Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Berthier—Maskinongé for asking a good question.
I did say that we are the only national party standing up for these issues. However, on the Colombia file, the Bloc Québécois has been a major ally. That may not have been the case with respect to the softwood lumber agreement and the shipbuilding agreement. So today, it is important for us to work on this issue together.
Yesterday, our labour critic did a great job talking about another aspect of the agreement. I had only 20 minutes to talk. She talked about the fact that there is ongoing union suppression in Panama and that union members have been killed. The Conservatives seem to think that is a good reason to sign another agreement, as they did with Colombia. The Conservatives do not seem bothered by the fact that people have been killed. In fact, they seem all the more eager to sign an agreement. I think that is a terrible approach. We should be taking a multilateral approach instead. I think everyone can find common ground on that. We should be holding multilateral negotiations based on fair trade, not free trade, because free trade has cost Canadians dearly.
It is interesting to note that even the Minister of International Trade avoids using the term “free trade agreement” when he is in Europe because the term lost so much value during the Bush era in the United States that nobody uses it anymore. We should focus on fair trade. The NDP is ready to work with all other parties in the House to implement a functional international trade policy based on fair trade.