Mr. Speaker, I am not sure whether the hon. member is saying he thinks there are no burly homeless people or no homeless people with boots. I was not there that day and do not have a great deal of knowledge of the particular event. I was very careful in my remarks to talk about peaceful protests.
In Seattle, it was not just violent protesters who were locked up. The police decided they would clear whole areas of the city and make them uninhabitable for peaceful protesters as well as violent protesters. They locked a lot of people up. They seem to be planning to do the same in Quebec City. That is my concern.
There were 50,000 people marching in Seattle: environmentalists, trade unionists and food safety activists. The event was supervised by the steelworkers. There were no police visible. It was all done in a very civilized and peaceful way. That kind of thing will not be possible in Quebec City if a wall is built around it.
The Berlin Wall has come down, but walls are going up everywhere so that people who want to gather together to plot the weakening of democracy through further free trade agreements can meet without having to hear the voices of protesters.
It has something to do with distance as well. Protesters have to be seen and heard, not just on the other side of the Ottawa River. These are legitimate concerns and one can voice them without being put in the position of somehow defending violence or inappropriate responses.
Of course we must have security. There is a need for the protection of delegates to these meetings and the protection of property. There is also a role for government in acknowledging these concerns and dealing with them, which the government has not been willing to do.
I know the government says it had a parliamentary subcommittee and it heard testimony. That is not good enough. We have to open these processes and make some of these negotiating papers public.
Yesterday the Minister for International Trade said that all we had to do was look on the Internet. If we look on the Internet, we will not find the Canadian position with respect to the general agreement on trade and services which is of great concern to many Canadians in terms of what might happen to our health and education services.
The minister stood yesterday and told us to look it up on our website. We did look it up and were concerned about what it says on the website, that Canada has no position in this regard. We know Canada has a position. We know Canadian negotiators are probably in rooms negotiating as we speak. Yet for them to pretend they have no position while at the same time telling us to look it up is somewhat frustrating.