True, and let us continue to hope that they remain independent. On your site, I did not see any up-to-date information on Colombia, but there used to be some.
In 2000, I believe, Mr. Martin Roy, a policy analyst at FOCAL, said the following:
As the Canadian International Development Agency has stated, it would be preferable in the future to focus on human rights and other areas of people's safety. After all, the main victims of the conflict in Colombia are its civilians.
Of course you support the free-trade agreement. You feel that it will benefit both Canada and Colombia, and you only mention human rights after that. Now, the report that was tabled by the committee responsible for the study, supported by the Liberals and the NDP, of course, recommended that an independent body should assess and track progress in human rights before the report be signed or ratified.
Your organization's work focuses on relations with the countries of Latin America, but I still do not grasp the importance that you attribute to human rights. I assume that the government has conducted a study to measure the economic impact of this trade, but have you studied the effect that it will have on human rights? After all, this accord is supposed to be a major lever. We would like to think that it would bring about progress in Colombia more quickly in protecting workers' rights, human rights and environmental rights.