Dr. Bethune and Dr. MacKay and those role models are important. Whenever I go some place in China--because I sort of have a beard and he had a beard and he's bald--they say I look like Norman Bethune. That always immediately provides some kind of an entrée. Even if many Canadians may not agree with his political thinking, he is seen as the Canadian of great significance in China. Today, Dashan, another Canadian and a former student of U of T, is a great comedian on Chinese television. He is now equal to Bethune as a great Canadian hero.
The problem is that there aren't that many Canadian heroes right now in China for the Chinese to look upon. As somebody just told me today, even the taxi drivers in Beijing ask, “What's happened to Canada here? How come you are no longer friendly to China?”--Bethune notwithstanding. This is a problem.
On the subject of workers' rights, they've just passed a labour law in China which is going to significantly improve the rights of workers and increase their working conditions and salaries. As a result, the low-cost, low-end factories in southern China are shutting down and are either going to be moved into the centre of China, where wages are still lower, or they're moving to Vietnam.
In effect, there is change taking place here in the labour area with this new legislation, as China is beginning to move up the value chain. This is a very interesting development, and we'll see where it takes China and whether it can continue to send this shirt that I'm wearing to this meeting today for me to buy in the stores, or whether those shirts will be made in Bangladesh or Vietnam.