Mr. Chairman, the hon. member is quite right. Not only has the left misrepresented the issue. It has done so in literature and books to the extent of raising money. It has been saying things that are absolutely untrue.
The government of the day said it was illegal to possess MMT that had been imported by another country. If the government of the day were wise it would have banned possession of MMT across the board regardless of where one got it.
Ethyl Corporation took the government to court and won, rightly. If the government had written the laws appropriately and made it illegal to possess MMT for the sake of all the environmental concerns on the table it would have been entirely under the auspices of a fair, appropriate and level playing field. It would have been consistent with rules based trade. Unfortunately the NDP, as with a lot of other things, saw conspiracy and black helicopters where effective rules based trade was in place.
The MMT decision proves that government decisions affect trade deals, not transnational corporations or supernational corporations. Decisions by government affect the way businesses make deals. That debunks the whole argument the NDP has been pirating.