Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the report from the delegation to Canada and Mexico earlier this year which I was fortunate enough to be a part of. My colleagues—Bob Baldwin; the honourable member for Kalgoorlie, Barry Haase, who just spoke; Senator Bill Heffernan; John Murphy and Belinda Neal and some respective spouses—and I were ably led by the President of the Senate, Senator John Hogg. Senator Heffernan’s wife became really ill during the Canadian visit. This necessitated him taking her home, so he did not get to Mexico. We also had with us Nick Tate and Gerard Martin, who supported the delegation in its preparation and during and following the visit and who were very good travelling companions. The travel was made more challenging as when we arrived in Canada the first swine flu cases were being found in Mexico. This in the end curtailed our trip to Mexico by three days, as the country went into lockdown. The visits were as a result of formal invitations from both governments to renew and develop relationships. To this end, we were very successful, despite the limited time in Mexico.

To start with, we flew to Quebec, which provided the delegation with great historical and geographical content about where Canada as a nation came from and provided an insight into the relationship between the different levels of government and, to some degree, how Canada was formed from Upper Canada and Lower Canada and how the pulling of that together was done so that the Catholic Church could still run education in Quebec and still use the French language and so develop the dual language system in Canada. Quebec is still a very independent province. It sends 47 bloc votes to the federal parliament to be dealt with by whichever government takes control after an election.

The allocation of responsibilities between each level of government in Canada’s federal system has developed similarly to ours, and it was very interesting to see the similarities. Although Canada’s provinces certainly have greater powers and autonomy than do Australian states, they have not developed the same way our national system has, with the changes that have occurred in Australia. Education and natural resources development are examples of this. The provinces have total control over these, while in other things, such as labour mobility and indigenous affairs, there are shared responsibilities.

I found the history of settlement most interesting, and our Quebec hosts provided us with a historical guide, David Mendel, who gave us a pocket history of Quebec City and its surrounds. It has many similarities to our early Australian history. Quebec City is a World Heritage listed old city that is situated along the Saint Lawrence River. The river has a lot of history and was well known to Captain Cook of fame here in Australia. He became a surveyor of that river and helped in the battle between the British and the French. It was basically where he made his name in the navy. The World Heritage listing certainly brings lots of visitors and attracts a lot of artists and craftspeople to the city. They have captured their history there very well.

Canada, like Australia, has a job to do to close the gap in health and education between its indigenous or first nation people and its non-indigenous peoples. There are many similar problems, despite our different cultures. You feel you have not walked far from talking policy in Australia when you talk about the issues they encounter; they are very similar. On Anzac Day we were also pleased to be invited to the Canadian Forces College with a number of other expats and representatives from the Turkish community, for a very good Anzac Day dawn service and also to the Rimfire breakfast that occurred.

Ottawa is much like Canberra. It is a very open and planned city, well laid out and easy to get around. Just like Canberra, it was built to be the capital. They asked Queen Victoria to make the decision about where their capital would be, because Upper Canada and Lower Canada could not agree. It was the same as the situation with Melbourne and Sydney. So Canberra and Ottawa have very similar histories of development, and it was very interesting to learn these things and talk to the people about their history.

This part of the visit provided an opportunity to focus on the overall bonds between our countries, especially in the areas of indigenous affairs, natural resources, defence, industry and trade, to name a few. We said that they should be not Eurocentric but looking more at the Pacific, towards where the future of the world is going to be—the Asia-Pacific and Pacific rim countries, which of course border both sides. Ottawa is also the home of a new national museum and art gallery, a wonderful addition to the city, recognisable by the large sculpture outside of a long-legged spider entitled Mothera great drawcard.

Toronto, Ontario, was the last stop in our northern visit. This city is the powerhouse of Canada. It contributes about 40 members to their national parliament. It is of course very close to the US. The reason they compete so well with the USA in many manufacturing areas is due to their government health system. They do not lock health insurance into their union enterprise agreements; they do it by having a national health scheme. This means they do not have to put up with the additional costs that the USA does, which certainly gives them an advantage.

The pension scheme operating in Canada was being challenged when we were there, and we saw demonstrators in their thousands in front of the Toronto parliament. There were also many older retired auto workers in the gallery the day we visited, and the questions to the Premier were predominantly about the pension fund and when the government was going to pour more money into it. The problem they have is that the pensions are tied to the company where people work and, when there is a downturn in the industry or that company retrenches workers, the retained workers carry the loss in the pension scheme. Having pension schemes that are locked into a particular industry is a challenge, because, if that industry fails, the older people who are reliant on that pension fund lose out, not to mention future retirees in the industry. I think we have got a better scheme, which takes it away from individual industries and puts it into managed schemes so that it is invested in other ways.

Unfortunately, on this trip we did not get to the western provinces, but I have been to British Columbia before. That is the resource area of Canada, with oil sands, lots of forestry and other resource based industries. We did get to experience some of the culture. We visited a sugar shack, which is where you take the sap out of the trees and turn it into maple syrup. That is an experience in itself. If you ever get a chance to visit a sugar shack you will have a different cultural experience. The other thing we experienced was the variety show Canada Oh, which is a tongue-in-cheek history of Canada, which was quite funny. In a cultural sense it was a very good way of gaining an understanding of some of the history. Of course, we had a visit to Niagara Falls and saw what a great tourist attraction that is for the Canadian side. We saw the difficulties of trying to manage so many people visiting one area. We also got drenched in the process.

We left Canada and went to Mexico, where swine flu was starting to take hold. Taking the advice of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, we went on a reduced program. Meetings took place in Hidalgo state and Mexico City. The key topics were improving trade and economic relations, particularly in the areas of mining and energy, water management and education services. I think we can do a lot with water services and the delivery of water products. Mexico is one of the world’s most important developing countries and a key economy in Latin America. Its size and geographic proximity to the world’s largest economy and its NAFTA neighbour and partner, the US, and its very good links to markets in Central and South America make it an attractive trading partner for Australia. There are opportunities for expanding investment and trade between Australia and Mexico.

The delegation received a very positive reception. We received a very warm welcome at all our meetings and functions in Mexico. I think they were very honoured that we were there and very pleased that we had chosen to visit at that time. As mentioned by the previous speaker, this was shown by a standing ovation for the delegation during its visit to the Mexican Senate. The local press and one or two of our own kept an eye on us. I noted there was a photograph of us taking precautions against the flu. A photograph of us wearing masks was taken outside the Senate, and I think it appeared in the Sydney papers. There was certainly a lot less traffic in Mexico City than they normally see. It is a pretty crowded city, with 20 million people.

I would like to pay tribute to the Australian Ambassador to Mexico, Ms Katrina Cooper, who happens to be a Tasmanian. I was able to share a few stories with her about our great state. She was very generous in opening up her home to us when many areas were closed because of the crisis. I also pay tribute to His Excellency Mr Justin Brown, Australian High Commissioner to Canada, for his excellent work in looking after us and organising the program. I also thank his staff. We are served very well by these officials. I am very pleased that this visit went so well. I congratulate the leader of our delegation, Senator John Hogg, the President of the Senate. He did an outstanding job of dealing with the difficult issues of the time. I commend this report to the parliament.

Debate (on motion by Ms Hall) adjourned.

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