Madam Speaker, several countries, including the United States, have listed Panama as a tax haven. That is the first part of my answer, that because it is listed as a tax haven and continues to be listed as such, we have to be concerned that businesses in Canada will have the opportunity to move jobs out of Canada to Panama. The other part is that they will have the ability not to pay taxes. That is a real problem.
What could have been in this trade agreement to prevent it from happening? There could have been a tax exchange section in this agreement or there could have been something constructed to ensure that does not happen, but it was not done. It was much easier to simply follow the same model for the other free trade agreements and get it done as quickly as possible. I do not know why a little more time was not taken.