These flags of convenience are offensive to the Canadian people and to me, but I think I'll leave that alone.
It's very tempting to watch people sweat when we put them in a political hot seat, but we'll avoid that somewhat.
Mr. Kuntz, our party is particularly concerned if Canada has put all of its eggs in one basket--the American basket, of course. We believe we've seen this with softwood lumber, the mad cow crisis, and oil and gas exports. Now we have the security and prosperity partnership of North America that's being negotiated. Again, we're concerned that there's kind of a gravitational pull putting a lot of pressure on Canadian sovereignty by reducing our ability to frame and control our policies.
Another concern, in our opinion anyway, is that it seems to reduce the east-west trade linkages in our country.
I come out of the labour movement, and one of the things we've noticed since the free trade agreements were implemented is that wages in Canada have stagnated. We've had about four decades of declining inequality in our country, but now the inequality regarding after-tax family income seems to be widening again.
Do you think this export concentration dependence on the U.S. market is healthy or safe? If not, what could Canada do to reverse this trend and diversify our exports? What role could government policy play?
I said I wasn't going to be political, but I guess that's reasonably political.