The other thing, Mr. Chairman, is that I take exception to the comment that somehow $15 million is the fine for somebody murdering a union leader. That is not at all what that $15 million is there for. The $15 million in the labour agreement is a fine for someone who breaks the rules. It's not a fine for someone.... There is no value to a human life. To mislead that is absolutely unacceptable at this committee.
The way the agreement is supposed to work is that the $15 million, or $5 million, or $2,000, or whatever the fine ends up being, goes into a capacity-building fund, to actually do a better job at settling labour disputes, and to educate Colombians, when and if and where they need to be educated, in trade agreements and trade regulations.
There are other things in that trade agreement that I didn't hear anybody talk about. We're talking about Central and South America and third world countries here. And there are many applications--you can't have child labour; you're allowed to have a unionized workforce. No one is saying Colombia is perfect, but I'm hearing that Colombia is far, far from that. It's an exaggeration.
We were down there. We have 1,000 Canadian companies working in Colombia. The first to benefit from this trade deal will be manufacturing. The next group to benefit will be the Colombians, not Canadians; it will be Colombians who benefit. This is an opportunity to continue with a state that is headed in the right direction and to pull them out of that quagmire of civil war and retribution that they're in.
I really take some serious exceptions to see it as anything else. We've seen it time and time again. When you bring in free trade, you build an economy. You supply people with jobs. You give them hope and opportunity. You build respect for human rights, democratic institutions, and the rule of law.
I've heard several speeches from the other side, and I think it's time we evened out the speech-making, quite frankly.
I think the intent here is to strengthen human rights, the rule of law, the respect for democracy, and respect for the judicial process. There's no other intent that I'm aware of.