Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I will rebut that a little bit.
The New Democrats believe that the Canada-South Korea agreement is good overall for Canada. There's no question about that. Our amendments are, in our view, intended to build on that good agreement and make it stronger, so they're not anti-trade at all.
The other thing I would point out is that we also believe that investors need to have protection. The question that we raise with this amendment is: in what venue are investors to enforce their claims? According to this agreement, they get to enforce their agreements in international tribunals, not in domestic courts. We agree that investors should have protection, but we see no reason why a Korean investor who's aggrieved by a Canadian government decision shouldn't have to establish and prove that claim in a Canadian court, where we have every belief they'll be treated fairly. And vice versa for a Canadian investor in Korea.
My final point would be that one thing these kinds of provisions do is give extra rights to Korean investors that Canadian companies don't have. Domestic Canadian companies that have disputes over commercial agreements have to use the Canadian court system, but international investors are allowed to take their claims to an international tribunal. We don't think that's fair to Canadian corporations.