Bev Desjarlais

[Patent Act, May 10th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely not, but I do not think we should go into those negotiations on our knees, begging. We have a great nation. We have a great supply of resources. We have everything to be proud of. We do not have to grovel when we are in trade negotiations. Nobody is opposed to trade agreements.

The Alliance Party is often saying that parliament should decide what is happening within the country. Parliament should decide what happens, not trade agreements made by people who are not elected. That is the issue.

[Patent Act, May 10th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I have seen the actions of the new Minister of Industry in the House and know his historical background with regard to the issue. Yes, it is extremely pathetic. There is absolutely nothing worse than a politician who says one thing prior to an election, who says one thing while in opposition, and then does something else.

That kind of attitude and that lack of principles result in people having no faith in a democracy and a parliamentary system. For the sake of getting elected they mislead and try to pretend they are there to do what is best for Canadians. Then they get into government and tell Brian Mulroney that they are sorry, that he was right. I guess it must have been the two Brians. That must have been what did it. It is disappointing.

I want to reflect upon my colleague's comments when he mentioned Bill C-22 and Bill C-91. The difference between when those bills came up and this one came up is that the government is sneaking this one through the Senate, allowing next to no discussion nationwide on the issue. That is what is happening. Now it is in a panic state, will impose closure and do whatever because that is the way the government operates.

The issue is important to all Canadians, to seniors most definitely. Some of the most vulnerable people have been faced with huge increases in energy costs and a lack of government funding in numerous areas. It is extremely disheartening to see the government imposing an even greater expense on them. It is absolutely unacceptable.

I expect a good number of seniors to be around at the next election. They are a stalwart bunch and they will weather the storm under the government. I want them to remember, especially those seniors in Ontario, how the Liberal members voted on this bill.

[Patent Act, May 10th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to indicate at this time that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Vancouver East.

I am pleased to rise today to continue the debate on Bill S-17, an act to amend the Patent Act. I guess to continue the debate would be much along the lines of saying that it has become apparent that the New Democratic Party is the only party taking part in the debate, and that is truly disappointing. When bills such as this come to the House it is important to have an opposition party that has a different perspective from the government's.

The bill would raise the price of prescription drugs in Canada and take over $200 million from the pockets of Canadians. All opposition parties should be up in arms and the government should be hanging its head in shame. However, on the first day of the debate on the bill, it became very clear that we were the only ones speaking out on the issue.

The Alliance industry critic, the hon. member from Peace River, was absolutely thrilled and praised the government. He ran out of words on how great the bill was. For a party that talks about keeping money in the pockets of Canadians, it is rather shameful that it is more keen on keeping profit with the name brand drug companies, making sick people pay more and putting stress on our health care system by increasing the cost of drugs.

The Alliance members, as in a good many cases, are all talk and no action. Although they tell Canadians they will be there for them, they really are not. They are there for corporations. They are not speaking out on behalf of Canadians on this issue.

For those who do not realize exactly what the bill entails, Bill S-17 is an act to amend the Patent Act. The major issue is that the bill came through the Senate.

It is becoming very apparent that whenever the government feels great shame and wants to rush a bill through it introduces it in the Senate and has it sent over to the House of Commons. There are crucial moments when it has to get the legislation through quickly. We all know that because of World Trade Organization rulings the government has to deal with the bill or be in contravention of the WTO.

The bill is intended to come into compliance with World Trade Organization rulings. It is not intended to do what is best for Canadians, what is best for Canada or, for that matter, what is best for the people of the world. The bill is intended to come into compliance with World Trade Organizations rulings to put more money in the pockets of name brand drug companies.

The WTO rulings require that Canada lengthen the term of patent protection on drugs from 17 years to 20 years. It is not as if there has not been protection for patent drug companies. The former Progressive Conservative government made sure that drug companies would make money. Patent protection was increased under its reign.

The Liberal Party, which was the opposition at that time, slammed the Tories for coming across with a terrible piece of legislation that increased patent protection. Now that the Liberals are in government they are increasing it even more. This is much along the lines of the Tories being opposed to the GST and the Liberals when in opposition slamming the Tories on the GST. There is no difference whatsoever.

The bill will eliminate a stockpiling exception which permitted generic drug companies to stockpile an inventory of patented drugs in the last six month period leading up to the expiration of a patent so that they were ready to go to market as soon as the patent expired. The generic companies were ready to put the drug on the market to provide some cost relief to patients and users of the health care system in Canada, the people we should be looking after.

