Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raises a valid point. This is my understanding of it and I stand to be corrected by the parliamentary secretary to the minister of trade.
Let us imagine there is a court ruling that labour standards are not being followed which essentially would violate the terms and conditions of the agreement. It is then incumbent upon the parties who signed that agreement to implement the direction of that court or panel. We have to have some basic goodwill. If that type of judgment is asserted then the parties involved would make sure that the implementation or correction would take place.
The member raises a very good point. When I debated this point in opposition we heard from many people that the implementation of the agreement whether it be on environmental standards or labour standards would be the great challenge.
The fact that we have isolated from the agreement a special commission both in terms of labour and environment is almost like an enhanced scanner on those two types of activities. My understanding would be that all parties would be much more on alert knowing those panels exist to monitor all activities.
That is our greatest hope. I have not heard of a better way to put some teeth into the agreement.