Mr. Speaker, I feel compelled to intervene on what was first raised in the closing remarks of my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois and the question from the member from the Conservative caucus.
Each in their own way pointed out what I and other New Democrats in the House have been trying to point out for a long time about the current nature of the corporate globalization model which enables people to shop around globally for the lowest possible labour standards or the lowest wages.
For years we have been asking that at the WTO and in other international and regional trade agreements that there be a recognition and enforcement of core labour standards. We have not had much support in that request. As the member for the Bloc Quebecois said, it is not a question of imposing Canada's minimum wage on Mexico or Cambodia. It is not a question of imposing the Canada Labour Code, although I am not sure it is as good as we think it is because recently it was of absolutely no help to Canadian workers in the context of the CN rail strike where Americans were brought in.
Everything depends on political will. We used to say the Soviet Union had a great constitution but nobody cared about it, nobody enforced it. We have many laws like that here in Canada, particularly labour laws.
I recall in 1994 when the NDP did not have party status in the House, moving amendments to the WTO implementing legislation. We were calling on the House to recognize core labour standards, and moving amendments that had to do with prohibiting the import of goods into Canada that were produced through child labour or slave labour. That was a very lonely experience.
I welcome the kind of comments that I just heard. This is the kind of argument that was made by some entrepreneurs before the committee. They said that if the tariff on fabric was not removed, it would not hurt them because in the current economy all they had to do was make it somewhere else. They would still make money, and maybe even more money.
These tariffs were designed when Canadian manufacturers, Mexican manufacturers, Chinese manufacturers, or whomever, were all separate companies. Now, those manufacturers might all be owned by the same people or the same company. Because of the global free trade economy that we have, we have a whole set of old rules that do not work in the new context, and yet we keep having debates in the House as if the world has not changed on us.
I invite the member to comment. I will be speaking next so I will probably have some time to elaborate on this point.