Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Nickel Belt for his question. It is completely unrealistic to believe that the mere act of signing such an agreement will have any impact whatsoever. In fact, the reality is just the opposite.
Rather than using its moral authority to tell a country that if it wants an agreement it must have a good human rights record, Canada is condoning, accepting and sanctioning the state of affairs in Colombia. Rather than using these agreements to bring about positive change, we are about to ensure that the government of that country can turn to its people and tell them that a country like Canada, with such a fine human rights record, has just signed an agreement with it, which is tantamount to an endorsement that all is well in Colombia. However, we have just given a number of examples that prove that this is not at all the case.