Mr. Speaker, on April 21 I raised a question with the Minister for International Trade specific to the attack on Canadian wheat farmers, including such extreme attacks by certain people in the U.S. talking about minuteman missiles coming over to Canada.
At that time with the minister I raised the issue in general of Canada's trade policy, in particular this government's trade policy, and what it meant for Canadians specifically to the issue of wheat farmers, particularly durum wheat which is an ongoing dispute which has not been resolved with the United States by this government.
We learned on May 24 that as part of an attempt to resolve this dispute the minister simply confirmed that there was a Canadian proposal to resolve the farm trade dispute and through that Ottawa would eliminate a rail transportation subsidy on grain shipped through Thunder Bay, clearly affecting in a detrimental way the shipping industry in Thunder Bay. The rerouting seems to me not to be an answer to the problem of this trade dispute but the creation of yet another problem for Canadians in another industry.
When I first raised this question with the minister I raised the issue as well of NAFTA. He reminded me that the wheat dispute did not come under NAFTA but under GATT and of course I was very well aware of that.
However I am concerned that even since April 21 we have seen a deterioration in our trade relations with the United States. The minister has made a number of statements that do make the connection between these disputes that we have had and the NAFTA agreement which was proclaimed by the government on January 1, 1994.
Prior to January 1, prior to the election of 1993, the often quoted Liberal red book with regard to trade relations stated: "The Canada-United States free trade agreement and the North American free trade agreement are flawed. A Liberal government will renegotiate them".
The government implemented NAFTA on January 1 and is now backtracking. For example, the minister on May 25 stated in an article in the Toronto Star : ``In the harshest remarks by a Canadian minister in recent years, the minister yesterday accused President Bill Clinton's administration of increasingly arbitrary use of U.S. trade law to thwart Canadian exports in wheat, lumber and other commodities and of kowtowing to regional interest''.
The article goes on to say that the minister stopped short of talking about abrogating the North American free trade agreement if disputes continue, but certainly did warn in that same interview that NAFTA is in a somewhat uncertain position at this time.
My party has said for a very long time that NAFTA is not just uncertain, it is bad news for Canada. Yesterday in another journal, the Globe and Mail , the minister was quoted as saying that we may see a move away from the dispute settlement panel procedures into a broader based discussion.
Clearly the harassment by the United States on this issue continues on a variety of fronts. Farmers know what they have given up after the NAFTA deal and under the trade policy of the Liberal government in general. Lumber producers know what they have given up under Liberal trade policy. Unemployed workers in the manufacturing and service industries know what they have given up under Liberal trade policy and I would like to ask the minister or his representative can they tell this House what Canadians have gained from Liberal trade policy.
All we see is the backtracking now coming to the realization that NAFTA is not in Canada's interest, and implementing such measures, for example, is eliminating the rail transportation subsidies. Canadians on a wide variety of fronts know what they have lost from Liberal trade policy. Can the representative explain what exactly Canadians have gained?