Madam Speaker, it is true that the minister herself has been talking about progressive trade and what that is. What we see today in CUFTA, in Bill C-31, is a bilateral agreement, an agreement that addresses labour concerns, that was tabled properly in the House, that talks about environmental assessment, and that provides all the pieces that are necessary. It also provides us with greater flexibility.
I was so pleased, when the department officials debriefed me on the bill, to know that they had created some specific language around phytosanitary and sanitary measures, because this is incredibly important to our agriculture. They told me that the reason they were able to do that in this agreement and not in others, like CETA and TPP, is that it is a bilateral agreement. It is more of an intimate conversation between two countries about what will benefit them.
The issue we have with large multinational agreements is that we become lost in the details. We end up giving up more than we are getting. We have to look at these agreements on balance. With CETA, Canadians will be paying higher costs for drugs. We will be giving up our sovereignty by having a new court system that will exist above our Supreme Court and that will be appointed by the minister.
There are so many flaws in these multilateral agreements, and it certainly is not reflective of the things we share in common with those countries. It is well known that we share great things in common with our European partners. The issue is the cost for Canadian people, Canadian jobs. There would be 30,000 jobs lost. The EU, in one of its parliamentary committees last week, said that they will not support CETA, because they are going to see 200,000 job losses.
We support CUFTA because we are able to have more leverage in our negotiations. This deal makes sense for Canadians.