would help us to help the positive forces in Honduras and would help Honduras move in the right direction,
Again, this is not something we sign and walk away from. It behooves the Government of Canada and all of us here to watch it very carefully, and if we feel there is a retrograde movement in Honduras, we will need to act.
On the point about Canadian companies and their behaviour in Honduras, that falls under encouraging corporate social responsibility, which I have already cited. This is a very strong point, and we need to take great care as representatives of the Canadian people to encourage Canadian companies to behave abroad as we would demand they behave at home.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, my colleague's excellent point underscores my point and our general argument that while we are strongly in favour of free trade, it needs to be embedded in a much more ambitious, much more effective agenda for Canadian economic competitiveness in the 21st century.
The hon. member's point about the trade deficit is particularly telling and particularly unforgivable, given that this has come at a time when commodity prices are at all-time highs. As we all know, we are a commodity-exporting nation, so it is really startling that this has been happening.
What do we need to do better? As my hon. colleague said, we need to ensure that when we talk about the free trade agenda, when we talk about embedding Canada in the global economy, we are not just signing pieces of paper, getting the sound bite, and walking away. We need to be absolutely sure that the structure of those deals supports middle-class jobs back home in Canada, and, more broadly, that these deals support the creation of world-beating companies based in Canada but selling into the global marketplace.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member very much for the welcome, but the action plan unfortunately was not published on my election day, which was November 25, not November 27, obviously a more important date personally for me than for other members of the House. Maybe only three other members find it as significant.
I look forward to working with the hon. member on the trade committee and I promise to carefully study that report and let him know what our priority countries are. I would say, however, that it is not only about priority countries; it is about a broader vision.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of Finance tabled the 2013 budget, he said that Canada's biggest economic challenge was our skills shortage. His alleged solution was the Canada job grant. A year later, the only thing the government has produced is a multi-million dollar advertising campaign for a program that still does not exist.
If a new plan is not in place by April 1, will the government extend the current labour market agreements with the provinces and territories or will the government simply cut the funding and run?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, as a Ukrainian Canadian on her first day in Parliament, it is both an honour and a tragedy to be speaking to the House about the tragic and brutal events in Ukraine.
My mother was born in a refugee camp. Her parents, together with her and her three sisters, were grateful and delighted to find refuge here in Canada, like so many other Ukrainian Canadians. It left such an imprint of gratitude and delight in Canada and all it offered that my grandfather would not permit any criticism of any Canadian government at his table, no matter which party was in power. I am afraid that in my new career, I am not going to be able to perfectly follow my grandfather's instruction.
What I would like to talk about is what is happening in Ukraine and why the stakes are so high for Ukrainians, for Canadians and for the world. As my colleague has just described, the struggle right now in Ukraine began over a European association agreement. Who knew that ordinary people could be so moved by trade treaties?
What it has become is a fight about democracy or dictatorship. The fact that this is what is at stake in Ukraine became very clear last week, when President Yanukovych tried, illegitimately, to ram a series of laws through parliament that would have severely restricted the rights of association, the rights of freedom of speech, the rights of assembly and, indeed, the rights of religious organizations, including the Ukrainian Catholic Church.
Ukrainians understand that this is the fight about that democracy that they have been working very hard to build, with a lot of setbacks, over the past 20 years. We should be inspired; I am inspired by what is happening right now in Ukraine. All of us as elected officials know about the cynicism we sometimes encounter from voters.
Imagine being Ukrainian and having gone through the Orange Revolution. It was not so long ago in 2004 and 2005. Ukrainians thought that they had won; they thought that they had really built democracy. It ultimately went so badly that they elected Yanukovych. Yet still today they have faith in democracy. They have such faith in the action of people and their ability to make change that they are out there in the streets, risking their lives.
What happens in Ukraine matters to the world, and particularly, as my hon. colleague described, in the neighbourhood where Ukraine finds itself, in the former Soviet Union and the former Warsaw Pact countries. These are parts of the world where the hold of democracy is tenuous. History did not end in 1991, despite Francis Fukuyama's prediction that it would. Right now, everyone in that part of the world is watching Ukraine very closely to see what the outcome will be, and to see if people like us, democratically elected officials in democracies, will not only talk the talk but walk the walk, and whether we believe in democracy enough to support it when it is at risk.
This is a tremendously important opportunity for Canada to be heard in the world. As we have heard so eloquently this evening, many of us represent communities with strong Ukrainian Canadian representation. Ukrainians are an important people and community in Canada, and Canada has an important voice in Ukraine. That was made manifest most powerfully by a Conservative government in 1991, when Canada and Poland were the first two countries to recognize Ukrainian independence.
Ukraine listens to us and the world listens to what we do and what we say about Ukraine. This is an opportunity, as my hon. colleague suggested, for us to do what Lester B. Pearson taught us, which is to punch above our weight in international affairs, by taking the lead on Ukraine.
It is really clear what we can do. It is wonderful for me as a Ukrainian Canadian to hear so much anguish, worry and sympathy for the people of Ukraine, but now is the time to act. There are three very clear things for us to do. The first is targeted sanctions against President Yanukovych and his allies in government. That will have an impact. Indeed, one of the jokes that people tell in the former Soviet Union now is that their dictators want to rule like Stalin but live like Abramovich. That is what globalization allows nowadays, that one can be a dictator at home but have a villa on Cap Ferrat. We cannot allow that to happen and must say that they cannot have it both ways.
The second thing that we have to do is to provide expedited visas for the people who have put their lives at risk on the Euromaidan. Again, this would be a very important symbolic statement that we are with them.
Third, we have to send high-level observers. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and if we are watching, I can assure everyone there will be less brutality.
I hope I will be permitted, since this is my first statement in the House and we are talking about Ukraine, to share one of the slogans of the Euromaidan.
[Member spoke Ukrainian and provided the following translation:]
The people united cannot be defeated.
[English]
That is true today in Ukraine if we unite with them and actually act. As a Ukrainian Canadian and a proud member of Canada's Parliament, the words of support are terrific, but now let us do something.
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