What we've got is a situation where those cheerleaders like to say it always works; it's just great. Not only has real income fallen in Canada and the United States, but in Mexico we see the real problems that exist when we have the kinds of terms that we see in the Colombia trade deal.
Getting back, Mr. Chair, to the issue around water resources, this is not an anodyne subject. This is a subject that has immense repercussions for the people who are most impacted by this trade agreement. Mr. Chair, the people that members of the other parties have allowed to come before this committee have all said very clearly that the big risk in this is not in Bogota; it is primarily in rural areas. It is primarily in areas where people will need to have some sort of oversight and protection.
What does this have to do with the current wording? What it does is subject these exports or industrial bottling to issues of investor-state challenges. What would happen, Mr. Chair, if we had a situation where in rural Colombia an aboriginal community decided it was going to refuse industrial bottling, refuse bulk water exports, and a neighbouring community decides that, because the paramilitaries are there and they've got guns in their faces, they don't have a choice, they're going to have to allow this industrial bottling? Mr. Chair, what these provisions mean is that in one case you've got industrial bottling; in the other case you've got the use of investor-state provisions, which often act as a kind of bully mechanism for those who have deep pockets. A small aboriginal community in Colombia may be forced to either pay compensation they cannot afford or they may be forced to allow--