All right. It's worth a trip.
I remember the first time I went. I arrived in the Beijing airport, and as we were driving out, the air was so thick I really thought they burned tires there. I have been to places where they burn tires and it stinks pretty badly. I thought, “Wow this is amazing. They burn tires over here.” I arrived in Beijing and after a day or so I suddenly realized, “This is the air.”
Now at that particular time I think they were building—I don't know whether it's more or less; I hope it's less—a coal plant every two weeks. There were no scrubbers. They were just polluting the air. Things were pretty bad there.
We had somebody from the Marxist–Leninist group in Windsor, and the charge was that the United States was using this treaty as a way to supplant China's influence in the Middle East. In terms of trade, there's probably some truth to it. Obviously, they want the advantage. But as some of our colleagues have mentioned, this agreement will force other countries to adopt the higher standards as the precedent.
In other words, we don't lower our standards. We raise our standards, and as a result, this forces countries like China...and you mentioned climate change. I would submit that the worst perpetrators are countries like China and India. Once we start to enact these provisions in an agreement like the TPP. this would force them to make those changes.
Would agree with a statement like that?