Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that there would be changes in the way we should approach some of these issues and there are lessons we can learn. I agree with the leader of the New Democratic Party with respect to her concern about the application in any larger hemispheric agreement of the chapter 11 provisions in the NAFTA. Not only would it be counterproductive, but we would resist it. It would be a non-starter. It would not happen.
If I have a great regret about the free trade agreement into which we entered, it was that we did not do enough in a companion way with that agreement to deal with groups in Canada who were disadvantaged. There is no question that whenever one takes major initiatives, initiatives that literally change history, there will be people who are helped and there will be people who are hurt. There were people who were hurt by the free trade agreement. We had undertaken as a government that we would be more active in social policies and policies related to education than we were. In hindsight, that was a mistake and we have to take account of that in future agreements into which Canada might enter.
There is a very difficult question that deserves serious debate in the House and it is about the degree to which we try to impose internationally standards to which we adhere at home. My own view would be that on human rights issues we have to impose internationally the high standard we try to respect at home, partly because if we do not, no one else in the world will and those issues will fall off the table.
However, on some other questions, including some environmental issues and others, we have to recognize that countries in states of development different from ours have a set of circumstances different from ours and they must be taken into account.
If the question is whether there are there aspects of those negotiations that we might have changed with the benefit of hindsight, of course there are. If the question is whether it was right to take those initiatives, the answer is of course it was right to take those initiatives. We have to get ahead of the future, not be at its mercy.