Mr. Cardin has explained the motion very clearly and has answered all the questions. Obviously he knows exactly what his motion means and would could come out of it.
So what we have back from the government after that explanation are comments that, if I was partisan, I would be cutting and pasting and mailing out right across western Canada. This is a waste of time, discussions, when 200 Canadian families every single day are losing a breadwinner--200 families over the next 24 hours. That's 10 square city blocks devastated by the lack of action in the manufacturing and forestry sector every single day. So if we delay for five days, Mr. Chair, what's the consequence? Well, 1,000 families lose a breadwinner. That's the consequence.
So we have a motion that deals with trade issues. I see “trade” written six times in the motion--trade measures, trade laws, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal, trade negotiations. This is a trade motion brought to the trade committee, and Conservative members don't want us to take action and want to refer it off to some unknown black hole where Conservative promises go, I imagine.
There is no doubt that we have to take action. There is absolutely no doubt that the House of Commons should be seized with this question.
Mr. Cardin has responded in detail to each and every question offered. So I would say, Mr. Chair, if the Conservatives don't want to spend any more time with this, what the committee should do is vote down the tabling motion, vote the motion through, and let's have the debate in the House of Commons, and let's have this committee take a stand on what is a crisis. Two hundred families today will lose a breadwinner in manufacturing and forestry--200 tomorrow, 200 the next day, 200 the next day--and that crisis is getting worse until this government takes action.
Mr. Chair, we have to take action, and I hope we defeat this tabling motion. I'm sure my Liberal colleagues will be voting to defeat the tabling motion as well, because it's in the interest of the country.