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Colombian President Alvaro Uribe was in Canada last week making a personal plea for a free trade deal but workers and unions know that the current deal on the table will not protect trade unionists who have been the victims of brutal attacks that have killed thousands and cast of a shadow of intimidation and violence over the country.



UNI Global Union warns that if Canadian leaders endorse the trade deal as it is now, they will be turning their backs on the thousands of murdered Colombian trade unionists, human rights activists, journalists, indigenous people and others who have been killed with impunity by the state and paramilitaries.



UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings has called on Michael Ignatieff, leader of the Opposition and leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, to support efforts to halt its ratification.



Jennings sent a letter to Ignatieff on April 29 warning him that “the current agreement constitutes a repudiation of Canadian values and exposes Prime Minister Stephen Harper's heartless reward for the ongoing human and labour rights violations of the Uribe government.”



UNI is calling on Ignatieff and the Liberal Party to join other Canadian opposition parties who prefer to hold the Canada-Colombia free trade deal back until an independent human rights impact assessment is carried out and the resulting concerns addressed.



In an editorial on June 14, the Toronto Star said “many Canadians share concerns expressed by the New Democrats and Bloc Québécois, who oppose the deal. They regard Colombia as an ‘ongoing human rights nightmare,’ in the words of Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada. And they want some assurance that freer trade will do more good than harm.”



Ignatieff's opposition Liberal party is “pressing, rightly, for more study on how the deal stands to affect Colombia's trade unions, human rights activists and indigenous peoples. This debate is nowhere close to being over, nor should it be,” the Star said. “Parliament must take the time it needs to get this right. Canada's reputation is on the line, along with Colombia's development.”