Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. I appreciate hearing from him again. We worked together on the trade committee, as he mentioned.
The member is actually talking about two different things. He is talking about FIPAs, foreign investment protection agreements, which we have supported in the House of Commons. I was referencing a completely different order of things, the investor-state provisions that we have seen in NAFTA and which have subsequently become part of every single trade agreement put forward by this government.
Even the United States, after NAFTA, pulled back from the investor-state provisions because these provisions put in place an eternal program of compensation for businesses, regardless of what products they produce and whether they are in the right or the wrong. Ethyl Corporation, for example, which produced a neurotoxin, was able to get compensation from Canadian taxpayers under the investor-state provisions of NAFTA for a product it had produced that had known health impacts. It was toxic for Canadians, yet through the investor-state provisions it was able to get a handout.
I am sure the hon. member does not agree with that. I am sure he and all hon. members in the House would agree that when a company manufactures something that is dangerous for Canadians, the Canadian government should have the right to say that it is going to ban that product without taxpayers having to pay compensation to that company. I think we would all agree on that.