Mr. Speaker, if the member listened carefully to my speech, that is exactly what I said. The Conservatives’ approach consists of signing nothing but bilateral trade agreements. So the Doha round and all the multilateral agreements under way at the WTO have been put on ice.
I have had the opportunity to visit Geneva myself on several occasions. I am the critic for a number of other subjects, but I was and am the Bloc Québécois critic for agriculture and agri-food. In that case, it was crucial for us to support multilateral agreements. It is to the benefit of the developing countries and to everyone’s benefit, except that is not this government’s approach.
That said, this government regularly presents us with bilateral free trade agreements. We have to look at them in light of what is presented to us, what they mean, both for our economy in Quebec and for the Canadian economy, and also for the countries signing this type of free trade agreement.
If I am told that we are going to sign a free trade agreement with a country like Colombia, but Colombia is going to ratify international agreements about environmental rights, workers’ rights and trade union rights and is going to make sure that children are not going out to work, then plainly that is a positive thing, and for Colombia as well. However, that is unfortunately not the case.
So yes, we support multilateral agreements, but that does not mean that we have to oppose all bilateral agreements. Some are good, both for Quebec and for Canada, and for the country the agreements are being signed with. The agreement we are talking about now, with Bill C-23, falls into that category.