Mr. Speaker, I will not say that this is the dialogue of the deaf, it would still be too much.
What I said was that there needs to be coordination. The closest coordination must include this foreign policy, which involves a relationship with the other countries and closely encompasses trade issues, international aid and human rights and even immigration, if possible. I say “if possible“ because as soon as we go to another country, all the policies we adopt regarding visas, quotas etc. are automatically thrown at us.
My colleague pointed out the fact that I had been, with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, on the Middle East visit. I would remind him that this is not the first mission in which I was involved. However, I had the opportunity to see that in this Minister of Foreign Affairs' mission, the most important meeting was within a meeting of the Canada-Israel Chamber of Commerce. It was the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He went to talk about trade because it was a good way to meet people.
During these missions, I often had the opportunity to see that, when the Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs or perhaps the Minister of National Defence meet people in another country, they meet business people. They necessarily talk about trade as well. It is important for policies to be understood and coordinated. This is only what I am saying.
I would hope that, despite his firm denials, my colleague opposite will understand and report these statements. When we go on a mission, we deal with these aspects as a whole. It is impossible not to deal with them. If we do so, these aspects must be coordinated. When we think about the future and the treaties that are being negotiated, from NAFTA to FTAA, through a social fund, a foreign affairs aspect and an international trade, an international aid and a development aspect are always connected.
When we, the committee members, analyze the bills or the studies that we undertake to guide the foreign policy, we must take these aspects into account to make recommendations on human rights, international trade and so on. Let us take the example of the study on the relations between Canada and countries of the Muslim world, a study that was greatly appreciated. When we examined the issue, we studied all aspects of it and we made recommendations on each. Indeed, a way to help countries is to trade with them. However, we do not trade under any conditions. One of these crucial conditions is implementing human rights.
In short, foreign affairs is all the relations that we have with governments of foreign countries.