Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has perhaps inadvertently made the case for why we are so concerned about the NAFTA.
I am not sure whether the statement issued in 1993 amounts to some kind of combination between a tautology and a catch-22. In any event it is not very reassuring when they say that water will not be treated as a good unless of course it is treated as a good, and it will be treated as a good if in any circumstance it becomes commercially exploitable.
That is precisely the point we are making. We do not want it to become commercially exploitable and, if it ever should, under the conditions of NAFTA there would then be no turning back. By the very act of commercially exploiting water in bulk we would be committing an irreversible act. From there on other partners to the agreement in NAFTA would be able to argue that it has become a good and is therefore now to be treated like any other commodity.
Our point is that what is wrong with NAFTA is not whether it is treated as a good but rather that should it come to be treated as a good it would come under the terms of the agreement.
What we want is an exemption stating that water is exempt whether it is in its natural state or whether it is being commercially exploited. We do not want it to be commercially exploited, but we also think an agreement which states that should it ever become commercially exploited it is then to be treated like any other commodity is not a good agreement either. It does not seem to me that the hon. member gets that about NAFTA.