Mr. Speaker, I thank all my colleagues for the generosity of spirit that they have demonstrated today. As a personal favour from my colleague from Windsor West, I asked if I could share time with him today. The subject of the debate is an issue that is very important to me and to my riding.
I had 43 garment manufacturers in my riding, but now I have 42. Just a few weeks ago yet one more garment manufacturer succumbed to the pressures of that industry and went out of business. Therefore, we suffered another bankruptcy in this industry sector.
The reason I welcome the opportunity to debate the issue of the health and well-being of the garment and textile industry is that the government's treatment of this industry to date is difficult to understand. It has ranged from absolute neglect for many decades to meddling and unhelpful interference.
What is really frustrating is we have a long established industry that has been healthy from one end of the country to the other, from Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver, southern Ontario for textiles. Somehow it just has not captured the imagination of the government or previous governments. It has always been allowed to bumble along and flounder without any help or support.
When the government does wake up and pay attention to the industry, it does things that cause more harm than good, such as this least developed nations policy that the former prime minister virtually arbitrarily pulled out of the air. This was a bad idea because least developed nations would get a duty remission or a relief on import tariffs. All that did was the multinational manufacturers shifted their work to least developed nations to exploit the cheap labour and then those goods would come into Canada without any duty or import tariff. This was a devastating move. As I say, sometimes we are almost better off with no intervention than that kind of meddling which did more harm than good.
The industry in my riding of Winnipeg Centre is in crisis. It urgently needs the intervention of the government and it needs the ear of the government. Somebody has to convince the government that this is an industry worth saving, that it is an industry of value. Maybe it is not one of the sexy, high tech industry sectors that the government seems willing to throw tons of money toward, but it is just as important to keep the jobs we have as it is to spend money to try to attract new jobs. What good does it do Canada as a whole to spend a fortune trying to attract new jobs and new industries to Canada if we are letting the old established industries slip away from us at a rate faster than the new ones are growing? That is what is happening in this important industry sector.
I only have a few minutes but I will point out how critically important these jobs are to my riding in Winnipeg Centre. In many ways they are gateway jobs. These are the first jobs many new Canadians get when they land in Canada, and they are not poorly paying jobs. They are unionized jobs. I have been to many of the garment manufacturers in my riding such as Western Glove, et cetera. They have good day care centres right in the plant and they are well lit, bright, clean and healthy working environments. People in Winnipeg at least can raise a family or buy a house with the wages they earn from these jobs. Why would we willingly stand by and watch these jobs slip away?
I will comment on one last thing. We have to be quicker to react when an industry like this tells us it is crisis. For some inexplicable reason, the Minister of Finance sat on the duty remission orders that were on his desk for nine months until the very brink of disaster. They were set to expire December 31, 2004, and right into the middle of that month, we were in the House of Commons demanding, begging and pleading with him to reapply these duty remission orders so the industry at least would have a fighting chance.
I see the value of the House of Commons being seized of the issue of protecting this important industry. We should do it for the whole country and we should pay attention to the benefits that a vibrant garment industry brings to Canada.