It's not the first time I've been admonished by a chair of a committee to be short.
Yes, Mr. Blais, they are sovereign states. And you're right, you have to try to achieve some kind of agreement.
The reason we're now in this situation where you have this proposed amendment package before you is that there was an aura of desperation, the desperation being that we need an agreement at any cost.
I can't say this happened for a fact, okay, but I can imagine a situation where Mr. Hearn—I'm not talking about the Conservative Party per se, I'm talking about Mr. Hearn, who made this commitment during the election campaign, going back to his constituency in Newfoundland and Labrador, wanting to deliver on a commitment, as any politician would. That's the name of the game. I can imagine Mr. Hearn saying to officials, “Gentlemen, I need to be able to say that we have improved the existing situation.”
Based on the statements that Mr. Hearn made subsequent to Lisbon, which have no foundation in the amended convention, I can only conclude that he was determined to achieve an agreement at any cost.
You've all been in negotiations. If you have to have an agreement, then your negotiating position is weakened. If you cannot walk away from that negotiating table and say we'll come back in months, a year, whatever, then basically you're going to end up having to capitulate, and this is what happened in this situation. They had to agree to certain things that they didn't want, probably, in order to say we have an agreement.