Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm sure this will come as no surprise to Mr. Julian, but I have a great deal of trouble with this motion. First of all, regarding reporting to the House, I don't think that is the mandate of this committee. We can make recommendations, but reporting to the House that we have done due diligence on this would be very premature. We haven't heard from a number of staff people from the trade department who can share some of the opportunities. We've heard pretty much the negative side. And we just heard from three officials who said they don't proceed with any free trade agreements unless there is some encouragement from industry, from Canadian companies, that there are benefits to Canada to pursue this. So we haven't heard that part of the debate yet.
The human rights part, the human rights issues, I would suggest, should not be dealt with at this committee. We have now struck a human rights subcommittee, which I have the privilege of sitting on. That is where we should be dealing with those issues. I think that would be appropriate. So if you're interested, Mr. Julian, maybe we should refer that suggestion to the human rights subcommittee. That might be an appropriate place to deal with it, rather than here.
I'm sure my colleagues will have some other comments about this too, but I just think the timing of this motion is inappropriate, and at this point I certainly could not support any part of it.