Mr. Speaker, in the past, in the member's different incarnations in one party and then another, there has been a consistency of support for these types of trade agreements.
My question is around the notion of anticipation. An international agreement contract is a signature of some sort of hope or desire for the future, no different than any other business contract, marriage agreement or international trade. It is the same thing. It is the coming together to agree on a more hopeful future.
Yet, did the member not, in endorsing this, campaigning for it and praising its glories to the Canadian people, anticipate that written into this agreement in chapter 11 was an element that would subject Canadian legislators to some sort of punitive action from foreign companies?
It is as black and white as can be and this was one of the concerns raised with the NAFTA at the time of its creation and its negotiation, that Canada would be subjected to this, in negotiating this piece in particular, aside from the ideological support of trade agreements, whatever it may be, by some in the House, and regardless of the conditions and terms that exist within the trade agreements. That is insane.
Did he and the folks that he worked with, on whatever side of the House he was working on at the time, not anticipate this very result? Provincial and federal governments would be subjected to foreign interests and affect the very laws that we hope to create, the very regulations we hope to promote, such as the pesticide one that we are talking about today, softwood lumber and others that have gone on, and Canadian interests would be, in fact, be hurt by agreements that he endorsed at the time and continues to endorse today.