Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of focus on our party and not a lot on what we are debating, which is trade. I guess it is a difficult issue for the member and for the Liberal Party because there is difficulty in establishing exactly what their criteria is on trade at times. When there is an option to amend things like this trade deal, where we wanted to have better transparency and more accountability for Canadian workers and for the environment, we put forward amendments. Maybe not to our surprise, the government voted against them. However, his party, which claims to want to protect the rights of workers and the environment, did not. It decided that it would vote with the government on this.
Therefore, if we are going to talk about doing trade and doing it smart and well, we need to have some protections. We cannot give away the store. These free trade agreements are problematic because they are cookie cutter approaches. We need to look at the details and ensure there are provisions in them that have teeth and not these side agreements. Side agreements are just what the language would suggest. They are on the side, there is no teeth in enforcement.
Why did the member did not even think of mentioning that and why his party rejected amendments to have accountability?