As a result of the elimination of the stockpiling exception generic drug manufacturers will no longer be able to build up their inventories before first going to market. Patent holders will enjoy a whole lot sooner a period of de facto monopoly pricing after the normal expiration of the patent. The Canadian health care system, government and individual insurance plans will have to pay more during that delay.

During the de facto period available to brand name drug companies they have put injunctions in place to delay even further generic drug companies coming on line. If there was a risk of a normal industry patent being infringed upon, the company would have to go through a court process.

Because of the notice of compliance regulations through the Minister of Health and the acceptance of generic drugs coming on the market, brand name drug companies have been given an additional time period whereby they do not have to go through the normal court process. I will give the House a clear version of this point.

Contrary to regular court procedures of settling patent litigation in all other Canadian industrial sectors, the notice of compliance regulations allow triggering an automatic injunction blocking the regulatory approval of Health Canada of generic drugs for 24 months, based on a simple claim of infringement regardless of the merits of the brands patent case and without compensation for any abuse to the generic manufacturer.

In over 80% of cases decided since the 1998 amendments the courts confirmed that the block generics did not infringe on any valid patents. On top of name brand drug companies now having an extended patent, because of the notice of compliance through the office of the Minister of Health an additional two months will be added for no reason whatsoever. This will be done at the whim of brand name drug companies because they want to make more money.

It is not greedy enough that they have extended patents or that before they put affordable drugs on the market they will see people die on the streets. It is not greedy enough that they put on an injunction. We do not have regulations in place to make sure they cannot put injunctions in place. We do not have regulations in place to make sure that they need to have just cause. They just need to have a whim that it will infringe on them. They do not have to go through the normal court process. They just prolong the period of time when generic drugs can come on the market.

There are those who say that brand name drug companies are putting a lot of money into research. Yes, they are putting some money into research, but they do not put the whole pool of money into research. A lot of the research is done over long periods of time through other sectors of the industry. There is historical research and development incorporated into the development of new drugs.

It is not all done strictly by drug manufacturers, to say nothing of the fact that they have received government funds and the benefits from people being trained in universities. It is not as if they have not benefited from the system in place.

The same people who say that we have to support brand name drug companies because of all the research they do sing the praises of those companies. Those same companies would not allow or tried to fight countries to prevent them from producing crucial AIDS medication. They did not want generic treatments to be sold at affordable prices in third world countries. We had to have a major world outcry over what those drug companies were doing. People infected with AIDS were literally dying by the thousands but the brand name drug companies still wanted their last bit of blood. They wanted every last penny they could squeeze out of a dying population in a major epidemic.

I had a lot more that I could have said, but I see that my time is running out and there are a number of members who want to speak to this issue, certainly my colleague from Vancouver East and others. I encourage members of the House to recognize that this is a serious issue in Canada and a cost to our health care system. I suggest members show a whole lot more interest in what is beneficial for all Canadians and not just for drug companies.

[Marine Liability Act, May 9th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I want to commend my colleagues from the Alliance and the Bloc for the excellent presentations they gave on the bill. I know that a lot of what each of them said and what I will say will be repetitious.

As a committee, we had to repeat over and over again the seriousness of the lack of mandatory insurance in the bill. We got absolutely nowhere with the governing side of the committee. Therefore, it is only fitting that we should repeat it again. Hopefully this time a good number of Canadians will hear this and will be as equally upset as we are over the government's failure to ensure that there is mandatory liability insurance.

My colleague from the Progressive Conservative Party said the party would be supporting the bill. My initial critic recommendations were pretty much the same as in the previous parliament when we dealt with this bill. Then because of the feelings of the Prime Minister that it was time for an election everything was dropped. However, the bill is back again.

Previously my critic recommendation ended with suggesting we support the bill. There were a lot a good changes. There was a comprehensive view of this bill amalgamating a number of issues that related to marine liability. It was very positive. The number of people involved in the industry were supportive, and there had been co-operation in coming up with the bill. I would have supported it.

However something happened this time around. I guess that is the benefit of having to redo things sometimes. As a committee, we listened to a transport official who told us the insurance industry could not handle putting in place mandatory liability insurance.

Some people do not realize what happens within the passenger carrying industry and a good part of it is the tourism industry in Canada.

I know we are not supposed to point out who is not here, but I was really pleased that the Minister of Industry listened to a lot of this debate. He must be aware that a lot of the passengers are carried within the Canadian marine tourist industry and that there is no liability insurance for those passengers, only if it is a responsible carrier.

