Mr. Speaker, I am aware that I do not have much time to speak to this bill, which I think is a very good one, introduced by the member for Beauharnois—Salaberry.
I am very interested in issues of globalization. In a world where areas of activity that were formerly more the concern of the United Nations are now making their way onto the world stage, we will be increasingly called upon to make decisions on an international scale and to ratify treaties.
One question comes to me right off the bat and it is this: What is the role of parliamentarians in this regard? Should we always rely on governments to negotiate treaties? I think that one of the most flagrant examples we have seen is the multilateral agreement on investment. People will recall that, for two years, this agreement was being secretly negotiated by the OECD, an organization of the 29 richest countries in the world. Nobody in the world, except of course the negotiators, knew this was in the works. We parliamentarians were not in the picture. It took a leak by one of the negotiators on the Internet before pockets of resistance began to spring up around the world.
I think that this was an historic event because, for the first time, we saw civil society join forces internationally, we saw young people the world over ready to be mowed down rather than see this agreement signed. I am thinking in particular of the young people of salAMI in Montreal, who resorted to civil disobedience.
I may not approve of such methods. I am only pointing them out.
An international agreement was being negotiated behind closed doors. When people saw what was in the agreement, they said “This does not make sense. It should be discussed”. This is what democracy is all about. It is about debating issues. It is about wondering where treaties like this will lead us.
Unfortunately, this is all the time I have for today, but I was pleased to—