Mr. Speaker, I want to comment on a few things mentioned by the member opposite during his speech.
He spoke about my illusions and said that, as I will get older I should lose my illusions. Is that his answer? Does this mean I should give up now since I will have lost my illusions 20 years from now? I do not think so. I feel concerned about the future.
I feel that some valuable debates must take place now. There are new ways to hold such public debates. I should not give up because of what was done in the past and say “we have no choice”.
This is what I reacted to. I reacted primarily to this attitude that makes some say “let us face it, we have no choice. Market globalization is unavoidable. Fellow citizens, your governments no longer have any power”. I refuse to believe that.
I think that if the public decides to mobilize, if it believes that we can turn globalization into a tool for us all, particularly those of my generation, then we will be able to change things.
Some may accuse me of being idealistic, of believing in a utopia, but I will at least fight. This is what I want to do. I want to fight for the public's interest.
When eight people out of ten support me for the action I took, an action that questioned fundamental values of our society, namely democracy, I think we should ask ourselves some questions.
I do not want to talk specifically about the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, but rather about the way this was done, secretly. Ultimately, they were rewriting the world economic constitution, but no one, or almost no one, knew about it, certainly not the people or me, a parliamentarian, a representative of the people. We were informed later about the content of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment.
I think that, when such a vast society debate has to happen, the people must be informed. And even though the debate is complex and long, as I agree it is, this does not mean we cannot dwell on it now.
Consequently, I do not intend to give up. I think the only thing that is unavoidable—No, in fact nothing is unavoidable. Come to think of it, nothing is unavoidable. Giving up is the only thing that makes things unavoidable.