I am also glad to see that the Canadian Passenger Vessel Association supports mandatory liability insurance. It is fully aware that until liability insurance is made mandatory, it will not be found throughout the industry. However, if carriers do not have insurance, the tourist industry has a lot at stake.

We register our cars, we get our drivers' licences and we get insurance. A good number of us probably pay approximately $2,000 a year for car insurance. At the most we can probably carry a maximum of five passengers in our vehicles. For $2,000 we can drive every day and probably put thousands of kilometres on our car every year.

Tourist buses have liability insurance. Airplanes have liability insurance. Helicopters have liability insurance. I am sure the bus lines, the little buggies in Churchill, Manitoba that take people out to see the polar bears, probably have to have liability insurance. The rail lines also have liability insurance.

However do boats that tour the Great Lakes in Ontario have to have insurance? No, they do not. Why do they not have to have insurance? Because the Liberal side of the House said that it was not needed. It does not care if there are accidents. The Liberals do not care if the owners of the boats have liability insurance. If someone wants to sue the person can sue. The Liberals will not ensure that shipowners have insurance.

Each and every one of those members of that committee felt it was necessary and that the regulations would come. They thought it was necessary but they did not put it in the bill.

What do we do when we get a piece of legislation and we know there is a problem with it?

It was recognized that there was a problem and that the act respecting marine liability should be fixed. How many years has it been since it was worked on? It has been a long time.

We now have this bill and we recognize that something is still missing. We should be fixing it now. It is before the House. We should not wait for ten years down the road. We should not wait until there is another accident like the one that took place on Georgian Bay in Ontario. There was no liability insurance. The legislation is before the House. Now is the time to fix it, not five or ten years down the road. That is simply bad business. That is doing a bad job at what we are here to do.

It would be different if we did not know about it. I admit the last time around I did not know about it and I was going to accept it. However not this time around. It is a serious mistake that not to include this in the bill.

The people who are at risk are the people who will get on board the tourist boats this summer. Those tourist boats do not have liability insurance nor do other boats that carry people in our inland waterways. Anyone crossing the ocean will be covered. That is not a problem. However in Canada there will no be coverage because the Liberal side of this House said there would be none.

This was one time in that committee where every member of the opposition tried their darndest to make sure it was put in this bill. We do not often agree on a lot of things on this side of the House, but this was one area that we thought was serious enough because the welfare of Canadians could be jeopardized. It would not hurt the industry because there was no real great cost to the industry, as my hon. colleague from the Bloc mentioned. It would cost a 100 to 150 passenger boat less than $2,000. For an 80 passenger boat, it would cost $1,600 a year. That is less than we would pay for car insurance. How is that going to hurt the industry?

The saddest part is we listened to transport officials tell us that the insurance industry could not handle it. That was a bunch of malarkey because the insurance industry could handle it. What is put in question is the information that came from the transport officials who appeared before committee. I will never trust them again. It was just garbage which was supported by that side of the House.

It was extremely disappointing for me to hear member after member on the Liberal side say they know they have to change the legislation and that it will come.

When? When is it going to come? How many pieces of legislation has the Liberal government said it would bring forward to deal with issues in the country? It never does anything about them. It is all promises, promises, and the government never comes up with the legislation or it drags it out time and time again.

This is an area that should not be dragged out. There is absolutely no excuse for not including mandatory liability insurance in the legislation. My hon. colleague from the Alliance Party put forth an amendment saying we would give the government time and it could put in the bill that this would be put in place by 2003. That is reasonable. All the Liberal members said it will be coming. The parliamentary secretary sat there and said it will be coming because the government knows it is necessary and it will come.

Therefore, the Alliance Party put the amendment saying to give the industry until 2003. Committee witnesses said the insurance industry could already handle it, that it would not be a problem. However, what happened last night in the House? The Liberal side of the House voted it down and said no, the government would not give that to us by 2003.

The New Democratic Party put forth an amendment, saying that if we will not have mandatory liability insurance, carriers should at least post a notice because passengers have a right to know. What happened last night in the House? The Liberal side of the House voted it down, saying in effect that there will be no liability insurance and that the government will not be telling Canadians there is no liability insurance. There are very few Canadians who realize that carriers do not have liability insurance. They expect that carriers do. They think carriers do. They expect that because that is good legislation and good business. Based on that expectation, they are jeopardizing their welfare because they trust us to do the job we should be doing.

