Thank you, witnesses, for coming here this morning.
Francesca and Kate, your values on women's rights and gender equality are interesting. I agree with you 110%. I think where we're going to disagree a little is how we get there. I'm going to ask a few questions with regard to the best tactic to get that accomplished.
Now you're saying let's tie it in to trade agreements and enforce it. Let's make sure it's embedded in there strongly so it has to happen. I see a problem with that. We had Amnesty International in front of this committee last week. In our Colombia trade agreement we tied in human rights and a review mechanism and thought that's a good start. But they came back and said that was horrible because it created this false sense that we're taking care of the problem. In reality no money was given to NGOs or other groups to work on human rights in Colombia. There was no focus outside of government using our foreign aid to say let's go to Colombia and do something on human rights.
I look at it similarly to the Australians. They say that a trade agreement is a trade agreement, but then they do these side agreements where they focus on human rights, gender equality, women's rights, and we put feet on the ground, money in the bank you might say, in those groups so they can do that. They like that approach because a lot of countries do not want to be preached at. They don't want to be told how to live their lives. If the Americans are criticized anywhere in the world it's because they tell people what they have to do. Canadians are respected because we say this is what works for us, why it works for us. We encourage them to go this way, but we do it in a very respectful manner. We don't say this is the way it has to be.
Your approach and the Liberal approach looks like this is the way it has to be. A lot of countries will say they're not going to deal with us. They won't do a trade agreement. We're still going to trade, we just won't have a trade agreement where we have rules that regulate how that trade will happen. The threat I'm scared of back in Canada is that company in Ontario that has 35 employees all of a sudden loses a market and has to drop to 15 employees.
Is there a better way to get the results than putting them right in the trade agreement? I'm open for ideas, I really am.