Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Terrebonne—Blainville for her question, because it opens an opportunity to give the Canadian government an alternative with respect to opening the borders to trade.
As I said earlier, the Bloc Québécois supports that kind of openness. It does approve any forms of protectionism that are extremely damaging to the economies of nations and the international economy.
It is quite clear, however, that this free trade agreement with Colombia is a legacy from the Bush administration in the United States, and the Conservative government, which was George W. Bush’s lapdog, is caught up in something it cannot get out of. It started something and now it cannot stop it, although in the United States it has been blocked in Congress until there are firm commitments regarding human rights.
Second, this follows the failure of the Doha round of negotiations. The industrialized countries tried to impose their agenda on the developing countries, particularly the emerging ones like China, India and Brazil. Those countries, with the support all of the African countries, did not accept our way of looking at development, since the industrialized countries would have been the only ones to benefit from it. In fact, we saw this in the previous round of negotiations.
Those countries wanted to find another way of negotiating other issues. Obviously, the developed countries, particularly the United States, but it is also true of Canada and Europe, overruled them. As a result, the strategy is now to negotiate bilateral agreements with the weakest countries.
Take the example of negotiations with Costa Rica. I have no idea what makes Costa Rica a major economic partner for Canada. Free trade agreements are being proposed with these extremely vulnerable countries, and this is a way of trying to surround the most promising countries for Canadian or American investors. It is a strategy put in place by the Americans. In fact, this strategy reminds me that Mao Zedong had exactly the same approach: he said that you had to use the countryside to surround the cities. That is what the Americans and Canadians are doing to the developing countries.