The article looks Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, which is currently under debate in the House of Commons. The authors examine the disconnect between what citizens see as core Canadian values and the actual record of the government's conduct abroad by giving context to CCFTA.

Don’t sew that flag on your backpack if you are heading down to Colombia

By: Mariam Ibrahim and Siavash Saffari

If you’ve ever travelled anywhere outside of Canada, chances are somewhere along the way you met some fellow Canadians with the country’s flag sewn on their backpacks. It’s almost as if the flag is meant to say to the rest of the world, “Don’t worry, I can be trusted. My country doesn’t have military bases all over the world. My country isn’t waging war indiscriminately. We’re just peacekeepers.”

According to Yves Engler, author of the recently-published The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy, a vast majority of Canadians believe that Canada is a force of good in the world.

However, there appears to be a significant disconnect between what Canadians see as distinctly Canadian values and the Canadian government’s actual record in conducting its foreign policy.

The disconnect could partly be attributed to the Canadian government’s tendency to do the bidding of its U.S. counterparts on many fronts, despite a 2007 Angus Reid poll, in which 70 per cent of respondents stated they “do not believe that Canada should take the view of the United States into account in deciding on its foreign policies.” Also contributing to this disconnect is the role that our government plays in securing the narrow economic interests of Canadian corporations, at the cost of what is seen by most Canadians as our core values.

In 2008, after a series of backroom meetings that prevented the majority of Canadians from taking part in any kind of public discourse, the Harper government inked a deal that would allow for free trade between Canada and Colombia, a country that according to the UN Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs is home to “by far the biggest humanitarian catastrophe of the Western hemisphere.”

Negotiations with Colombia began after a similar venture by George W. Bush was shot down by U.S. Democrats in 2007 who cited concerns over Colombia’s human rights record. Amnesty International describes the human rights situation in Colombia as “dire,” reporting that in 2008 alone at least 280 people, mostly peasant farmers, were extra-judicially executed by government-backed security forces.

In March of this year Minister of International Trade Stockwell Day introduced legislation in the Parliament to ratify the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (CCFTA). The legislation, known as Bill C-23, received its first reading on March 26. It is expected that the pact will pass, perhaps as early as June, with unanimous Liberal support, as opposition leader Michael Ignatieff has ignored the calls to halt the ratification of the agreement in the House of Commons.

Many labour unions, civil society groups, and human rights organizations in both countries have strongly criticized the deal. The Canadian Council for International Co-operation wrote in a communiqué to the parliament that the deal “fails to reflect such basic Canadian values as respect for human rights, economic justice and protection of the environment.”

But opposition to CCFTA has not been limited to activists and grassroots groups. A June 2008 report by a House committee made eight recommendations for the Canada-Colombia FTA, and maintained that Canada “should not sign and implement” CCFTA until improvements, particularly in Colombia’s human rights situation are made. Not surprisingly, the government ignored the committee’s recommendations.

Harper himself has at times spoken out against dealings with countries that have dubious human rights records. Speaking about China-Canada trade relations in March, Harper had this to say: “I think Canadians want us to promote our trade relations worldwide, and we do that. But I don't think Canadians want us to sell out important Canadian values. They don't want us to sell that out to the almighty dollar.”

Numerous surveys suggest that Harper is right in asserting that the majority of the population is against compromising our values. According to the Angus Reid poll, 73 per cent of respondents agree with the statement “Canada should not seek free trade agreements with developing countries that have dubious human rights records.” But it appears as though Harper himself has no problem selling out “Canadian values” when it comes to trade with Colombia. He has indicated that asking Colombia to fix its social, political and human rights problems before trade can occur would be a “ridiculous position” to take. 

Currently, there are hundreds of Canadian businesses investing in Colombia. Over the last few years, Canada’s direct investment in the country has increased drastically, reaching $739 million, a trend that is expected to grow with the implementation of the CCFTA. After signing the FTA in 2008, Colombian president Uribe made clear his intention to allow for the expansion of Canadian investment in oil, gas and mining exploration across Colombia with the help of the agreement.

But while Canadian corporations surely have a lot to gain from the CCFTA, Colombia’s indigenous population and the millions displaced by the country’s internal conflict are on the losing end of the deal.

In October 2008 ten thousand indigenous Colombians along with many other grass roots activists organized a massive 12-day march to Bogota in a show of resistance against the Uribe government’s policies. Their “Mandate of Resistance” called for the rejection of free trade agreements and any government policies that are enacted without consultation with the Colombian people. As it stands, Colombian laws allow for the exploitation of indigenous lands, something that will likely worsen with the CCFTA. Indigenous groups continue to resist these laws, but even while they have won court cases against the Colombian government, the government has so far refused to obey court rulings.

In the late 90s CIDA partnered with a Colombian law firm representing several multinational companies and a University of Calgary research institute to redraft Colombia's laws governing oil and mining. The new law changed the royalty rates paid to Colombian government by foreign investors. According to an IPS News Agency article, while according to the old mining code, foreign companies were required to pay five to 10 per cent royalties on mineral experts, under the new law “the royalty tax for private owners of Colombian subsoil has been reduced to 0.4 per cent.”

The new mining code has made Colombia an excellent place for Canadian companies and investors. While the country is receiving less royalties, and is paying the high cost of rapid environmental degradation, the gravity of the situation becomes more clear when we consider the fact that the vast majority of displaced Colombians and an overwhelming majority of trade unionists who have been killed in the last two decades are from municipalities in Colombia’s mining regions. 

It’s clear that Canadians hold values of human rights and democracy as a standard against which we should conduct ourselves in global affairs. But a perusal of the Canadian government’s position on CCFTA, or for that matter, its role in the occupation of Haiti, or its support for Israel’s ongoing violence towards Palestinians are indicative of the disconnect between what we as a nation hold as our fundamental values and what our government have done and continue to do globally. If we as citizens fail to hold our government accountable to these values, this disconnect will only widen. So the next time you are traveling with that Canadian flag on your backpack, be sure it’s not in country like Colombia where we are directly and indirectly complicit in oppression and exploitation.

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