Mr. Speaker, it never escapes me that somehow we always just want to suggest, if we have an economic deal, that somehow folks will lift themselves up when it comes to human rights.
Human rights do not lift themselves up because of economics. That might play a role. The human rights of a country come up because of its belief and its fundamental sense that we should look after one another, that somehow people are as equal as each other, not less so, and that government institutions have a huge role to play in all of that. It does not depend on just needing to have a strong economy.
We can look around the world and find economies that are less strong but yet do not have the same human rights abuses we find ourselves engaged in.
There is a bit of a chicken and egg situation when it comes to the economy. Should we have a free trade deal and then hope that human rights come up and then we will just inspect it? Or do we suggest that countries build the capacity within their own state, where they respect the rule of law, where they respect their citizens no matter what their beliefs and what their differences are. If they do that internally, do we then say we are on an equal footing now and we will go ahead and develop an economic relationship?
The economy, economic relationships and human rights are not in lockstep. If that were true, then why is it that when we were not doing as well in this country, many years ago, decades ago when our human rights were on a par with most of the rest of the world, why were we not an abysmal failure when it came to our human rights record all those years ago, notwithstanding the aboriginal question, which is still an abysmal black mark on our record today?