Mr. Speaker, I am going to take issue with the factual basis of some of what the hon. member said relating to previous governments. I do know him to be a thoughtful person and I found his speech thoughtful.
The member was not in the 41st Parliament, where I lamented repeatedly the ways in which our former prime minister moved us away from multilateralism toward a more isolationist stand. For example, as someone who has worked on the climate crisis for decades, I was horrified to see the Canadian government's position under Stephen Harper undermine and sabotage negotiations.
Just as egregious as Donald Trump's decision last week to get out of the Paris agreement was the Liberal government's decision to ignore the Kyoto protocol while Canada was legally bound to it and then subsequently bargain in bad faith at a UN meeting, saying Canada was in and then withdrawing. We also withdrew from the UN Convention to Combat Desertification and refused to sign the Arms Trade Treaty.
It was not a question of the UN voting against us and Portugal winning the security council seat in 2010 because we were too principled; it happened because we had the wrong set of guidance, overly ideological and shunning multilateralism.