Okay, thank you for that.
I'm just referencing and going back to NAFTA and the Canada–U.S. Free Trade Agreement, because the reality for most Canadians is that they're poorer now than they were two decades ago. What's happened is a major shift in income towards the wealthiest part of our population, as their incomes have skyrocketed—including many of the folks on your list—but the Canadian middle class has actually seen their real income decline, and poorer Canadians have seen an even greater decline. We've lost half a million manufacturing jobs.
If we look at the record so far, whether it's the softwood lumber sell-out or the shipbuilding sell-out or NAFTA, we're seeing a hollowing out of our economy. So the record hasn't been good, except for a very narrow group in our population. So coming back to your comment, you're saying that people should realize what the greater good is, but at what point would your association be willing to say that this is not in Canadians' interests?
We have the only accurate study done suggesting there will be a 150,000 net loss of jobs. We have supply management on the table, and we know how important supply management is for farming communities across the country; it's been the one stable agricultural sector that has managed to generate income from family farms over the past few decades. We have the cultural sector, which is very concerned about the impacts here. We have municipalities like the Union of B.C. Municipalities taking a stand against the agreement because of the impact on local businesses. We have the investor state provisions that drag the Europeans down to a lower standard, when we should have a higher standard.
Given all of these concerns about the negotiations going off the rails, the impacts could be quite devasting. The NDP supported the negotiations at the outset because we thought we would be moving to effective European standards, but it's not the way things seem to be turning out. I'm wondering about the message you're bringing here today. Is it to sign it at all costs? Or are you saying “We're watching, and we're concerned too about the impacts on supply management and the cultural industries and these other sectors”?