Madam Speaker, the Conservatives have an unusual way of reaching out. It is usually with the back of their hands to our faces. That is the way they seem to approach the way to build bridges.
I am interested in the Jordan–Canada trade deal and moving this forward, but there are some serious issues with which we have to deal. One of them I will raise during my comments in this debate, and it is the issue of human rights and labour standards. The parliamentary secretary knows this happens in Jordan. Thousands of migrant workers are used in Jordan, 75% of them are women. They are in very abusive conditions.
We will support bringing this to committee and when we do, we want to find some ways, within this legislation, to monitor or improve the labour standards in Jordan, as well as other issues that are dealt with in the bill.
In the spirit of trying to move this bill forward, is the Conservative Party open to looking at whether we can get some tools that will be effective? The United States signed its deal with Jordan and nearly 10 years later, there are still the same problems. Many of the people tried to support and get some changes in Jordan. They were done through voluntary means, as is the case with this bill, but there were no repercussions.
If the Conservative Party is interested in moving this forward, we would certainly be open to it as long as we could include some provisions to monitor the worst parts of this deal.