Mr. Speaker, it is a connected piece and another missed opportunity. I wish the government had taken a Hippocratic oath before it designed this bill, to do no harm.
One of the things the Conservatives have done—I think it was inadvertent, because I do not think they actually understood the consequences—is that they have mashed together a bunch of independent tribunals, such as the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal and the Canadian International Trade Tribunal. They combined all the budgets into one, and then reduced it.
We heard from the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, and this was testimony that the Conservatives decided to ignore. However, the testimony from one of the largest business groups in Canada said that getting through the trade tribunal would be more difficult, thereby limiting Canada's ability to trade. This is not from New Democrats. This is from the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters. These are folks who deal with the trade tribunal and deal with trying to get trade deals across the board.
These are not the fake, so-so FIPA trade deals over which the Conservatives make great fanfare and never bring to the House. They never sign them and never ratify them, but they are very important. An example is the one they did with Europe all that time ago. Apparently, it is all done; they just have to put a couple of dots down and the thing is finished, yet it is not here, it does not exist, and the Europeans are talking about these important things that they cannot quite get done.
We had a specific motion that we moved to say, if we want to help out Canadian manufacturers and exporters, then do not do this to the trade tribunal; do not mash it together with these other ones and then reduce the budget.
What did the Conservatives do? They said they did not care, and they voted against the amendment. They said to let the manufacturers deal with their reality, because that is the reality the Conservatives want. That is what they said to the manufacturers of this country.