Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by congratulating my colleague from Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, who gave an exceptional speech about why we will be voting against this truly bad agreement.
I would like to talk about some of the examples he gave. He emphasized that this agreement is quite hypocritical. The Conservative government says that this agreement is about trading goods, but we know that it is mainly about investment, particularly in the mining sector, and about protecting Canadian investors.
I know that my colleague was a unionist and that he has had personal experience with a similar situation in Quebec, not unlike what is going on in Colombia. Iron ore was being mined and Quebec was getting 1¢ per tonne. Workers were being paid starvation wages. Foreign investors were the ones making money.
Can my colleague tell us whether such conditions in the Quebec mining industry improved workers' quality of life, their health and the environment?