Mr. Speaker, I think we can all see that the minister is in the same apocalyptic state as he was yesterday. The minister is grossly twisting the reality of freer trade between countries by wrongly ascribing to NAFTA the power to prevent greater integration between Quebec and Canada, as the partnership in fact proposes.
Will the minister acknowledge that his gratuitous remarks are contradicted by established rules of international trade and by the prevailing custom whereby sovereign states can conclude more complex regional agreements in parallel with other agreements such as NAFTA? Will he not acknowledge that this doctrine has even been enshrined in paragraph 4 of article XXIV of the GATT?