Good afternoon. Mr. Richardson, we visited Panama together. I don't know if you remember, but, at that time, I was a member of the committee and we had begun looking into the development of this agreement.
Good afternoon, Mr. Vaillancourt. Good afternoon, Ms. Healy. I have five minutes and I would like to ask each of you a question.
Mr. Vaillancourt, I would like you to tell us who you think will benefit from the agreement between Canada and Panama. Who will really benefit from the agreement?
Do you have any data on the amounts of money Canadians currently have in Panamanian tax shelters?
I also have a question for Ms. Healy. You are probably aware of a bill that was adopted in Panama, bill 30. This piece of legislation penalizes unions to some extent and goes as far as to criminalize union members who could object to their working conditions. I know that this agreement greatly affects the mining sector.
Do you have any data on this? Could you tell us how this bill affects the labour conditions of people who work in the mining sector and how it affects the operators? There are often issues in the mining sector regarding compliance with environmental norms. I would like to hear your opinion on this.
Mr. Félix Wing Solís, you talked about fair trade. You said you were not against free-trade agreements. The Bloc Québécois certainly supports the free-trade agreement between Canada and Europe, but we were against the Canada-Colombia agreement, which is somewhat similar to the Canada-Panama agreement. It's not exactly the same thing, but there are some similar elements in connection with the mining sector and non-compliance with labour conditions.
How do you view this fair trade? Do you see it more in the context of a multilateral agreement? I think that a multilateral agreement can often ensure a better basis for negotiations and greater compliance with certain international standards than a bilateral agreement can. I would like to hear your thoughts on this. What kind of an agreement do we need to have with Panama to ensure fair trade?