Thank you.
I happen to agree with you. I think drawing a causal line between trade and the kinds of benefits that the Conservative government often claims—that it'll create jobs, improve the welfare of people, that a free trade agreement will boost GDP and create wealth—I personally think that those causal relationships are not made. But they're made all the time by this government.
We do have data from the U.S. agreement that certainly suggests that, from my reading of all the data, the conditions in Honduras have gotten much worse. Some of the social spending over the last number of years has gone down. Economic inequality, which decreased for four consecutive years starting in 2006, began trending upward in 2010. Poverty and extreme poverty rates decreased by 7.7% and 20.9% during the Zelaya administration, which was overthrown in the coup in 2009, and the poverty rate has increased by 13% and 26% since. Unemployment has gone up. Minimum wage and wages have gone down. So, all of the metrics look poor.
Ms. Moore, I'd like to ask you a question.
My reading of the environmental side agreements that Canada generally signs is that they generally follow the format that the parties agree that they will not reduce their present environmental standards in order to attract investment. That, of course, is predicated on the fact that the environmental standards that are in place now are firm. Can you describe for us, briefly, what the state of environmental protection is in Honduras currently?