Madam Speaker, I enjoy listening to my friend. We all know we have the opportunity to do it often, much to the chagrin of the Liberal member for Mississauga South who is losing out on the count and contributions.
My question actually came from a member of the Liberal Party. Underlying these conversations about an increase in treaties and an increase in fair trade agreements from the government, in previous governments there has been a philosophy and a notion that by signing these agreements, human rights will improve in our trading countries, the environmental regulations will get better and workers' rights will improve. There is sort of this litany of other consequences from signing these trade deals.
My hon. colleague just talked about how the government has not proffered any evidence, one way or the other. Was this trade deal a good trade deal? Did this one not work as effectively? It is partly because the government does not use any measurements of success, other than the signature on the deal. It says that once the deal is inked and signed, that is successful.
That does not make any sense. There would not be a business in this world that would have a contract with another business with the only measurement of success being the contract itself. Of course deals are signed in order to get something done. However, when we ask the government what has been done, it does not offer any evidence and says that it needs to sign more.
I wonder if my friend could comment on this issue because there seem to be concerns coming from the Liberals as well. This is from a previous question by the member for Scarborough Centre who referred to Colombia, Greece and Turkey and resistance with Colombia because of human rights. He said, “Today we have an island called Cyprus. One-third of it is illegally occupied by Turkish forces. There are 1,600 Greek and Turkish Cypriots still unaccounted for with regard to laws, properties, et cetera. If that is not a violation of human rights on behalf of Turkey, what would he say to his Greek Canadian and Greek Cypriot constituents?”
Here we have even Liberal members, which is defying description, raising concerns about these other elements, elements of human rights and elements related to the environment. I wonder if my hon. colleague could comment on the evidence, or lack of evidence, about whether these treaties actually accomplish any of these other benefits.