Mr. Speaker, what we are talking about in this debate tonight and why it is so disappointing about the failure of the other parties to take part is exactly that question. How do we promote a better human rights world? One of the ways we do that is by making the standards of human rights a condition for those we wish to deal with in trade.
I think the hon. member knows that before I came to the House, I did a lot of international human rights work. I worked in Afghanistan with Amnesty International and in East Timor as a human rights observer at the elections. We see many Canadians who volunteer to go abroad with human rights organizations as election observers. I met one of my colleagues in the House, the member for Scarborough—Rouge River, as an election observer in the Philippines in 2010. Many ordinary Canadians volunteered to go to Ukraine to observe the elections just recently.
It is very clear that Canadians hold these kinds of human rights and democracy values very close to their hearts, to the point where they are prepared to go and volunteer themselves to help promote democracy abroad. We should expect no less from our government.