Public Service Alliance of Canada BC

Four of Canada’s top public sector union leaders, including PSAC National President John Gordon, recently visited Colombia to learn directly about the potential impact of a Canada-Colombia free trade deal on Colombian workers and their families. Here is a report.

We visited Colombia from July 18-25 on behalf of one million Canadian public sector workers. Our mission, among other tasks, was to see for ourselves whether our opposition to the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement was justified. What we saw and learned confirmed that we are right to oppose this deal and to speak out against it on behalf of Colombian workers and their families.

We met with many sectors of Colombian society, including the Colombian Minister of the Interior and government officials, the Canadian ambassador and embassy officials, leaders of the United Central of Workers (CUT) and trade unionists at all levels, members of the opposition Polo Democratico Alternativo, several non-governmental organizations, groups representing indigenous and Afro-Colombian peoples as well as media reporters and ordinary citizens.

We visited the poorest of the poor families displaced from their homes by paramilitary groups to benefit transnational companies wanting to expand agriculture production, mining and other business interests. We were told that more than 4 million people, 10 per cent of the population, have been displaced without reparations.

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