House of Commons Hansard #94 of the 36th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was world.

Topics

SupplyGovernment Orders

11 a.m.

The Deputy Speaker

The hon. member for Terrebonne—Blainville, for questions and comments.

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11 a.m.

Bloc

Paul Mercier Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC

Mr. Speaker, since my colleague for Lac-Saint-Jean would like to speak, I will give him my spot.

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11 a.m.

Bloc

Stéphan Tremblay Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC

Mr. Speaker, I want to comment on a few things mentioned by the member opposite during his speech.

He spoke about my illusions and said that, as I will get older I should lose my illusions. Is that his answer? Does this mean I should give up now since I will have lost my illusions 20 years from now? I do not think so. I feel concerned about the future.

I feel that some valuable debates must take place now. There are new ways to hold such public debates. I should not give up because of what was done in the past and say “we have no choice”.

This is what I reacted to. I reacted primarily to this attitude that makes some say “let us face it, we have no choice. Market globalization is unavoidable. Fellow citizens, your governments no longer have any power”. I refuse to believe that.

I think that if the public decides to mobilize, if it believes that we can turn globalization into a tool for us all, particularly those of my generation, then we will be able to change things.

Some may accuse me of being idealistic, of believing in a utopia, but I will at least fight. This is what I want to do. I want to fight for the public's interest.

When eight people out of ten support me for the action I took, an action that questioned fundamental values of our society, namely democracy, I think we should ask ourselves some questions.

I do not want to talk specifically about the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, but rather about the way this was done, secretly. Ultimately, they were rewriting the world economic constitution, but no one, or almost no one, knew about it, certainly not the people or me, a parliamentarian, a representative of the people. We were informed later about the content of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment.

I think that, when such a vast society debate has to happen, the people must be informed. And even though the debate is complex and long, as I agree it is, this does not mean we cannot dwell on it now.

Consequently, I do not intend to give up. I think the only thing that is unavoidable—No, in fact nothing is unavoidable. Come to think of it, nothing is unavoidable. Giving up is the only thing that makes things unavoidable.

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11:05 a.m.

Liberal

Julian Reed Liberal Halton, ON

Mr. Speaker, I hope my hon. friend did not misinterpret what I said. I told him not to give up his idealism in any way but over time recognize that politics is the art of the possible and what we try to do is head down a track or a road, and it is necessary to fight very often to get down that road.

I am glad my hon. friend accepts the principle of globalization. Representatives from the World Bank were in committee today. One of the things they said had to do with rural development and poverty which is a very serious concern of the World Bank. They recommended further worldwide liberalization of agricultural trade, a necessary condition for ensuring that countries can rely on international markets, rather than self-sufficiency policies, for their food security.

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11:05 a.m.

Reform

Reed Elley Reform Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC

Mr. Speaker, one of the great concerns of Canadians in this whole thing has been the secrecy of this agreement and the kind of things that have been going on behind closed doors.

We did not hear about this until last year during the election campaign. It has been going on for several years. What is in this agreement that is so secret that it has not been publicly disclosed to the Canadian people?

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11:05 a.m.

Liberal

Julian Reed Liberal Halton, ON

Mr. Speaker, the process for negotiating the MAI had its roots in the processes for negotiating all the bilateral trade agreements that have gone on for years. The information was available through OECD from the very beginning but no reporters picked up on it, nobody ever looked at it until one draft appeared on the Internet last May. A draft is not a text, but it was interpreted as a text and what was not included at that time was a recognition that there was a list of reservations that not only Canada but every country in the OECD has included. Those are the bases for negotiation.

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11:05 a.m.

The Deputy Speaker

I regret to interrupt the hon. parliamentary secretary but his time has expired.

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11:05 a.m.

Reform

Charlie Penson Reform Peace River, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to take part in this Bloc supply day motion although I admit I have a little trouble understanding exactly what the Bloc is asking for.

I see it has tied the issue of child poverty into the whole aspect of globalization and the multilateral agreement on investment and I want to deal with those issues in their own right. But it seems there is a problem right from the very beginning with this motion because I do not believe that they are related.

I believe it is clear the Liberals are mishandling the economy. Poverty still exists in Canada where it should not exist. I also believe that child poverty cannot be disassociated from poverty in families. If we correct that with family members having the opportunity to work and have well paying jobs it will go a long way to correct that problem.

I also believe the Liberal government is mishandling the MAI. Today the minister is over at the OECD in Paris putting the deep six on the MAI at the same time as the Prime Minister is in Cuba talking about signing an investment agreement with Cuba of all places.

