Statement made on 21 June 2010 by Senator Mobina Jaffer
Hon. Mobina S.B. Jaffer:
Honourable senators, I rise to speak at third reading on the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement. Whenever a free trade agreement is entered into by our country, it is always beneficial for all Canadians. We are all aware of the human rights challenges in Colombia. Concern was shown by witnesses who appeared before the House of Commons committee about entering into a free trade agreement before carrying out a human rights assessment. Similar to environmental impact assessments, the objective of human rights impact assessments is to identify potential impacts before they occur in order to avoid, mitigate or minimize them should they occur rather than trying to correct them after they occur.
Given the seriousness of human rights violations, prior assessment of potential human rights impacts is doubly important. The agreement concerning annual reports on human rights and free trade between Canada and the Republic of Colombia simply provides for the identification and, possibly, penalization of potentially irreparable harm after it has already occurred.
Moreover, in order to assess impacts of the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement once it is in effect, as proposed by the amendment, there must be baseline data regarding the human rights situation prior to its implementation.
The amendment precludes the collection of pre-implementation baseline data, making it difficult, if not impossible, to determine whether the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement has had positive, negative or neutral human rights impacts.
In addition, the amendment provides that annual reporting on human rights impacts will be conducted by government agencies; in other words, the very parties that negotiated the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement. The amendment does not specify what, if any, binding and actionable findings the reporting agencies will be mandated to make. Even if the scope of the assessment is focused, the annual reports run the risk of being simply pro forma formalities without any accountability to Parliament, Canadians or Colombians to address the human rights impacts they identify.
On May 25, 2010, the House of Commons Committee on International Trade heard testimony from Dr. James Harrison, an internationally recognized authority on human rights impact assessments of free trade agreements that the amendment had three major flaws and several other potential ones.
The amendment proposes that human rights impacts be assessed after the implementation of the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement rather than prior to its implementation. The amendment proposes that the impact assessments be conducted by the Canadian and Colombian governments rather than parties that are independent or arm's length from them. The amendment does not make it clear whether the proposed annual human rights reports will permit binding recommendations that Canada and Colombia must act on or simply be pro forma formalities, that is, non-actionable annual reports.
In addition, Dr. Harrison expressed concerns regarding the unspecified scope of the proposed reporting procedure, which ran the risk of being an extensive but superficial overview rather than a focused and in depth assessment that would enable specific and targeted corrective measures.
Finally, the amendment states that no new government resources will be required for its implementation. Given the complexity of carrying out a human rights impact assessment, both in Canada and Colombia, on an annual basis, including engaging civil society actors in both countries as part of that process, the credibility of such reporting process, without the allocation of additional financial or human resources, would be highly questionable.
Honourable senators, next year when we see the human rights report under this agreement, I suggest that we have the report studied by the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights. We should study that report for two reasons: First, to assess the reports we have received under this agreement and second, to also suggest what kind of human rights agreements we should enter into in the future.