Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. He was against the free trade agreement with Barbados for the same reason we are discussing today.
At the time, the most powerful and most significant lobbyist was the Prime Minister of Canada; he had interests in Barbados. I can understand why friends of the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party force the government to sign a free trade with a country, when signing such an agreement legalizes the business they do with that country.
I am very surprised. The Liberal Party and the Conservative Party say we will improve the treaty in committee, but there is nothing to improve. Either we sign a tax information exchange agreement before signing the free trade agreement, or we do not. There is no room for negotiation. That is how it works all over the world. The OECD is asking that exchange agreements on personal information, tax information in particular, be signed.
The Conservative Party and the Liberal Party, on behalf of a few of their supporters who will make money in Panama, a known tax haven, are thumbing their noses at the right approach to politics, an approach the Bloc Québécois has been using since it arrived in the House in 1993 and the approach the NDP seems to be using.