Mr. Speaker, that question is a red herring. The fact is that during the time I was here there was no treaty signed. This is a treaty negotiated by us and this is a treaty that was to be signed.
With respect to the Charter, the Charter was an amendment to the Constitution. It came to this chamber and it went to the provinces for ratification. That was important. The member cannot say that an amendment to the Constitution is the same as ratifying a treaty within our current framework.
This has now been changed. I am happy that it is here for debate and a vote. I am not opposed to that. I like the spirit of that but we need to understand that when we try to graft different alien processes on to an existing parliamentary system where we function differently, there will be some problems and we will have arguments coming at us that make no sense.