From this moment on, with this not in the legislation, I will go out of my way to make sure the message gets out throughout the country so that people know they do not necessarily have liability insurance. The Liberals had an opportunity to correct the mistake and they have blown it. They did not fix it. As a result I think there is an onus on each and every one of us to make sure that each and every Canadian knows there may be no liability insurance on a passenger carrier.

There are good passenger carriers out there. I would say that a majority of them carry insurance. However, it is like anything. Those that do not are the problem. More than likely they are the ones that are not necessarily the safest carriers. That is why it is an issue. We know that good, responsible businesses carry liability insurance. However, what did the Liberal government say about those who do not? It said that they do not have to post a waiver or let anyone know.

There is an onus on each and every one of us to let people know. Not only will it affect Canadians but anyone else who has come to our country and who is travelling on a boat when something happens. Sure they could go through a civil liability suit, but I wish them luck. If a boat with 80 passengers went down, how many of us think that owner would have enough personal insurance to cover anything? How many houses or cars would he or she have to sell off? There would not be enough to cover it.

For the sake of $1,600 or $2,000 a year the Liberal government is willing to jeopardize an industry, because it will have an impact on the entire industry once the message gets out that there is no insurance. It is a serious problem.

I especially want the people in Ontario to hear this, because that is where the majority of those members on that side of the House come from. I will wager that the greatest amount of passenger lake travel takes place in Ontario. Those members are in the group that has said to people in Ontario that they do not need liability insurance.

First, I would like to encourage all the carriers out there to do the good and honest thing, to do the right thing morally, and make sure they carry liability insurance. Second, all those who do carry it should let their passengers know they do so that then they can question the next carrier, which may not have it.

We will have to do whatever we can in a roundabout way to let people know, simply because the government did not do its job. It had an opportunity to put in good legislation. It had an opportunity to fix bad legislation. Each and every member on that side had an opportunity to vote against the bill and let their government know that they did not like it because something was missing, but they chose not to.

They chose to do exactly what the parliamentary secretary did at the transport committee. He got his little ducks in a row and said we cannot do this, we cannot put it in there, guys—sorry, but it was all guys—and everybody did exactly what he said. What happened last night? All the little ducks got in a row again and did not even think about it.

There should have been at least a thought. When there is an Alliance motion and an NDP motion looking for the same thing, it has to be a big enough issue. It has to be important enough to the opposition parties if they are trying to address the same problem. At least that should have flagged for the Liberal members that they had better pay more attention to it.

I was extremely pleased today to hear the strong comments of my colleague from the Bloc. He mentioned a lot of other areas that are of concern. From my perspective those issues did not come into the discussion when we dealt with it the last time. I recognize, the member being from Quebec, that his concern over the seaway is great and rightfully so. The Alliance member spoke very strongly on this as well.

I have to admit I was disappointed in the Conservative member, who had said his party would support it. Actually I had the impression that he may have thought there was liability insurance just down the road. Maybe he did not realize that last night the government voted no and that even by 2003 we will not see it.

I say to the members in the House that this was one of those times when they needed to pay attention to that legislation. For those from Ontario, I absolutely hope that they are not in a situation where they are chewing on this legislation later on, because somewhere down the road somebody will not have insurance and be passengers will be affected.

I would encourage those members and say to them that the government can, under regulation, put this in place. It can make sure there is mandatory insurance. I would hope that members on this side will put pressure on so that it does come out in regulation. I would also hope that the Liberals on that side take a good look at it and push for that regulation, because there is no question that those who will be at the greatest risk will probably be people of the province of Ontario because of the inland waterways and the numbers of passengers. Certainly it will affect all provinces without question.

In regard to the people of Ontario, I listened to the transport minister make a comment one time that had something to do with the toll roads, that people voted in Liberals so they would get toll roads. It was a comment like that, indicating that people voted for the Liberals and if the Liberals think this is the way it should go this is the way it will go. I guess that is it: if we vote in Liberals we get bad legislation. That is what we have here.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1997, May 9th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the bill again and clear some of the way for the industry committee. Between the industry and transport committees, we have been extremely busy in the last while. One would hope that we do not neglect parts of these bills that are not truly addressing the needs of Canadians.

I would like to give a refresher on the bill for those who are listening. We are debating Bill C-17, an act to amend the Budget Implementation Act, 1997 and the Financial Administration Act. This too is an omnibus bill introduced by the government to increase the grant to the Canada Foundation for Innovation by $750 million.

