Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for coming before this committee.
It shows the paucity of the arguments in favour of this agreement when the only thing those who favour this agreement can really cite is a discredited opinion poll that said there was widespread support for the president. I could certainly poll my family and get 90% of them to say that I'm a great guy, but I don't think anyone could use that as a credible argument to support anything.
Senator Robledo, I'd like to ask you a series of questions.
This committee heard testimony from people in Colombia. Some members are new to the committee, so they didn't hear some of the testimony that we heard.
We heard from Gabriel Perez, who said, “It is easier to create an armed group than a labour union in this country”.
We heard from Patricia Cespedes, who said that about 6.5 million hectares of Colombian land has been taken over by paramilitaries--essentially poor people being kicked off the land, and paramilitaries with alleged ties to the government taking that, obviously being very interested in selling that land perhaps to Canadian companies. That would certainly make us complicit in the ongoing human rights violations that take place there.
We heard from Mario Gomez, who said that paramilitary groups are forming every day, that there are thousands of new paramilitaries in Colombia.
Amnesty International last week attacked the Colombian government for using the justice system to harass and intimidate human rights activists.
As you said, Senator Robledo, the number of killings of trade unionists and human rights defenders has doubled in 2008. So the numbers aren't going down; they're skyrocketing. There are more paramilitaries, more deaths of trade unionists, more deaths of human rights activists. It is ridiculous for anyone to pretend that the situation is getting better. It is getting worse.
My first question to you is this. Do you agree with Hollman Morris, a human rights defender in Colombia, who said that this agreement is a reward for what is essentially happening, ongoing human rights violations, increasing human rights violations in Colombia?
Secondly, around the issue of paramilitaries, do you think the assessment of Señora Cespedes is correct, that there are millions of hectares of land being taken over by paramilitaries?
Thirdly, you mentioned false positives, which is an anodyne term. It expresses a horrendous concept. A false positive is cold murder. Apparently, the Conservatives think cold-blooded murder is okay as long as it takes place outside of Canada--