Madam Speaker, in closing, the member for Malpeque was intending to speak about some of the side agreements. I would appreciate his comments on one particular side agreement, which is the environmental side agreement.
It is with great regret that I have to rise again. I think this is the fourth or fifth time I have had to rise in the House to point out that while the government says that it believes in sustainable development and balancing environmental protection with economic development and trade, it is going in the opposite direction. This agreement, like all the agreements the government has brought before the House, completely diminishes the original side agreement famously put forward with the NAFTA.
The Canadian and U.S. governments, after the fact, apologized and said that it really should have been incorporated and binding with the trade agreement and that maybe next time they will do that. The Canadian government has not incorporated the environmental or labour measures into the agreement. They are still side-barred unenforceable agreements. However, it has taken a worse step. There is no independent secretariat where citizens can file complaints about the failure to enforce effective laws, and the government voted against the environmental bill of rights that I tabled in the House, which would have enacted in this country the very rights it is pretending to accord and hold out to Jordan that it offered to Canadians. I am wondering if the member could speak to that.