The Canada Foundation for Innovation is a government agency that gives grants to the public and not for profit research institutions, such as universities and hospitals, to finance acquisition and the development of research infrastructure. This part of the bill is extremely credible. There is no question that there is a need to invest in research and technology and post-secondary institutions. Our party supports that part of the bill.

Some concern was raised in committee, when discussions were taking place, that there should be more accountability as to the way the money given to the Canada Foundation for Innovation works its way through the system. We need more accountability. The auditor general gave some indication that he would have preferred to see things looked at more thoroughly. However, it is important that we do invest and that we see the dollars go to the foundation.

I want to emphasize at this point that, although it is extremely important that we see investment in this area, we need to recognize that there has been a serious lack of support on the part of the present government in the funding of students attending post-secondary institutions within Canada. As a result, a number of students, who attend university to take advantage of all the wonderful research and technology that is available to them, have huge debtloads. We need a balance here. The government has failed to meet the needs of students attending post-secondary institutions.

The second part of the bill deals with the closing up of loopholes. There are two amendments to the Financial Administration Act. The first amendment closes a loophole that allows government departments, agencies and non-exempt crown corporations to effectively borrow without the approval of the Minister of Finance.

One of the core principles of the Financial Administration Act is that departments, agencies and non-exempt crown corporations must get the finance minister's approval before any borrowing. This way the finance minister is ultimately accountable for any debt taken on by any branch of the federal government. Some departments were able to get around this requirement by taking on financial obligations that did not fall under the current definition of borrowing, such as lease agreements, and therefore did not need the finance minister's approval. Bill C-17 addresses that issue. In that sense, this is a very good part of the bill.

However, our party does not support the amendment dealing with the Canada pension plan board that exempts it from accountability and that does not allow parliament to have a say over investments that it would be making. I believe very strongly that Canadians do not want their pension plan dollars invested in just anything. Parliament needs to make sure that investment of Canada pension plan dollars would not be going into things such as tobacco companies. We are fighting a war against smoking and we are trying to discourage people from smoking.

Should we be seeing the investment of Canada pension plan dollars in tobacco companies? Should we be seeing the investment of Canada pension plan dollars in companies that use sweat shops or have terrible human rights violations in other countries? I do not want to see my dollars invested that way. I am very comfortable in saying that the majority of Canadians do not want that either. They do not want their Canada pension plan dollars going into sweat shops or into businesses outside of Canada or, for that matter, within Canada because we are not above having sweat shops either.

There are situations in Canada that do not meet ideal labour conditions or human rights standards. Those places exist in Canada as well, but we do not have the kind of control offshore that we should have within Canada. Canadians do not want to see their dollars invested in those kinds of operations. Because they are Canada pension plan dollars, parliament should have a say over the way the investments are handled. That has been a serious issue with our party, the people who support us, and Canadians as well.

The suggested amendment to the bill may try to increase the accountability of the pension plan board, but I am not convinced that it would. Our party will not be supporting the bill because there is no parliamentary oversight by the Canadian pension plan board. The board, by the way, has been more or less appointed by the governing side of the House. It does not ensure that it truly identifies with the entire population of the country.

There are very good parts to the bill such as the dollars that would be invested into research and development through the Canada foundation for innovation. If the amendment should happen to make its way we would be support that amendment as well.

[Government Of Canada, May 9th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister will be giving Canadians an economic update next week. It has been reported that he plans to announce paying down the national debt by the amount of $15 billion to $17 billion.

Paying down the debt is important, but at this time it is crucial that as a country we address the crises of our lack of housing and our failing infrastructure.

A commitment by the government of $1 billion per year for 10 years would address the housing shortfall in all of Canada. A commitment of $1.5 billion per year would give us a real start on improving our highways as well as supporting increased public transit and green infrastructure like water and sewers.

One of the main reasons we have a surplus is that the government has abandoned its responsibility for housing, roads and infrastructure. Now the health and lives of Canadians are at risk. Canadians have lost confidence in a safe water supply and local governments are resorting to tolls to improve road safety.

The finance minister has more than enough resources to address these problems. No more excuses: let us fix the problem.

[Competition Act, May 3rd, 2001]

Madam Speaker, it is not my intention to take a lot of time repeating the comments of other members that have encompassed the scope of the bill.

