Yes, it is correct. I hear members opposite saying: "Yes, I can remember we were against the free trade agreement. We were violently against the free trade agreement". One of the reasons members opposite were against the free trade agreement at that time was that they were afraid we were going to get beat up by the Americans because we had fairly inefficient industries across the country.
For the longest time particularly the west suffered and were righteously aggrieved by the fact that the resource producing areas of the country, the west, the north and the east were subsidizing central Canada. We were exporting raw materials to central Canada and buying manufactured goods from central Canada at a sometimes severe tariff.
It cost us a lot of money to be Canadians. A lot of people, particularly in Ontario and Quebec, saw the free trade agreement as a vehicle whereby these barriers were reduced and came down. Canada found itself in a situation where it had to compete.
The free trade agreement was not so terrifying for other regions of the country. I can recall during the great free trade debate-I am sure members in the House can recall-we had high interest rates. Remember that? We had a high dollar. Remember that? We were going to go into a free trade agreement with one of the toughest trading nations in the world and we wonder why we got the stuffing kicked out of us. We had to be brain dead to have these interprovincial trade barriers all across the country, a high dollar, high interest rates and getting into a free trade agreement with the United States.
It was kind of like the Monty Python movie where the knight gets his arm cut off, his other arm cut off, puts his sword in his mouth, gets his legs cut off and says: "Come on, fight like a man". That was Canada after the free trade agreement. We were sitting there with a sword in our mouth saying: "Fight fair. Fight fair". We have a free trade agreement with the United States, but do we have a free trade agreement within Canada? No, we do not.
When the federal government sat down at a table to negotiate a free trade agreement, as we did with Mexico and the United States, we had three players around the table and all of the minions that made the deal work. Can members imagine what it must have been like when we had the federal government and 10 provinces sitting around the table trying to negotiate a free trade agreement?
The provinces varied. British Columbia had demands about an inch thick saying: "This is what we want. This is what we want to protect". The province of Alberta's demands were on one sheet of paper which said: "There should not be any barriers to trade. There should not be any barriers to the movement and the transportation of capital, of ideas and of people.
Ontario which had the most to lose in a free trade agreement in Canada because it controls the bulk of the trade was one of the most accommodating provinces at the debate. It was prepared in the national interest to have its internal trade barriers come down for the common good.
The reason that I am speaking against this legislation is not that it is not a step in the right direction.
The federal government in its role as the leader has the fiduciary responsibility when it comes to dealing with the economic affairs of the nation to take charge and say we need competitive industries in Canada. How can we possibly compete internationally if we are not first competitive at home?
How can we as a nation deal competitively with other nations if we do not first take down all of the barriers in Canada so we have free movement of trade, people, capital and ideas to become as efficient as we can before we start trading elsewhere? That is why it is so important to have all of these internal trade barriers done away with.
I will use as an example some of the daily problems that come up when we have trade barriers or distorting subsidies within the country. We know Quebec has been working very hard at developing export and increasing the export potential of industries based in Quebec. It has been fairly successful. I do not know the exact the numbers but Quebec has had a substantial increase in recent years of exports by Quebec based industries.
Let us say the Quebec government gives company A a subsidy in order to export outside the country but company A is manufacturing a product which is also manufactured in Ontario or British Columbia or Nova Scotia and they do not have subsidy. What happens when they both start to compete for same domestic customer? The company that has the $200,000 government tax funded subsidy wins and the company that does not have a subsidy loses because its costs are higher. That does absolutely nothing to enhance the competitiveness of our industries. All it does is reward industries that are perhaps failing, that are perhaps not as competitive as others at the expense of those businesses that can stand on their own.
That is one of the reasons governments should not be picking winners and losers in the marketplace, creating subsidies so one company in one province has a competitive advantage over another company in another province. All it does is move a job from A to B.
A while ago in the automobile industry a company in Brampton received a huge grant from the federal government to build a plant in Quebec. The people in Quebec would want it. The company would end up manufacturing the same number of cars. It would close the plant in Ontario, open a plant in Quebec, lay off 200 people in Ontario, hire 50 people in Quebec. It would cost the country 150 jobs in one province plus the infrastructure investment to build the plant in the second province.
If we as legislators, as a Parliament, are prepared to throw this money around, can we blame industry for saying it wants a piece of it? If we ourselves in business and we are competing against another business with the advantage of a government grant or subsidy, in order to stay in business we have to get our hands in the trough as well.
That is why we need to break down the barriers to capital. We need to break down the mobility barriers and we absolutely have to stop taking tax money into the government and picking winners and losers in the marketplace.
