Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raises a good point that goes to the heart of the matter in some ways.
What we are being asked to do in Canada is, in the name of protecting Canadian investors who are investing in other countries and that may run up against the very same public policy instruments that Canada has used in the past and in some sense is still using them to further the national interest or act in the public interest or in the interest of the common good, give up those public policy instruments so that Canadian companies will not run into those same instruments in other countries.
This specifically applies when it comes to GATS and health care. ln order to make it possible for multinational health care corporations, some of which may be based in Canada, to have access to what are essentially private health care systems in other countries we are being asked to give up our ability to protect our publicly owned health care system.
I say there has to be a way to have the rule of law in these countries, so that people do not get swindled and have their investments disappear overnight by virtue of some government fiat or arbitrary change in the rules or whatever. There has to be a way to do that so it does not destroy the ability of a democratic country like Canada to employ the kind of public policy instruments which we have employed in the past and which we still employ. To me that is a challenge that can be met.
Instead, under cover of protecting investors' rights in other countries we are being subjected to an ideological battle here at home whereby a lot of the things that people have always been against they are now getting to eliminate under cover of protecting investors' rights in some other country.