Mr. Speaker, the issue of linkages is an important one and, of course, our trade relationship with the United States, quite apart from anything that might be negotiated under the free trade agreement of the Americas, exists under NAFTA and our joint membership in the WTO.
Our relationship with the United States under NAFTA includes being parties to the North American agreement on environmental co-operation and labour co-operation. We already that linkage that would bear on our free trade arguments with respect to softwood lumber under NAFTA.
As we look beyond that to the other 32 countries of the hemisphere, and the Prime Minister spoke to this, it is important for us to understand that while there are great benefits to be had by society in all countries through freer trade and the development and increased wealth that comes from it, those will not actually be achieved unless there is some requisite level of human dignity and human rights in those countries, unless they have some sort of democratic support for the policies of those countries, and unless they have some sort of level of labour standards and environmental integrity.
Our interest is not just in free trade, although that is an essential part of democracy and liberalism, but it is also a precondition to the necessary stability in the rules of law and the rules based system that will allow us to trade with other countries in a successful way.