Madam Speaker, I wish to pursue the debate with my Bloc colleagues. I congratulate the member for bringing forth the motion and for providing us with an opportunity to talk about the FTAA and the process that attends it.
However, in the response to me earlier and in the remarks of the hon. member who just finished, the Bloc says that it does want to prejudge the outcome. Members already know what the outcome is in the sense that we know what NAFTA is. NAFTA is not something that one has to prejudge. NAFTA is something that we have had since 1993.
The member does not have to prejudge the FTAA. He can judge NAFTA, not in a prejudging way but on the basis of eight years of experience with various things like chapter 11, about which the member spoke very eloquently and thoroughly. These are things that are part of the agreement now and they are intended to be part of any future agreement. That is one of the reasons the NDP is against these agreements.
Could the member tell the House what the position of the Bloc is with respect to the North American Free Trade Agreement? I cannot understand why people who are concerned about issues of sovereignty cannot see that in these agreements there is a real and serious threat to the sovereignty of democratically elected legislatures and parliaments. There is a threat to the sovereignty of the Quebec National Assembly, whether it continues to be a provincial assembly or whether some day, as my Bloc colleagues hope, it may become a national parliament.
Regardless, there is a question of sovereignty here. Many other people have made the judgment that these agreements affect the sovereignty of these particular legislatures, not to mention the FTQ, which was out marching alongside the NDP in Quebec City on the weekend.
Are they wrong? Have they prejudged the FTAA or is there something in the nature of these agreements that no amount of good process and no amount of openness can fix, because the underlying agenda of these agreements as they are now understood is in fact to replace democratic rule with corporate rule?