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House of Commons committee to look more closely at flawed Human Rights Impact Assessment that was conducted on the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
Ottawa (13 June 2012) - Responding to a motion from a New Democratic Party member of Parliament (MP), the Standing Committee on International Trade has agreed to conduct a study on the Human Rights Impact Assessment on the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and Colombia.
A number of human rights advocates have criticized the report as containing no information on human rights despite this being required by legislation.
"The report is essentially empty," said NDP International Trade critic Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway). "There are no baseline measurements, no studies and no evidence at all that the Conservative government did anything to assess the impact of the trade agreement on human rights in Colombia."
The report was tabled in the House of Commons on May 15 but does not address the question of how the free trade agreement has affected the dire human rights situation in Colombia.
"Colombia has a history of human rights problems and this annual impact assessment was supposed to be key in ensuring that things were getting better," said Davies. "The law requires a substantial report and we are going to find out why that wasn't done."
While wanting to holding the Harper government to account New Democrats also are looking to hear from civil society organizations in Canada and in Colombia as well as international human rights experts.
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