Mr. Speaker, the poor content of the member's speech is not surprising. The member himself explained why it is so: he began thinking about this issue at 10 o'clock this morning. One can understand why his arguments are so weak.
He said the Americans give no thought to this debate. He should read this morning's Miami Herald . The columnist Andres Oppenheimer, whose by-line is also carried in 40 other newspapers across the U.S., mentions today's debate.
Maybe the member should also know that the Florida trade secretary spoke about this subject and thought about it; the president of Argentina, Carlos Menem, gave some thought to this issue too, as well as the Inter-American Development Bank and the Mexico Business Council. Finally, the Canadian ambassador in Washington, the Prime Minister's nephew, also said we should discuss this issue. That all brings us to the original motion proposing such a debate.
I have a question: how is it that the Liberal members who were so in favour of holding a debate on the free trade agreement with the Americans in 1988, who wanted to extend it, are now doing their best to avoid this debate?