Colombia trade deal will increase repression – Latin American workers – Part 5
Peter Julian, MP for Burnaby-Westminster and NDP trade critic, is interviewed by Ish Theilheimer for Straight Goods News.
recorded on Parliament Hill, on March 25, 2009
Transcript
Peter Julian: Well, Colombia is the worst place for trade unionists on the planet, the hundreds and hundreds of trade unionists over the last few years that have been killed, there is open violence against anyone that trys to organize it the workplace. Most of the killings that take place, take place within the framework of labour disputes, so people trying to get better job conditions, trying to take away huge threats to their own personal safety, when they try to deal with the company, to address these issues that is when most labour unionists are killed. So in that kind of context, where you've got essentially a wild, Wild West upon the labour movement, and anyone involved in trying to push forward a human rights agenda, you have to ask the question: with all of these things happening why, why would the conservatives and the liberals be pushing ahead to sign a trade agreement with a country that has one of the worst human rights records on the entire planet?
Straight Goods News: Well that's what I was going to ask, why and why now in the context of the international financial crash, in the context of the new president and and a new course in the United States, why now are the going ahead with this and pressing ahead with this?
Peter Julian: The conservatives are trade dinosaurs; they are still using the old rhetoric with of George Bush style unregulated free trade. So you've got this sort of pocket of dinosaurism, here in the House of Commons. Liberals and Conservatives just want to got back to the old style rhetoric now what's happened in the United States, what happened in Mexico, what's happening around the world is a much stronger push towards fair trade where social environmental and labour standards are pushed up not pushed down, and where there is actual a move for a type of economy where people aren't left behind. As opposed to free trade, which is a number of people are getting fabulously wealthy and everyone else seeing their incomes plummet. In that kind of context you'd expect liberals and conservatives too pay heed to what is changing on the world scene, but there not. The NDP is the only party that is standing up for fair trade and standing up for this ridiculous trade agreement. Now why is it being signed, what he have within the dept of foreign affairs and international trade this simple idea that the more free trade agreements that are signed the better that's how they measure progress, it's not based on how many jobs are created, it's not based on what are actual trade deficit or trade surplus is, and our country now is in a trade deficit for the first time in thirty years. So that shows just what a failure this vision has been, it's not based on anything tangible, their only real justification or evaluation of progress is based on the number of agreements that's why these agreements have been so egregiously bad. Because they are done basically on the back of the napkin, not done in the Canadian's interest and it the case clearly not done in the interest of the ordinary Colombian who is subject to this constant violence and as a result of all that we have this trade agreement brought before the House of Commons now in the United States the congress said no, in other parts of the world we have countries reacting to any sort of negotiations with a country that has such an appauling human rights record. But here we have conservatives and liberals trying to give the green light to get this trade agreement through parliament.
Straight Goods News: If the NDP is the only party opposed, your not going to be able to stop it on your own, what would you suggest Canadians who are concerned might do?
Peter Julian: We'll we are the hardest working caucus by far and we've stopped other bad legislation through a variety of procedural techniques, but the best guarantee of stopping this agreement is ordinary Canadians working hard. Particularly in the labour movement we have been presenting tens of thousands of names in the House of Commons of people opposed to this agreement, and the labour movement has been instrumental I think, in starting to build a base for a push back we need environmental organizations, we need human rights organizations, community organizations to start circulating the petitions that are available on my website www.peterjulian.ca, those people can download those petitions and get them out. And more than that, as this particular piece of legislation moves forward people need to contact their local members of parliament, because that kind of personal pressure applied to members of parliament are going to make them think twice about rubber stamping this very bad agreement. Can I say just one more thing: in the worst aspect of this particular piece of legislation, is that essentially it provides for a fine in the event of ongoing human rights violations, in other words because of trade unionists the Colombian governments have to pay a fine to itself, put money aside in a solidarity fund so this is very clearly a complete contradiction of basic Canadian values on human rights. That you can kill a person and that the Colombian government because of it's ties to paramilitary organizations certainly indirectly is implicate in these killings that are on-going. And yet the only punishment on this trade agreement is that they have to pay fine to themselves. It is absolutely ridiculous. We cannot have this established as a principle of international law and we cannot have that imposed on Canadians in the guise of a free trade agreement and that's why Canadians need to speak out.
