Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member a question about the upcoming agreement of the Americas.
We have been living under NAFTA and the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement for over decade now. These have been years during which we have been forced to give up access to affordable generic drugs, to support for Canadian magazine publishing, to standards for toxic fuel additives and to the right to ban bulk water and PCB exports.
In return for giving up democratic sovereignty, those deals were supposed to give us free access to the American market for our goods. However, as recent disputes over P.E.I. potatoes and softwood lumber demonstrate, things have not worked out that way. When their economic interests are threatened, the Americans ignore trade deals or insist on exemptions to protect their own producers.
Instead of dealing with these problems, our federal government is taking the lead in promoting, through the FTAA, the expansion of a trade deal that further weakens democratically elected governments while strengthening the power of global corporations.
Since the hon. member seems to be promoting the fact that this is a good deal for Canadians and Canadian industries, I would ask him this: with the examples I have just given, how is this deal going to strengthen our position as a country and our position as a trading partner?