Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond to the hon. member for Churchill. I have a great deal of respect for that member of Parliament and I know she speaks very passionately.
The irony of course with her comments is that all of the concerns that she has raised, and those of her colleague from the Bloc Québécois and his party that she is supporting, on culture, human rights, peace, and yes, she even used the same example I gave on two occasions already on the tsunami, speak not for the reasons to keep this department together, but if we are going to respect the modernization of where Canadians are domestically, globally and internationally, then she could not but come to a conclusion other than the fact that there is an inconsistency with trade and our politics on foreign affairs.
The member is well travelled, as she has well described, as are some members in the House. I am glad to hear that. If we are to take seriously our relationship with other countries, not as a means to ensuring trade, the first thing we hear from those from other parts of the world is that we should be involved in understanding their cultures better. What better way to do that than to recognize Canada's diversity, which works for us in so many ways, to create links around the world that do not just take into consideration how much money we are going to make at the end of the day. That comes after and it is based on trust and relationships.
Our world has changed. Our consular services had nearly 200,000 inquiries by Canadians last year. The disaster of the tsunami that she pointed out had nothing to do, I hope, with anything related to international trade.
The hon. member has given a passionate and direct argument as to why she will not be supporting the bill. Ironically, those are the very arguments I would use to say that she has and must support the bill out of interest to ensure that our foreign policy not be connected with our trade policy.
As to the member for Saint-Lambert, and based on what the member for Joliette had already said, who talked about the 15th anniversary of the freeing of Nelson Mandela, I want to remind those members over there who were not here in the House that it was in 1960-61 that John Diefenbaker led the charge to ensure that country was reprimanded for what it had done. That was a matter of foreign policy, and to connect that, although it may be convenient from a trade perspective or from a monetary perspective, loses sight of Canadian values and what we stand for: dignity and respect for human rights.
If human rights mean anything to those members from the Bloc or the NDP, they could not but conclude that this is the right approach and that Foreign Affairs should not be linked with International Trade. I understand the 270 former diplomats who were diplomats during the period of the great unity between the department, but times have changed. Understanding what the hon. member has just said, would she not agree that change is a very strong argument to ensure that foreign policy, human rights, peace and culture become the priority of Foreign Affairs, not money?