Mr. Speaker, I feel sorry for the member for Mississauga South. He has been literally whipsawed by his caucus over the last year on this very issue.
Last year, at the Standing Committee on International Trade, his party supported an independent human rights assessment, and that honestly was the correct position to take. In the meantime, that party changed leaders and critics, and now the new critic is headed off in a different direction.
The member for Kings—Hants knows what the American position is because we were in Washington recently, meeting with congressional representatives. We were told by republicans that regardless of what Obama said in the State of the Union Address, Congress in no way would deal with this issue. While all this was happening, the member for Kings—Hants was making arrangements with the Colombian government to introduce this amendment.
As the member has rightly pointed out, the amendment talks about allowing the Colombians to self-assess. This is in no way on any sort of scale with the idea of having an independent human rights assessment. I do not think anybody would disagree with that.
I do not understand why the member is now willing to compromise and accept this amendment when he should support the Liberal Party's previous position at committee.