Mr. Speaker, I want to echo comments I heard earlier. I believe every member in the House is a proponent for human rights and that no right-thinking person advocates violence against any person because of one's political beliefs. I would like to make that point clear.
The question really is one of philosophy. The question is whether we as a country should be making trade deals with countries that have murderous records. The question should be this. Should we make countries demonstrate an improvement first before we sign economic trade pacts with them or should we sign trade pacts with them first when their murder rates of trade unionists has gone up 18% in the last year?
I want to talk a bit about philosophy because I have heard my colleagues in the Liberal Party talk about supporting free trade. I guess it depends what year that party is in. In 1988 the Liberal Party did not support free trade. In 1993 it promised to abrogate the NAFTA. Little did we know then but it did not keep its promise. It was opposed to free trade at that time but today we hear that it supports free trade.