Mr. Chairman, I am almost tempted to say yes and sit down. I do not know if there is enough thread in the world to sew up all the cuts in that bleeding heart, but I will do my best.
The hon. member talks about the principles of equality and fairness. We believe in the principles of equality and fairness too, but they also extend to businesses. The idea that the World Trade Organization is somehow undemocratic because the specific delegates of every country in it are not elected by Canadians is nonsensical.
The Minister for International Trade is democratic and he is elected. The Minister of Foreign Affairs is democratic and he is elected. The standing committee is composed of people elected by Canadians and their views are put into the process. It is entirely democratic.
I never hear the member condoning or advocating the sort of civil society stuff we saw in Quebec City whereby people were breaking the law to make a political point. I found those demonstrations offensive when they got violent.
People can agree to disagree. At the same time people do not stand up and down and beat on doors and demand that negotiations between unions and management stop because they are happening behind closed doors. They do not say these things must stop because they are driving up the cost of labour, the cost of products and the cost of business. That is a valid argument but nobody does that.
We respect the principle that two institutions or groups of people have the right to get together and decide whether or not they want to have business relations. The same principle is true between countries and corporations.
The NDP and the left like to throw out the words multinational corporation. The words are focus group tested to elicit seedy responses. Canadians think multilateral corporations are a bunch of Gordon Gekko types who do not care about anyone except themselves.
That is not true. They are businesses. They are people. Talking about unplugging free trade because somehow Gordon Gekko and the Wall Street and Bay Street set will benefit from it is a total misrepresentation. It is not fair.
One in three Canadian jobs is dependent on trade. It is irresponsible for any member to start talking about taking trade apart since companies are involved that he or she may not like because they happen to be big or because they can be stigmatized with the cliché of multilateral corporation. It is doing a disservice to the thousands if not millions of Canadians who happen to work for them and thereby boost our standard of living and quality of life.
The hon. member raised the concept of Afghanistan. She said the NDP likes to promote fairness, equality and all those good principles in the arena of the war on terrorism. That is fair enough. So do we. However we want terrorism to stop.
We do not stop terrorism by handing it over to the courts. We stop terrorism by stopping the terrorists. We stop it by stopping those who want to kill innocent people. We cannot plug people into a legal process they do not respect or acknowledge or that, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs said repeatedly, in this instance frankly does not exist.
Pollyanna oasis type solutions to real world problems and real world evils is not a practical common sense or responsible thing for a member of this place to be advocating.