Mr. Speaker, we have indeed come some way, but not far enough as far as we are concerned. Because of our recent experiences with the United States of America in terms of its decision to go to war in Iraq, its action where softwood lumber is concerned and its action where BSE is concerned, we know and we have been shown very clearly how the Americans will act. They will act in their own best interest. That interest is not always in our best interest. That is why we think there is more work to be done.
As I said, the member for Halifax worked really hard on this bill and has some very genuine and sincere concerns about it going forward the way it is right now. She agrees that there are some good things and that we have made some progress, but there has not been enough progress.
We put forward 18 solid amendments. They would have helped. They were not accepted. They would have gone a long way to reducing some of our anxiety about this. We are speaking on behalf of our citizens, our constituents. We are speaking on behalf of millions of people across this country who have some really genuine and sincere concerns as far as our relationship with the United States is concerned. They have genuine and sincere concerns about the use of this new technology and, more important, about what the private sector might do, particularly this early on, after being given so much control over this and the information it would gather.
Yes, we have taken technology, information and intelligence developed by government and turned that into all kinds of interesting, very valuable, exciting new products used by all kinds of people in the private sector, but it took us a while. It took us a while to sort out the bugs before we went down that road, before we began to share with and include the private sector in that way, before we entered into agreements with other sovereign countries in terms of the exchange and sharing of that kind of information. We have not done that here.
We are not confident nor are we convinced that we are going to be protected enough with this bill in terms of this new initiative and this technology. That is why I stand in my place today on behalf of my farmers, on behalf of people who work in the forest industry in northern Ontario, on behalf of people who get up every morning and go to work, carry a lunch pail and drive the resource based sector of this economy. Their experience with our neighbours to the south in almost every instance has been that the Americans will serve their own interests first, so we should be really careful where this initiative is concerned.
I would go so far as to say that right now there are a lot of relationships we have with the United States of America, both formal and informal, which we should be revisiting. Maybe we should be finding new ways to frame those relationships and, at the end of the day, actually protect our interests.