Once again, I want to reiterate what my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, had to say. This is a committee in which we may disagree from time to time on what we are doing and what we move forward on, in terms of thought process, but I think factually—I'll say it once again—the credibility of this committee is at stake should we factually misrepresent something back to the House.
This does not make any sense to me at all. I know Mr. Menzies has talked about the statement made in 1993. We've had witnesses come before our committee who have worked on NAFTA and have said that bulk exports do not have anything to do with this agreement. So we are going to look very unprofessional to bring forward this motion that is factually incorrect in terms of dealing with bulk water.
I will remind my Liberal friends. I have quotes here from Chrétien in the House of Commons, not one of my fans by any stretch of the imagination. I'm going to quote him, because I need to remind my Liberal friends where they stood on this issue before we started with this committee.
It says here that he “told the Commons yesterday that water is exempt from the North American Free Trade Agreement”. His foreign affairs minister, John Manley, who I probably like a little bit better than Chrétien, “also assured MPs there's no change in government policy”. “Water should not be treated as a matter of trade.” “The position of the government of Canada is to oppose the bulk removal of water from any of our drainage systems...”.
So once again, this is a position the Liberals have clearly taken. I'll go back to what Mr. Lemieux said. I don't understand why these guys are now all of a sudden the arm of the NDP and they talk about a motion that's going to make this whole committee look like a joke.