Mr. Speaker, a lot of good points were made by my colleague. It is obvious he thoroughly researched the matter. He raises a lot of concerns about this agreement, which are not being responded to fully.
Within the context of how Canada holds itself out to the world, we hold ourselves out to believe in fair working standards, reasonable pay, protection of the environment, livable communities. It is a real stretch to entertain an agreement with a country such as Panama. My colleague has raised a number of critical points.
In her testimony before the committee, Dr. Teresa Healy, senior researcher for social economic policy department of the Canadian Labour Congress, pointed out a number of important issues, which I was not aware of before. One was this. In 2010 apparently President Martinelli announced unilateral changes to the labour laws. One of those changes ended environmental impact studies on projects deemed to be of social interest. He is even undermining basic environmental assessment which is internationally recognized.
How can we conceive of entering into an agreement that he will balance environment and the economy?