Cuba expropriated all Canadian and foreign investment in Cuba and the Prime Minister is now talking about signing an investment agreement with that country and putting a deep freeze on the multilateral agreement on investment which would help a lot of Canadian companies and therefore a lot of Canadian workers and their children because there are a lot of high paying jobs. It seems to me there is a problem.

My colleague from Calgary Centre will be speaking more on the aspect of child poverty and what can be done but I want to raise a couple of things.

The Reform Party believes it is important for all families in Canada to have the opportunity to work in meaningful and well paying jobs. We think that through proper government this can happen. It is absolutely deplorable to still have Canadians paying income tax in Canada when they are making $15,000 a year. That is simply not acceptable. There are 2.6 million Canadians in that category we believe should be taken off the tax rolls altogether and be given an opportunity to keep some of their hard earned money.

I want to raise the question of the role of government. The NDP and the Bloc would have us believe the role of government is interventionist. We have seen that from the Liberal Party in the past. For about the last 30 years we have had a very interventionist government in Canada, social engineering. Some would have us withdraw and form an isolationism in the world. Some would have us put up big tariff barriers again that existed from Sir John A. Macdonald's time. However, I do not believe that would serve Canada very well. I think we can look at the example of Atlantic Canada to point out that it has not worked very well.

Prior to Confederation Canada had several areas of the country that were doing pretty well. Atlantic Canada had a very healthy trade relationship with the New England states. It was in close proximity with an existing natural trade corridor.

Confederation came along and Sir John A. Macdonald instituted his national policy of high tariffs meant to direct the flow of goods and services east and west. What did that do to Atlantic Canada? It became dependent over a period of time on things like unemployment insurance, regional development grants and welfare because the central part of the country was draining it. The barriers meant that it could not trade effectively with New England states any more.

I think it has been demonstrated worldwide that barriers do not work. Any country that has even unilaterally dismantled barriers to trade has benefited. Therefore we need to foster a better environment for our Canadian companies to do well. By doing that, workers in those Canadian companies are going to do well and have high paying jobs.

Our committee did a study on small and medium size enterprises in international trade. We heard testimony that the environment for business in Canada to do well is not good at all. Witnesses said we are not internationally competitive because we are paying very high taxes. Canadians still have the highest tax rates in the G-8. We have a lot of regulation that is hard to overcome. We heard from one company that said it was easier to do business by moving out of its home base in Ontario to Illinois and then ship its product back into Canada. This was easier than shipping across Canadian provincial borders. That simply is not good enough.

I believe because we have had interventionist governments we have $600 billion worth of debt, debt that has made the Canadian taxpayer have to pay one-third of every tax dollar to Ottawa just to pay the interest on the debt. It is just like digging a hole in the ground. These types of governments that have intervened in the economy and in our personal lives have caused this to happen.

We just have to think of all the companies that have been privatized in the last few years that were on the government gravy train needing big subsidies every year to exist. CN Rail is now making a profit. Air Canada is now making a profit. Petro-Canada is now making a profit. All these companies were draining Canadian taxpayers.

Canadian airports are functioning on their own and doing well. A small airport in Peace River, which was turned over to the community in the last two years, is doing very well and is actually making money. Prior to that it took $400,000 of taxpayers' money every year to keep that airport in business.

The interventionist government, which brought us the national energy program and FIRA, the Foreign Investment Review Agency that discouraged investment in Canada, intervened not only in the economy, in our personal lives, but in provincial areas of jurisdiction such as education, housing, tourism and job training, causing duplication in governments.

Why is it that with such a great country we have areas in Canada where there are unemployment rates of 60%? It simply is not acceptable. It is the debt load given to us by interventionist governments which have caused these rates. As I said, 2.65 million people earn less than $15,000 a year and still have to pay taxes to the federal government. It is not acceptable. We have to get our house in order first.

The social engineering of the past has given us employment insurance. Some 25 different regions of the country qualify for employment insurance because of different criteria. For the last 30 years employment insurance has had 5% higher rates than those of the United States year in and year out. We can chart it. We can plot it. They have gone up and down but are 5% higher than those of the United States. Why is that? It is because of interventionist governments doing social engineering.

This brings me to the aspect of the motion today which deals with globalization in the MAI. My party and I believe that Canada needs a liberalized trade and investment regime if it is to prosper.

For the first time in 1998 the amount of Canadian investment outside Canada has exceeded the amount of foreign investment in Canada. It is a trend that has been happening for the last four or five years. This says something about a new found confidence of Canadians seeking the big market out there.

There are 30 million people who think the Canadian market is too small and want to take advantage of the world. We have many things to offer, so if we are to trade with these countries, as we are, in many cases it will require Canadians to make investments.

