I personally believe that if there are these kinds of work conditions in areas, and you as a country—Canada—set up a trade agreement under certain rules and conditions, you actually have a greater ability to apply pressure on that country and those companies that work within that country to improve labour and working conditions.
That hasn't happened, certainly, with the U.S.-Jordan trade agreement. How do you see getting around that? On the one hand, I certainly have been supportive to date of going ahead with the Canada-Jordan trade agreement, because I think you make progress on both sides and you do improve conditions. But given the experience of the U.S.-Jordan trade agreement, I'm beginning to wonder.
How do you see getting around that problem? Does it mean there has to be pressure from governments internationally in Jordan?
On Tuesday we had the Jordanian ambassador here. I'll just read you what he told us and then ask for your comments.
On the issue of the application of Jordanian law with respect to migrant and permanent residents, the Jordanian ambassador said this:
With our new laws, any labour in Jordan, be it foreign labour or domestic labour, is now covered within the Jordanian law. There is no exclusion and no different treatment.
He went on to say:
It has nothing to do with the origin of the worker; it has to do with the sector that they are working in. If you have a sector that has more than two or three workers, then everyone is covered.
How do you respond to that statement? What the ambassador told us is clearly at odds with what your evidence shows.