Mr. Speaker, in the time remaining I also wish to speak on Bill C-57. I wish to point out that as New Democrats we are not against free trade per se. We are in favour of a genuinely free trade on a level
playing field. NAFTA, the free trade agreement and Bill C-57 do not lend themselves to a level playing field.
The example the Europeans have with the European community is more to our liking as an example of where there is genuine free trade. The Europeans not only recognize that to bring down the customs barriers and allow the freer trade it is not just economics that are involved but also the social, environmental and labour standards.
They have made certain that countries like Spain, Portugal and Greece that have traditionally low social, environmental and labour programs have implemented policies to raise them up so that there is a level playing field. All the industries from Holland, France and Germany do not go down into cheap labour countries such as Spain, Portugal and Greece. In other words, care and attention was given to implementing their free trade agreements. That is basically what we seek as well, a genuine playing field, to raise the bottom up rather than to bring the top down to the bottom.
Canadian workers will suffer and government revenues will suffer. What we are entering into is a global trading pattern in which industries will find and locate where labour is cheapest. They will be able to get the resources at the cheapest possible price and locate their head offices where they pay the least amount of tax. It is smart business. If you were in business that is how you would set up your business arrangements. You would make certain that your natural resources were going to cost the least, that your labour would cost the least and that you would pay the least amount of tax. That is logical.
These agreements are allowing them to escape any social responsibility, any economic responsibility to nation states.
Here we are living in a period in the evolution of the human race when through technological changes we can produce an abundance such as the human race has never seen before. Yet countries like Canada and the United States are declining further and further into poverty, into nations where there are fewer resources and less wealth to share and for their citizens to enjoy.
We are seeing decreases in our standard of living in the midst of plenty. Is it not because of the way our economy is structured? The wealth that is produced is not being distributed. Large corporations are escaping their social responsibilities by locating their head offices offshore, which is allowed under these agreements, and so government revenues are declining. The nation states and the sovereignty and the sovereign power of the nation state are slowly eroding.
That is why I am amazed to see the Bloc supporting this. By supporting this, even if Quebec-I hope it will not, and I suspect it will not-succeeds in establishing itself as a nation, by the time it gets there it will find that the nation will not have any power left at all. It will all have been given away through these trade agreements.
We are talking about, this little corner of this House, the only voice of opposition to this massive change, is how we as a country and how our economy operates and how we regulate ourselves in the sources of revenue and jobs and wealth. What we are objecting to is the unfairness of it, how these trade agreements will benefit the few at the expense of the many, how as a country and as a sovereign nation we will suffer and we will decline.
I implore the government, which paid lip service when it was in opposition and opposed NAFTA and the free trade agreement, which now seems to embrace these agreements, to maintain some social conscience, to demand that this government moves to implement into these free trade agreements social, environmental and labour components; to make certain that there is a genuine level playing field, to make certain that the progressive and historic gains that we have made in this country in our economy, in our wealth, are maintained and protected rather than being drawn down to the lowest common denominator.
I appeal to the genuine Liberals to exert the influence in their caucus and on their government to make certain that the Government of Canada stands up for the workers and the ordinary people of Canada, not to sell them down the river like the previous Tory governments have done.