Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll continue to say that right now in negotiations in the U.S., there's a conversation about removing chapter 11, which we heard from one of the officials earlier. The original Canada-U.S. free trade agreement is where we began down this road, in talking about this investor state provision. The New Democrats support the removal of this provision from all trade agreements. Ms. May mentioned several countries that are doing this. India as well is in the process of removing it from all their trade and investment agreements, and won't sign on to any agreements with these provisions. There certainly is an argument to be had.
Some 400 witnesses appeared before us. Ms. May has mentioned some of the witnesses, the officials who submitted briefs, but in our public hearings where we had people from the general public come forward, ISDS was at the top of the list from people who came before us at the committee as we travelled across the country. They wanted to see this provision removed. It's disappointing to hear that at this point we can't remove it, that we would have to renegotiate the treaty to remove it. That it even appears here is regressive for Canada, and it's not the path that New Democrats believe we in Canada should be going down. I will offer my support to Ms. May in the removal of these provisions for the ISDS portion of this agreement.