Human rights report on Colombia panned as 'whitewash'
Human rights report on Colombia panned as 'whitewash'
Lee Berthiaume, Postmedia News
May 16, 2012
OTTAWA — Canada's free trade deal with Colombia is again threatening to explode into controversy after the Conservative government released a report this week that was supposed to detail the agreement's impact on Colombia's human rights situation — but didn't.
Trade Minister Ed Fast told the House of Commons on Wednesday that the government did not have enough information to conduct a full assessment by the time it was required to submit the report to Parliament.
"As the agreement has only been in force for the last 4 1/2 months in 2011, there's not enough available data to do a comprehensive analysis," he told the House of Commons. "That analysis will be done in 2013."
But the answer has done little to mollify human rights groups and the NDP, which are again charging that the Conservative government's interest in the troubled Latin American nation is based purely on profit — no matter the cost.
More:
http://www.dose.ca/news/story.html?id=6633237