Madam Speaker, I agree with many of the remarks made by my hon. colleague from the Bloc Quebecois. I know he comes from a legal background and has been involved with many rounds of bargaining and negotiations.
I think this is what he and I share. We both find it quite galling that the players at the table of the FTAA do not want freely elected governments involved at this stage. They clearly will not allow it. They are barring it. In fact it goes further than that. The former head of the WTO, Ruggiero, made this startling comment. He said “There is a surplus of democracy in the world which is interfering with the free movement of capital and investment”.
There are people out there in the world who actually believe there is a surplus of democracy, and that freely elected governments and freely elected representatives like those of us in this room have no business at a high level table where they are bargaining trade deals. That is offensive to all Canadians. Surely, all people in Quebec and everywhere in the country should be offended by that.
I would like the hon. member to talk a bit about this. We are facing a home heating fuel crisis in this country as we speak. When Canadians came to their government to ask for some relief and begging their elected representatives to do something to provide some relief for them, they were told “Gee, sorry we cannot help you”. We traded away any ability to influence pricing in the last trade agreement with NAFTA. Some idiot on our behalf gave it away, sold the farm and sold away our economic sovereignty and our ability to dictate a domestic market pricing for home heating fuel.
I ask the hon. member to expand on the impact that that may have in the province of Quebec and elsewhere.