Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether the discussion has now moved back to the Tobin tax, but I was very interested and I did support that. It is a step in the right direction.
I listened to the member with some interest. Unfortunately, for me, the member paints a very gloomy picture of the state of the nation state as we move into the 21st century. If we look at the works of Joseph Frankel or Hans Morgenthau on the role of the nation state in the international system, what we have seen is that over the years the nation state has become more important particularly in terms of its relationship between the citizens and government.
In listening to the member, the member gives me the impression, and hopefully it is a wrong impression, that we as parliamentarians and indeed as a government are losing our ability to act on the international stage. Certainly anything which would infringe on an issue, whether the issue is water—and I certainly concur with my colleague across the way about the export of water—one of the things we have to be very careful about in Canada is the loss of sovereignty both in economic and political terms.
I just want some clarification from the member with regard to the picture he was painting. Does he feel that we have lost our ability, again in dealing with this bill, to serve our citizens? Will we become not only slaves to the market but to other international organizations to the point that we might as well just close up shop, because at the end of the day it will be those international bodies, both in an economic and political sense, that really will be dictating our future?