Mr. Speaker, I wish to compliment my hon. colleague on his excellent remarks. I know that he comes from a labour background, which means that he is very sensitive to issues affecting human rights and the environment.
I partly agree with him when he says that this type of agreement is smoke and mirrors. The economic benefits to Canada from agreements with countries like Peru and Colombia, where human rights and workers rights are ignored and no efforts are made to improve social conditions, will be extremely minimal.
There is something I do not get, though. That trade has little impact on our economy, but at the same time we are very soft on the great, big country with which we do a lot of trade, namely the United States. Trading with the United States has much more of an impact on our economy.
This morning, a bill was introduced, which both the official opposition party and the ruling party have spoken against. Our borders are currently closed, and there are protections for the buyer's market in place. In my opinion, these are very important issues, much more important to our economy and our employment situation than the Canada-Peru agreement, whose impact is much less significant.
I would like to hear the hon. member on that.