Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to share my time with the hon. member for Brampton West—Mississauga.
First, I would like to congratulate the member for Joliette for his motion. It includes a very important principle, that is the participation of parliamentarians and of the civil society in the process of economic integration of our hemisphere.
Judging by today's debate and question period, it is clear that the members are already involved in this process. Opinions vary quite a bit, but members are well-informed about the best conditions for the development of free trade in the Americas.
As I said to the member for Halifax this morning, we all agree that we want trade. We recognize the need for economic integration but we also recognize that it needs to exist in the context that recognizes human rights, democracy, sustainable development, cultural diversity and the protection of labour standards. We therefore often differ on the means to achieve that end.
My constituents fully understand that the prosperity of our citizens depends on a free and open economy throughout the Americas and throughout the world. It depends on a system of international trade that is buttressed by international rules. These rules would enable trade and economic integration to take place so that we who have benefited so much from that trade and from the wealth that has been created by a free and open society and a free and open economy, can now begin to share those values, that openness and those opportunities with other less fortunate people in our own hemisphere.
I am very proud of what took place in Quebec City last weekend. It was an open and transparent process resulting in a democracy clause that will continue to guarantee that there will be democratic governments throughout the Americas.
A commitment was made by the leaders on such diverse issues as health, poverty reduction, education, human rights, the assurance of effective courts, the elimination of the drug trade and other issues. A plan of action was made with concrete steps, amendments and commitments that would ensure that these take place with proper financial resources and human resources to ensure it.
Thanks to our government, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister for International Trade and others, we have had a meeting in Quebec City which has brought together the leaders of the Americas. They have made concrete commitments to ensure values throughout our hemisphere that would benefit all of our citizens.
I wish to pay particular tribute to the Minister for International Trade. I was present in the room when the United States representative for trade pointed out that it was our minister of trade who ensured that the negotiating text of the free trade agreement be made available so that all members of civil society and all members of parliament could have an opportunity to discuss its terms. It was under pressure from our government and our minister that achieved that result in Buenos Aires and for which we would all benefit.
The debate calls for an open and continuous process to engage parliamentarians and civil society in what we were engaged in last weekend. The government is committed to that.
Parliamentarians also have a role to play. I ask my colleagues who participated in the foreign affairs and international trade standing committee for the past two years what we have been doing. We did a report on the MAI, the FTAA and the WTO. We are presently doing a study into the summit process itself. All these meetings and discussions, which are available to all members and all parties, bring together not only members of parliament but witnesses from civil society as well.
We travel across the country and we hear from every individual who wants to come before our committee to give his or her position on these important issues. We have extensive hearings and we make recommendations. The government is then obliged to respond to those recommendations in the House, which it has done.
Through our committee system we have had the opportunity to actively participate as parliamentarians in the process of hemispheric economic integration. We attend meetings regularly. The member for Calgary East, who spoke critically of the process himself, pointed out this morning that he attended the ministerial meeting of the WTO in Seattle. I was also there. Other members of the House have been to many ministerial meetings. We accompany the ministers. We have an opportunity to be part of the process and we do that on a regular basis.
I remind everyone that in the House just a few weeks ago we established the interparliamentary forum of the Americas, bringing together the representatives from the parliaments of 34 countries of the Americas. They will be able to debate and they will be able to share their values, views and impressions with one another on a permanent basis now because Canada led the way in the formation of what is a very important interparliamentary body for the Americas.
Parliamentarians are actively engaged and through our government do actively engage themselves in this process, as is also true of civil society. I recall what happened in Toronto some years ago when our minister of trade held the first meeting as a lead up to the summit. He brought in civil society at that time. It was the first time that had been done.
A similar meeting took place at the summit in Quebec City. On the weekend I had the opportunity to chair an extraordinary meeting of 57 NGOs composed of representatives of indigenous peoples, human rights groups, sustainable development groups, youth, every form and segment of society.
On Saturday afternoon four Canadian ministers had the opportunity to meet with twenty ministers from other countries in the hemisphere. At that meeting we discussed issues and responded to questions, all in the presence of the president of the World Bank, the president of the Inter-American Development Bank, the head of PAHO, and other leaders of multilateral institutions, including the president of the OAS.
This was an unparalleled and unprecedented opportunity for the engagement of civil society in the process, not as observers but as active interveners who had an opportunity to participate, to ask ministers questions, to have Mr. Zoellick from the United States respond, to have ministers from across the Caribbean and from the southern hemisphere respond to their questions and concerns.
At the post mortem follow up that we held to those meetings, we received an assurance from our government representatives that this process would continue. This was the first time that this has ever taken place, and I ask all colleagues to bear that in mind when they criticize. We are so critical all the time about everything.
The Canadian government led the way. We insisted on it. This was our summit. It was our government, our Prime Minister, our ministers who insisted among their colleagues that we should put this in place. I am confident that we have established a precedent now that will survive throughout the future. This is something that cannot be stopped. It is a wonderful precedent that we established this weekend and we should be celebrating. We should not be criticizing all the time, but we should be celebrating. We should also celebrate the fact that our government financed the people's summit.
I hope everyone in the Chamber thinks he or she is a member of civil society. As a member of parliament and as a member of civil society, which I think I am, I do not feel I am being left out of the process. I recognize that there are problems, that we can be better engaged and that we can change things. As the post mortem at which I participated on Sunday with our NGOs took place, everybody said they had an extraordinary experience. They said we could improve it.
Why do we not engage ourselves in the House in the process of approaching it from that constructive point of view? Why do we not seek to improve the process rather than constantly criticize it, as I hear from opposition members? They say that nothing good was achieved and that nothing is happening. However the average citizen looks out, sees improvements and wants us to work together to make it an even better system, not to sit here and carp and complain about the problems we have had to live with.
