Mr. Speaker, I am going to try to quickly correct all the errors in the comments made by my colleague.
First, the shiny speaking notes he refers to are absolutely not notes shoved down our throats by our leader’s office. Rather, this is a policy that we developed as a team, one that is somewhat more exacting than the blank cheque the Liberals always seem to want to give the government when it comes to free trade, without reading the agreements.
Second, he talks about agreements in the last 10 years and asks whether we would like to change certain votes. I will talk about my votes as a member of Parliament. Each time I have voted in the House on motions relating to free trade, obviously I have done so with the points I raised in my speech in mind. I am therefore very comfortable with what is in the records of the House.
Third, he said that only one party opposed free trade. I do not want to get into a debate about who is against and who is for free trade. Everyone is for measures that will be good for the economy. In the NDP, we want to apply a little scrutiny to assess the various agreements, as we would assess any budget measure proposed by a government. That is what is central to this debate.
Rather than trying to see everything in black and white, let us see the grey a little, do our job and do what is good for the economy.