Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, I'll talk about the admissibility of my amendment. I believe that it meets all the criteria listed in pages 770 to 775 of Bosc and Gagnon. You'll agree that my amendment doesn't expand the scope of the act. In fact, the opposite is true.
My amendment doesn't violate the principles of the act either. The House has adopted the principle of a Canada-Israel free trade agreement. My amendment seeks to ensure that a free trade agreement with Israel is established. However, the agreement must fully but exclusively cover the territory of the State of Israel.
My amendment does add a new paragraph, but it doesn't expand the scope of the act. At the report stage, we can only delete clauses. In short, the clause that I'm proposing doesn't expand the scope of the act. It simply clarifies the scope.
My amendment also doesn't amend the treaty. We all know that a treaty is negotiated by two parties. Therefore, it can only be amended by two parties. That said, the treaty can be interpreted, and it's even a fairly common practice to do so.
On that note, I'll provide two clear examples. The first example concerns subsection 7(1) of the North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act: For greater certainty, nothing in this Act or the Agreement, except Article 302 of the Agreement, applies to water.
The NAFTA text didn't mention water. Since water wasn't specifically excluded from the agreement, it could be concluded that water was...