Madam Speaker, first I would like to address some of my colleague's comments.
He talked about the transparency of this process. He may have been present when I repeatedly put the question to expert witnesses at committee. I put the question to the NDP party, the only party in the House speaking against this, to give us just one example of any trade negotiation that was even anywhere close to as transparent to this one. Nobody replied. So there was an acknowledgement by their silence that this was certainly been the most open and transparent trade process to date. The government is working very hard to make it become more transparent.
On the hon. member's point that parliamentarians have not had an opportunity to participate, quite frankly I do not know how he draws that conclusion. As I said, this is the second motion that he has put in the House causing a full day of debate, a very important and useful debate, and I congratulate him for it. However he must realize by having this debate today he is having some of the participation which he says he was denied. I do not understand the logic there.
The member well knows that the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade has held extensive hearings on the FTAA and on the summit process. Before the last election it held hearings it. Those hearings were resumed after the election and started to include more and more of the summit process.
There is a subcommittee on trade which is specifically tasked to deal with this issue and other trade issues.
In this very Chamber I and I believe the hon. member opposite and other members participated in FIPA, the first forum of the interparliamentarians of the Americas. It was a very useful and extensive discussion. There have been repeated opportunities for parliamentarians to be involved.
He spoke about our negotiating position. For weeks and weeks five of our nine positions were available on the website. Many Canadians visited that website to see what our position was.
I challenge the member to go back some weeks and look up the comments of the right hon. the Prime Minister in the House of Commons. He said he would be very happy to release the text but he was not going to do so unilaterally. The for Joliette knows full well, because I asked him that at committee, that he agreed it should not be done unilaterally.
In Buenos Aires the Minister for International Trade showed his outstanding leadership in convincing the other ministers to release the text, which was supported by the Prime Minister. That is the kind of leadership that has made this transparency become even greater and that will continue in the future.
On the specific question that the member asked, I was not present in Buenos Aires so I cannot speak to the specificity of what the Minister for International Trade and his colleagues decided on what text would be released. We know it is the negotiating text. The timetable of which I am aware is as soon as possible after the Quebec summit. That will be honoured.