Mr. Speaker, I welcome the minister back in the House. I will be charitable and say he must be somewhat disoriented after being away for a few months because in his entire speech he was not able to get any facts right at all. As human rights organizations have indicated, the death rate in Colombia is going up, not going down. In fact there were 18% more murders of trade unionists last year than there were in the previous year.
My colleague from Windsor West mentioned the number of murders that have taken place this year. It is not just the number of murders that is so worrying. It is the number of false positives by the Colombian military and the number of disappearances as the murder rate has climbed and also the number of disappearances of the Colombian union leaders and teachers who simply disappear and are never found again.
The second point that is important to mention is what is actually happening around the world. The minister spoke very vaguely about some indications of perhaps some agreements happening somewhere. As minister, he should know full well that the United States Congress has refused to ratify the Colombia trade deal. It has simply said “no”. In Norway the government pulled back and said it does not want to be seen as implicitly endorsing Uribe's government. Britain has stopped providing training and support to government security forces. These governments are doing the responsible thing.
Why are the Conservatives endorsing murder by trying to push this trade deal through?