Mr. Speaker, let me begin by thanking my colleague from the Alliance across the way for listening to what I had to say.
The motion talks about completely throwing out chapter 11. Neither the minister nor the Prime Minister ever said that. Therefore, first and foremost, there is no inconsistency between the two.
What I have tried to do in my presentation is talk about chapter 11. Chapter 11 is composed of many things. It is composed of schedule A, which talks about national treatment and most favoured nations treatment. Schedule B talks about the dispute settlement system. There is a long process.
In addition, what I think is very important for all Canadians to remember, and what we have not been hearing, are the annexes and schedules that talk about restrictions, exceptions, the unbound exemptions and the bound exemptions. Under no circumstances does chapter 11 throw out the ability to ensure public education in our country. Under no circumstances does chapter 11 stop us in any way from legislating on health care.
With respect to the general exceptions under NAFTA, we can look at the exceptions in culture, but we do need to do more, which is what I said about our trade agreements.
The history of trade agreements goes back to 1947 and the GATT when the first dispute settlement process was actually put into place. We have built on that process, starting with the free trade agreement and then with NAFTA. We have Chile and Canada, Israel and Canada and, most recently, and we should be very proud, we also have a Canada and Costa Rica agreement that puts us in the centre of Central America.
We are always looking to build on agreements. If we look at the history, from the GATT to where we are today, there are some concerns. If we need to work with a few words that does not mean we throw out entire sections or chapters. The fact is that NAFTA has been good for Canadians. It brings wealth. We as a government have a role on all sides to ensure that wealth is properly distributed to all of our citizens.