The hon. member has me blushing red right now. I do not just blush red. I believe red is my philosophy. It is my life.
I also want to congratulate the hon. member and all members, the member from the Bloc, the critic for foreign affairs, the member from the Conservative Party, the member for Cumberland—Colchester, for attending the very important meeting which took place last week and the events that surrounded that.
The hon. member is quite correct. It was very good timing, and of course we hope that what has happened in the Middle East in the last week or so will break new ground and that we will all strive toward a just and durable peace in years to come.
I have carefully reviewed the debates of last week and in the hon. member's absence I want her to know the hon. member for Churchill did a very good job. I suspect that should the hon. member move up and move on there will be a very good and very effective replacement in the member for Churchill.
However, I want to point out a couple of glaring mistakes in the assumption about this being the cart before the horse, or Parliament not approving this. There is no one here suggesting that Parliament should not place into effect the creation of these two new departments. They give in fact expanded powers to the minister and to the departments.
What happened by order in council in 2003 is indeed consistent with the Public Service Rearrangement and Transfer of Duties Act which gives the governor in council the ability to transfer portions of the public service administerial powers, duties and functions in one part of the public service from one minister to the other.
Given my work in getting private members' bills to be votable, having probably passed more bills than a lot of members who have been in this place, I understand the hon. member may want to include that in her panoply of bills that she may want to look at. But be that as it may, it is clear that Parliament is not rubber-stamping, but is in fact involved and engaged.
What is more interesting and I want to come to the question very quickly because the hon. member made a very interesting point. She could not find a valid reason and yet pointed out four very important areas that give rise to the need for us to treat foreign affairs policies quite separate from commercial interests.
She referred to ballistic missile defence. I take it that there is no commercial outcome in terms of our involvement with that as to whether or not Canadians want to participate for reasons of sovereignty.
Regarding the tsunami, it is clear that in the past 40 days an event of epic proportions took place and our response had everything to do with the human commitment, not with commerce and trade.
She talked about consulates and gave me a bit of a compliment in the process. Some 200,000 Canadians use our services. It has nothing to do with commerce.
She also mentioned Wal-Mart. I invite the hon. member to look at my work, when I sat on the industry committee, about concentration of the retail sector and the effect it is having on jobs. More importantly, the issue of human rights is clearly and decidedly one of a policy reaction that has a lot to do with how Canadians see themselves, how they see their rights being advocated in Canada, and the kind of rights that we can champion at various forums of international conventions of the United Nations and so on.
These are issues that demonstrate the maturation of foreign policy quite separate and independent from commerce. I find it strange and perhaps this is the question. How can the NDP reconnoitre a policy which in effect says international commercial trade should always be something that one takes into consideration in tandem with pure foreign policy?