Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his speech.
The NDP will support this agreement, not because it is a free trade agreement, but because we think that it is reasonably worth supporting.
Obviously, some aspects of the agreement bother us. No agreement is perfect. For example, there is a mechanism for settling disputes between private companies and the government.
Could my colleague tell me whether he is comfortable with the idea that a state or a government could be partially limited in what it can do because of a dispute settlement mechanism? Can a private company have the upper hand on its own government and prevent it from doing what it wants to?