—the conversation now is to say that trade agreements are intended to commodify everything. For instance, my father made efforts in the late nineties and early 2000s to try to make the point that water shouldn't be treated as a simple commodity under trade agreements. The NDP has argued in the past for certain things being more important than to be treated as a simple commodity on the market.
The language of the departmental plan, in the time of a pandemic, when we have seen that certain kinds of things are more important than just a commodity on the market, doesn't make any attempt to try to differentiate or single out those products and talk about a different kind of trade strategy for those particular kinds of goods, when we have a lot of experts and a lot of trading partners who are talking in those ways.
It's a very strong ideological position for Canada to adopt, to say we're not going to entertain those kinds of talks, but are just going to continue on as we did before the pandemic.
That's the issue I'm trying to get at.
Is there a list of particular goods or services that the government now thinks maybe shouldn't just be treated under general free trade agreements, but that we need more particular kinds of agreements or understandings or strategies for?