Posted: Wednesday, 31 March 2010

In spite of strong opposition from civil society groups, the NDP and the Bloc Québécois, the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement continues to be one of the federal government’s top priorities. The government reintroduced legislation to implement the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement on March 9. Debating the new bill – Bill C-2 – in Parliament on March 24, the Liberal trade critic Scott Brison proposed an amendment that was accepted by the government and could fast-track the bill’s passage.

A bad bill just gets worse with this proposed amendment. In 2008, an all-party Commons Committee recommended an impartial human rights impact assessment by a competent body, before Canada even considers ratifying a trade agreement with Colombia.

The Colombian government is deeply mired in human rights violations and political scandals. Requiring the Colombian government to assess its own human rights impacts is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. It makes a mockery of serious need for human rights reforms in Colombia before a free trade deal is ratified and implemented.

The CLC remains opposed to a free trade deal with Colombia because we believe that the provisions will cause human rights violations to increase. We support the June 2008 recommendation of the Standing Committee on International Trade (CIIT) that an “impartial human rights impact assessment be carried out by a competent body, which is subject to independent levels of scrutiny and validation… before Canada considers ratifying and implementing an agreement with Colombia.” A Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) would determine the impact of the trade provisions on human rights to ensure that the trade deal does not make a bad situation worse. Any human rights impact assessment, to be credible, must be carried out by a independent third party trade and human rights expert. Don’t let Parliament whitewash human rights violations in Colombia.