Which multinational Canadian companies are out there investing? They are companies that are home grown. They have Canadians working for them here at home. There are investments from the pension funds of Canadians in those companies. They are publicly traded. We have mutual funds. We have RRSPs invested in these Canadian companies. It is in our interests that they do well. They need the protection of some base rules of investment and we can do it more than one way.

The MAI should be allowed to die. The trade minister seems to be allowing it to be put into a deep coma at the OECD. We can sign bilateral investment agreements to achieve the same end. We have done quite a bit of that in the past. We also have an investment agreement with the United States and Mexico in NAFTA that governs 70% of investment in Canada already. That will not change whether or not we have the MAI.

We can continue down that road, but there are something like 1,600 investment agreements worldwide. It would be a simpler process to have one that we could all look at and say here are the simple rules for investment in the same way as we have had rules for trade in goods for 50 years. If we do not want to do that we do not have to.

The member for Lac-Saint-Jean in a symbolic act the other day took his seat from the House of Commons and got a little publicity from it. It says a little more than that. It says something about a party that wants to withdraw from Canada and to put borders around Canada, to have an isolation policy. That simply does not work.

A lot of change is happening in Canada. All of us have difficulty with change, but we cannot freeze a certain section of our lives and say we want to stay at 30 years old. Change is something that happens to us all the time. Trade and investment are like riding a bike. If we stop peddling we will fall off and I do not think we will be served very well.

I cannot support the motion although there are certain aspects concerning child poverty that are important to deal with through well paying jobs.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:20 a.m.

Some hon. members

Hear, hear.

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11:20 a.m.

Parry Sound—Muskoka Ontario

Liberal

Andy Mitchell LiberalSecretary of State (Parks)

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member. It is good to see that he has his own private cheering section.

The member's speech demonstrated a very important difference between his party and this side of the House that Canadians should recognize. He talked about the Canadian taxpayer and the need to reduce the burden of taxation, something the Minister of Finance has been doing in his last few budgets and continues to do. We see the Reform Party's inability to make the distinction between taxpayers and Canadians.

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11:20 a.m.

Some hon. members

Oh, oh.

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11:20 a.m.

Liberal

Andy Mitchell Liberal Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON

I hear members opposite. They do not realize that literally millions of Canadians are not taxpayers and are in need of assistance just as much as somebody who is a taxpayer. What about someone who is unable to get a job or to find work? I know they believe every Canadian can get a job if they want one, but that ignores Canadians with disabilities and those who are unable to enter the workforce.

The bottom line is that members of the Reform Party do not encompass the broad range of Canadians. They select who they want to help. They focus on whom they want to help, but they will not reach out to the full Canadian family.

That is the basic premise of what the hon. member said in his speech. He ignores large segments of Canadian society and only wants to deal with individuals who fit their mould of being appropriate for help.

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11:20 a.m.

Reform

Charlie Penson Reform Peace River, AB

Mr. Speaker, that was a very interesting intervention. The member correctly observed that there were big differences between the Reform Party and the governing Liberals. I am glad he finally got that point. It is pretty clear that there are.

The point I was making is that we do not believe intervening in the economy is the right role for government. We believe, however, that there is a proper role for government. We think it is fostering an environment for Canadian businesses, their workers and their shareholders to do well here and to do well internationally. We also believe there is a role for government to be the shepherd of environmental programs and competition laws by ensuring they are looked after for Canadians.

When it comes to taxation the member raised an interesting point. He said that we did not recognize the difference between taxpayers and Canadians. I suggest Canadians at tax time do not see much difference either. They are taxpayers and they are paying very heavily. They want some tax relief.

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11:20 a.m.

Bloc

Benoît Sauvageau Bloc Repentigny, QC

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I am disappointed in the direction the debate is going and in the way Reform members are diverting the debate. Liberals are jumping on the bandwagon and saying: “We are the best in the world; we are beautiful, good and nice”.

My colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean tried to start a non partisan debate on a world issue that is very real and is simply redefined in our motion.

The Reform member started his speech by saying: “We do not know exactly what Bloc members want”. We can therefore deduce that he does not agree with what we want, but he does not know what we want. If we listen to his speech, we realize it is rather inconsistent.

Secondly, I will explain to him what we want and I will ask him if he agrees. The motion is relatively simple: That this House reiterate the 1989 commitment to eliminating child poverty by the year 2000 and urge the government to act by quickly striking an all-party Special Parliamentary Committee that will consider the matter.

The Liberals had made this commitment in their first red book and have said they were in favour of it. What we want is to eliminate poverty. We want to strike a parliamentary committee to study this matter. I ask my Reform colleague if he agrees with this.

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11:20 a.m.

