Madam Speaker, I am always amazed that the NDP of all groups would be so opposed to advancing the state of our nation forward.
I would really like to ask my hon. friend, and I realize he cannot answer it in this debate, what his information base is for the kinds of bizarre statements that have been made over the last year. And they are bizarre. They are being taken from a draft. They are not being taken from the text of any agreement. They are being taken from a draft.
My hon. friend has had more experience in Parliament than I have had. He should know very well that when a number of nations get together, a draft is a compilation of a wish list of all of those nations.
What has been ignored all through these months is the fact that a set of reservations has been put in place for Canada, a very large list of reservations I might add. The minister has made it very clear that many of those reservations are make or break deals.
When the hon. member comes along and plays Chicken Little, as the NDP has been doing for months now, the sky is falling and disaster is upon us, I would ask him to remember one thing. Canada now has 54 investment agreements which are bilateral. We have one trilateral agreement. Since the 1950s when the first one was signed, no company has dictated policy in Canada. No health care has been put in jeopardy. No education has been put in jeopardy. Our treatment of native peoples has not been threatened in any way.
I ask the hon. member to consider the fact that history does not bear him out. History shows that Canada works better with rules than it does without rules. We intend—