Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments from my colleague from Charlottetown today who has provided some very thoughtful commentary on the situation in Colombia and the potential effect of a free trade agreement with Canada.
He spoke of the issues of civil war in Colombia. It is a country that for 40 years has wrestled with a civil war that began along ideological grounds but that has evolved more into just a drug war, in which there are former paramilitaries now, who are drug gangsters, effectively, and FARC, which is still active, not on the ideological side as much as on the drug side. It is a civil war that continues to be fueled by drug money.
When I was in Colombia a couple of months ago, some of the former paramilitary members with whom I met, who have been demobilized, told me that the reason they joined the paramilitaries in the first place was the lack of real economic opportunity in a legitimate economy or through legitimate trade. It is the same with FARC members. They joined FARC because the only job they could find was something to do with either the war or the drug trade.
Does the hon. member see the potential of the legitimate economy and legitimate economic trade with Colombia as providing opportunities for these people so that they do not have to go into either the drug trade or a civil war?