Mr. Speaker, I listened with some interest to the member for Windsor West. The issue is quite plain, fairly straightforward and basic. The issue is whether Canada will move into a protectionist mode as the NDP would like us to do, or whether Canada will accept and abide by free trade agreements we signed with countries around the world and will continue to pursue free trade and rules-based trading.
It is easy to say that we can be protectionist and somehow save jobs, but at the end of the day we are going to lose jobs through protectionism. We can take a look at what is going on the world. Today our largest trading partner and our closest neighbour passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in the American Senate, with $838 billion committed to the economy. During this process we have been a very close ally and trading partner, but we have looked at it from Canada's perspective and we have pursued an outcome that is in Canada's favour.
We monitored the process very closely. We have been active on the file. At an early point, ministers expressed concern regarding protectionist provisions in the original house and Senate bills that would have expanded on the existing buy American requirements. Buy American requirements are exactly what the NDP is talking about for Canada, and exactly what we are asking the Americans not to do. It is exactly some of the measures and some of the improvements that we have made in this bill that will allow Canada to have rules-based trading with the United States.
Our ministers and officials at all levels engaged their U.S. counterparts. We did this politically. We did it diplomatically. We did it through our business channels and we did it through academia. We emphasized the need for a coordinated approach to stimulate the North American and global economies. We are not an island. We cannot think as if we do not ever have to trade in the world marketplace, because we do. We have to sell and we have to buy in the world marketplace.
It is particularly important to avoid protectionist measures, which could exacerbate this global crisis. Those are the very measures the member is talking about, the very measures that led to the Great Depression of the 1930s. Those are the very measures that will turn this economic crisis we are facing into a catastrophe instead of permitting us to find a way through it and a way beyond it.
We heard the member. The NDP has proposed that Canada should develop its own buy Canada provisions, but increased protectionism at this point would certainly increase the pain of the economic downturn. Allow me to quote Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve. He is an American who understands the folly of following the road in the wrong direction. He said, “Let me just be blunt. Protectionism is the crack cocaine of economics. It may provide a high, it's addictive and it leads to economic death.
Let me be clear. It is critical during this economic downturn that we do not turn to protectionism, that we continue to be free traders, and that we continue to advance Canada's interests at home and around the world. If we do that, we will come out the other side of this economic downturn in good shape.