Mr. Speaker, I fully endorse the comments of the NDP member. However in 1993 we thought that NAFTA was one of the greenest agreements that could be negotiated and one on which we could agree regarding trade. Now, the fact is that there have been many legal challenges under chapter 11 on relations between companies and the government.
I am thinking in particular of the legal challenges issued by companies, which I will not name, when they wanted to get a permit from a province such as British Columbia. This is a fact.
Therefore would it not be fair and appropriate to include in the future agreement on the free trade area of the Americas which, if I am not mistaken, is scheduled to be signed in April 2005, provisions that cannot be legally challenged, to ensure that water is not defined as a good but rather as a resource and an investment?
As parliamentarians should we not immediately show leadership in the negotiations to ensure that water is not a good, but a resource to be protected?