Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question.
I too have to wonder about this, but it seems to be the strategy chosen by the Canadian government. I was talking about Colombia. While the United States-Colombia free trade agreement was debated at length in the U.S. Congress, here, the Conservatives tried to impose it by shoving it down our throats. The same goes for the agreement with Panama. Discussions are currently underway between the United States and Panama. I believe they have agreed to enter into a free trade agreement, but there will be a ratification process that is much more involved than what we have at this time. This stems from several problems, but I will mention only one, specifically, the fact that free trade agreements are negotiated by the government, by the executive. We, as parliamentarians, have no influence over these agreements, except when an implementation act affects Canadian legislation.
In the case of chapter 11, for instance, we have no influence, either as a committee or as parliamentarians. It was negotiated by the government, the executive, and from a legislative standpoint, parliamentarians cannot add a thing, except very indirectly. What we need in order to have a process that is at least equivalent to that of the United States is a process to ensure that before any free trade agreement is signed with any country—Panama, in this case—a debate would have to be held here in this House and the House of Commons would have to give the executive the mandate to negotiate that agreement. Unfortunately, this is not possible for treaties at present. Let us hope that, for democracy's sake, the ratification process will be taken further.