Mr. Speaker, there are so many questions I could ask the hon. member. I am glad to see him back in the House.
The same comments the Liberals were making about NAFTA and how NAFTA was going to lift Mexico out of the difficult economic problems it was having actually led to the opposite. The removal of the tariffs has led to a meltdown in the Mexican rural economy. Tens of thousands of people have died in the drug wars in Mexico. My colleague's argument about NAFTA is contradicted by the facts as are his arguments about Colombia.
The member said that the agreement with Colombia would somehow increase human rights respect and decrease the constant and ongoing human rights violations by security, secret police, the military and the paramilitary in Colombia. Instead, tragically, in 2010, 46 trade unionists were assassinated, many of them teachers. A few days ago Manuel Esteban Tejada was killed. We are seeing an increase in the number of murders, not a decrease. We will have to surmise that if the member was wrong on Mexico and he is wrong on Colombia, he and the Liberal Party must be wrong on Panama.
The IRS has said that Panama, along with the Cayman Islands, is the worst haven on earth for drug money laundering tax havens. This trade agreement would stimulate that. Rather than a double taxation agreement, Canada asked for a tax information exchange agreement, which the Panamanian government has refused to sign. How can the member justify this agreement when the Panamanian government is refusing to sign a tax information exchange agreement?
The Liberal Party is supporting an agreement that allows the unhindered flows of capital from Canada to Panama at the exact time when the IRS is saying that Panama is one of the worst in the world for money laundering of dirty drug money.