When we talk about interprovincial trade, historically if we look at what has gone on in Canada, where did the Bank of Nova Scotia start? Rhetorically I ask, did it have its head office in Toronto or Montreal? It was in Halifax. What happened in the trading arrangements or what happened in Canada that all of a sudden somehow the Bank of Nova Scotia's head office moves to Toronto? We have distorted interprovincial trade so that it has protected industries across the country.
The traditional trade at the time the Bank of Nova Scotia was incorporated was not east-west but north-south, just as the trading blocks all across the country traditionally have been. We artificially make them east and west. However, is it focuses all the financial resource and the competitive resource where most of the people are.
The same thing may happen in Canada today. We will continue to have this migration of wealth into the resource. When I say the resource rich I am talking about the vote rich parts of Canada, in downtown Toronto and Montreal, at the expense of the rest of the country unless we have this free mobility and free trade within all provinces.
I will put a few facts on record concerning trade between Quebec and the rest of the country. This is of particular importance because our friends from the Bloc, representing a good number of people in Quebec, are trying to put forth the premise that Quebec would be better off not attached to the rest of the country and the rest of the country would be better off not attached to Quebec.
We would survive. Those of us who live in the west would survive better than others but it would hurt all of us. Most of all, it would hurt the people who live in Quebec. We should not be so naive as to suggest for a moment that a separate Quebec would enjoy all or any of the privileges it enjoys today. It is certainly a long stretch to imagine the rest of the country would tell Quebec to go its way and we will continue to pretend nothing has happened and it is business as usual.
The premier of Quebec and other leaders in Quebec can say whatever they want to but it is important for the people in Quebec to know those leaders do not set the stage or make the
rules for the rest of the country. The rest of the country will bring an entirely and completely different perspective to that table.
I will quote from a pamphlet prepared by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, la Chambre de commerce du Québec, "Interprovincial Trade: Engine of Economic Growth", prepared in May: "This report also points to the fact that these strong, commercial and personal relationships bind us together and reinforce our strength as a trading nation. Strategic and dynamic partnerships are often formed among Canadian companies and entrepreneurs to win in international markets in the new global environment.
"Our message is clear and simple. Together we prosper. Together we are the vehicle for job creation for the next generation in this country, and our interprovincial trading relationships are the engine of that growth. Together we must continue to build on these existing relationships which only enhance our competitive position, internationally improve our ability to create jobs and confirm our status as the best country in the world".
What is this trade to Quebec? The pamphlet further says that while all provinces are dependent on interprovincial trade, Quebec is much more economically dependent on trade with the other provinces than the other provinces are with Quebec. Quebec exported more to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in 1989 than to any country in Europe, including France. It sold as much to Ontario as it did to the United States. The rest of the provinces exported more to Quebec than to the European union and Japan combined.
Four hundred and seventy thousand jobs in Quebec were directly and indirectly attributable to interprovincial exports in 1989. It is not only the Montreal based enterprises that export goods and services to markets in other provinces. Manufacturers in other regions such as Estrie, Mauricie, Bois-Francs and Abitibi-Témiscamingue are also highly dependent on sales to other parts of Canada.
Quebec was the only province other than Ontario that registered a surplus in interprovincial trade, helping to offset partially its trade imbalance, trade deficit with the rest of the world.
Ontario is Quebec's most important trading partner within Canada. Quebec ran a deficit in its trade with Ontario. Quebec's surplus in trade with other provinces came from the more distant provinces, suggesting the importance for Quebec of access to those regions.
This is perhaps the most important part of Bill C-88 and what we are talking about today. It really speaks to the whole nature of our union, what it is all about. We do not all have to speak the same language. It is not even necessary for us to be able to understand each other's first language. It is important for all of us to understand that when we reach into our pocket and pull out a $5 bill or $1 bill or perhaps even a $2 coin and exchange it, we are speaking the same language. Trade has no language. The nature of our country is that if there is commercial discourse in commercial trade and if we keep the lines and avenues and rivers of trade open between all parts of Canada, particularly between Quebec and the rest of the country, everything else is bound to follow.
As a nation we are talking about maintaining trade links with other parts of the world. If we trade with other countries we learn about other countries. We must ensure trade between provinces so that we will learn from each other. It is difficult to have a bad relationship with someone with whom we have a good trading relationship. If we have a commercial relationship which benefits both parties, we will be far more reticent to do or say anything that would imperil that relationship.
I am happy to have had an opportunity to put a few thoughts on record in this debate. I am sorry the government did not use the opportunity to be far more forceful in ensuring the many barriers that still exist are torn down.