Thank you.
Mr. Wildeboer has echoed the whole sentiment of the proponents of NAFTA, that we have to be in the club or else we're going to be left out in the cold. This is like what John Crosbie said in 1988, that we have to be in the club, that we have to be in the tent pissing out rather than outside pissing in. That is just another one of the fallacies.
What's happened to the World Trade Organization? We're in that. That's an international body with a dispute settlement mechanism. Professor Bhagwati from Columbia University said that these trade agreements represent “a ‘spaghetti bowl’ of preferences and chaos in the world trading system” and the dispute settlement mechanism of the WTO.
Mel Clark is a former chief negotiator at the Tokyo round of the GATT. He's written an excellent book called Independence Lost: How Mulroney and Harper Gave Control of Canada to the United States. He said these trade agreements, the NAFTA and these other trade agreements are moving away from free trade. Another writer said that many aspects of the TPP reflect U.S. business.
Let's take a quick look at NAFTA. Estimates are that we've lost around 350,000 jobs over the last six years. Other people have said Canada is the most sued country in the world. We now have a majority of workers in Ontario with precarious work, part-time, no benefits. These companies move wherever they want, and they expect to sell back to us. And where are our jobs?
This has prompted Heather Mallick to write in her article the other day, where can I shop Canadian? What's left?
I will ask the question again. Where is the mandate for this? This is an expansion of NAFTA. We know what NAFTA has done to Canada. This is just neutering the federal government's ability to set in place legislation for the national interest of the country.