Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to come back to you, Ms. Barlow, and ask you two questions. But I have some comments to make beforehand.
One is on the issue of prosperity, because this is something that comes sort of by rote from folks who are proponents of the SPP and proponents of NAFTA. They always say that Canada has prospered immensely over the past 15 years.
The figures from Statistics Canada actually tell a completely different story. Since 1989, the lowest-income 20% of Canadians have seen their incomes collapse. They've lost a month's salary, in real terms. So they're getting by, now, on 11 months' salary as opposed to 12. The next 20%, the working class, has lost two weeks' salary. The middle class has lost two weeks' salary. The upper-middle class has seen absolutely no progress. Those who have profited are the CEOs and chief executives. The wealthiest Canadians have seen their incomes skyrocket.
Bruce Campbell, who testified last Thursday, said that essentially, under NAFTA, the top 5% of income earners had reaped almost all the benefits, creating this massive prosperity gap wherein 80% to 90% of Canadian families are earning less now than they did in 1989. It's incredible that anyone would continue to propagate a myth when the figures are so compelling and so clear. Why do we have an economic policy that leaves 80% to 90% of Canadian families behind?
My second question is about protections, or regulations, that we put in place to protect Canadians. I know that you were involved in chasing back bovine growth hormone in Canada. It was something that was approved automatically in the United States, because they don't have the same rigorous testing standards and their system is much more prone to influence from powerful corporate lobbies.
What do you think would be the implications or the impact of removing all of our ability to set protections for Canadian families, so that bad products that might be approved in the United States don't automatically come onto the Canadian market?