I want to read the summary of the bill so the listening public will know what it entails. It states:

This enactment amends the Competition Act and Competition Tribunal Act. The amendments include the following:

amendments to facilitate co-operation with foreign competition authorities for the enforcement of civil competition and fair trade practices laws;

It must have been a hard thing for the government to put in fair trade practices laws, but that is okay. The summary continues:

amendments prohibiting deceptive prize notices;

amendments streamlining the Competition Tribunal process by providing for cost awards, summary dispositions and references;

amendments broadening the scope under which the Tribunal may issue temporary orders; and

some housekeeping items.

A number of areas are being covered throughout the bill that need to be addressed. I want to comment a bit further on the amendments prohibiting deceptive prize notices.

My hon. colleague from the Alliance commented about the number of scams that are out there involving individuals. Toward the end of his comments he also mentioned whether or not something like this should be considered criminal or handled through a civil process.

In that area I am somewhat concerned that we would not look at deceptive prize projects as a criminal act. We are not talking about people being ripped off by a few thousand dollars. In a good many instances tens of thousands of dollars are involved. I know specifically of three people, who do have their wits about them but who got involved in very deceptive scams involving $5,000 to $10,000.

It is disappointing that we are not dealing with scams as a criminal issue rather than on the basis of it decreasing competition. Something seems to be amiss here.

There is another issue that will probably not be addressed in the bill but it is also deceptive. A small business operator in my riding purchased plans on how to access government grants and funding. It was formatted in such a way, and with the coat of arms on it, that it appeared to be something put out by the Government of Canada. It included a number of things that were available through government services by accessing different departments, websites and so on.

One of the toughest things is to know exactly what grants and funding are available through different programs and how to access them. As a member of parliament, I receive a number of notices and often at the last minute. Two days before we can access funding, a government department will send out a notice saying that program funds are available. As MPs we scramble to let people in our riding, who might have some kind of interest in these funds, know that they are available.

In that one instance a small business owner paid $300 for this information. It definitely was presented in such a way that it looked like it came from the Government of Canada. There was a rider enclosed indicating that it had to be returned within so many days or the person lost money. There really was nothing the person could do about it.

The people who are getting caught up in these scams do have their wits about them. They are genuinely looking to benefit from some things. The saying is that “if you are getting something for nothing, chances are you are getting nothing for something”. That is the bottom line with a scam.

I commend the members who were involved in that particular project because it is certainly one part of the legislation that each and every Canadian would be able to feel the impact of personally.

Another major part of the bill deals with co-operation between foreign countries, which is of course needed.

I do not know how other members of the industry committee feel, but apart from not necessarily wanting any more work on our plate at the committee, which was the only thing holding me back from saying that I did not want the legislation to go through, it would be good to get the bill to committee as soon as possible because it does involve a lot of discussion. I hope we get the opportunity to get on to it by September.

[Trucking Industry, May 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, long distance drivers are being pushed beyond the limit, yet the Minister of Transport is advocating a proposal that would allow truck and bus drivers to drive 14 hours a day, 84 hours a week, week after week. In the United States drivers are limited to 60 hours a week.

The minister knows that driver fatigue is one of the main causes of road crashes. Will he tell the House and millions of Canadian travellers why it is necessary to have transport drivers work limits 40% higher in Canada than in the United States?

[Supply, May 1st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I want to clarify that my party is not opposed to trade. We recognize there has to be trade. We recognize that trade is a good thing. We always have.

However, trade without regulations, trade without ensuring the environment is looked after and trade that threatens the sovereignty of nations, that kind of trade is not a good thing.

I say to the hon. member on that side of the House that if his government is not ashamed of that agreement then let us see it. Let us see it on the table so people can have honest discussions. That is what democracy is about. Let us see the text. If the hon. member is not too ashamed to show it to the people of Canada and people throughout the Americas, let us see the text.

We were in Quebec City. We listened to people from throughout the hemisphere, from those countries that trade is doing so much for. We heard how the wages have been lowered by 10% in Mexico. We heard about the first nations or the aboriginal people who are being wiped off their land; it is no different from what our governments did to the aboriginal people here in Canada. It is exploitation of indigenous people and we want to ensure that their rights are there as well.

[Supply, May 1st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister for International Trade indicated that there had been great transparency. That has not been the case. He flip-flopped over whether or not Canada would go in there with a proposition of an investor state trade rule in chapter 11. Now another story has come out.

There really has been no transparency. Had there been, we would not have objected. We would have known and could have discussed it.

Could the member comment on whether or not there has been transparency with the government?