When it comes to the protection of working people, I think this agreement and agreements that have come before, which have been the foundation of international trade, have been more weighted in the protection of the interests of the corporation and not of the working people. It compromises, as a country, our sovereign right to enforce our legislation and laws that protect workers and working people.
The investor protection pieces in these agreements are weighted to the corporation. If there's a violation of any form of labour standard, it has to happen over a sustained period of time, more than once. It has to negatively impact trade or the bottom line of the corporation before any remedial action can happen. If a corporation is thought to have its ability to earn a profit infringed on, they can use the investment protection mechanism for one instance for remediation. We've seen first-hand here how skewed that framework is.
When we spoke about R and D, we had ExxonMobil that was.... We have an agreement here called the Atlantic Accord, which governs local benefits. Companies that extract resources here have to invest in R and D in the local economy. That's economic development, training for workers, innovation. Under the investor-state protection mechanism, Exxon made a complaint. The decision was in their favour, and they were awarded $17.5 million. We all know that ExxonMobil is one of the biggest oil companies in the world, and a lot bigger than the Newfoundland and Labrador economy. That just—