Reform

Charlie Penson Reform Peace River, AB

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is any disagreement. We want to get rid of poverty in Canada but we have different methods of doing it.

The Bloc, the Liberals and the NDP seem to feel that the levers of power by government intervening in the economy is the proper way. We have seen 30 years of such intervention and I believe it has failed.

Unemployment is still running almost in double digits and has been for a long time. The Canada pension plan needs a massive infusion of taxpayers' money or a 72% increase to keep it viable. Health care is in trouble. The federal government has cut back payments in health care by $6 billion to the provinces.

Maybe the government should not intervene so much in the economy and the business sector and let business do what it does best, that is create well paying jobs. We have to be competitive internationally. On the issue of globalization, certainly that is happening, but I do not think it is something we can stop or would want to stop. It is a smaller world and we have to take advantage of it.

Business Of The HouseGovernment Orders

11:25 a.m.

Liberal

Marlene Catterall Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON

Mr. Speaker, discussions have taken place between all parties and I think you would find consent for the following order:

That the deferred recorded division on the amendment of Mr. White (Langley—Abbotsford) to the opposition motion of Mr. Hill (Macleod) scheduled for today at the conclusion of Government Orders be deemed defeated on division.

And that the remaining recorded divisions scheduled today at the conclusion of Government Orders take place in the following order: the main motion of Mr. Hill's opposition motion, the motion for second reading of Bill C-39, the motion for second reading of Bill C-216, Motion M-85, and the motion for second reading of Bill C-32.

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11:25 a.m.

The Deputy Speaker

Does the hon. deputy whip for the government have unanimous consent of the House to propose the motion?

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11:25 a.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

Business Of The HouseGovernment Orders

11:25 a.m.

The Deputy Speaker

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

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11:25 a.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

(Motion agreed to)

The House resumed consideration of the motion and of the amendment.

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11:25 a.m.

NDP

Bill Blaikie NDP Winnipeg—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, the NDP supports the motion that has been brought forward by the Bloc Quebecois. We welcome the attention that is being paid to the issue of globalization and give credit to the member for Lac-Saint-Jean for provoking this debate. However, contrary to what the member said when he was on his feet, the debate is not just starting but has been going on for some time. I would suggest that it has been going on since about 1987 in the lead-up to the free trade agreement between Canada and the United States.

I am quite happy to hear what the member has to say. I agree with him that there is a new consciousness among young people, among those of his own generation, about the extent to which forces are being gathered together within this globalization model. They are very much leading to a future that not many young people want to contemplate.

It is a future that has within it a low wage economy for a great many young Canadians. I have seen it in my own work on the MAI over the past several months going across the country and speaking on campuses and in other places. I have spoken to students about the multilateral agreement on investment and how it is the latest stage in a globalization model that the NDP rejects and that I want young people to reject. There is a new awareness on the part of young people at the university level and elsewhere about how wary they should be of this globalization model.

The member for Lac-Saint-Jean said that he hoped time would see him right on this motion even if everybody did not agree with him at the moment. Without malice I say that I have felt this way for a while. I remember making a similar speech in 1987 when I said that time would see us right on the downside of free trade.

I think we are reaching one of those times—and I am not speaking of the member now—when people who otherwise were very supportive of this model as it emerged in the context of the FTA, the NAFTA and the WTO are now beginning to have second thoughts about the wisdom of this particular model.

These second thoughts are not just coming from the left, where people had not second thoughts but first thoughts about the downsides of globalization, they are coming from people on the right and in the centre who are asking themselves whether the effects of an unfettered global marketplace are not more than they bargained for when they first began to promote this model of globalization.

I am very happy to see the motion here today. I noticed that it begins by referring to a motion passed in this House in 1989. That motion was moved by my former leader, the member from Oshawa, Ed Broadbent, at the time of his departure from this House.

I think the fact that this motion is referred to at the beginning of the Bloc motion points out something that many people are aware of, that is, that there has been a certain affinity between the NDP, and before that the CCF, and the social democratic tradition in Quebec which is represented by the Bloc Quebecois, which in the past was represented not just exclusively by the Bloc Quebecois from Quebec but by Quebeckers in general.

It is fair to say that Quebec has had a tremendous impact on the kind of country Canada has become over the years. A large part of our social democratic nature has come from Quebec. In English-speaking Canada it has come largely from the tradition that the NDP represents.

Those two things acting together, often synthesized by a Liberal government at the federal level, have led to the kind of country which is now being dismantled by the very globalization model the member for Lac-Saint-Jean refers to, which we in the NDP have been criticizing for some time.

This debate gives me an opportunity, as the NDP House leader and also as the trade critic, to reflect on the relationship between the NDP and Quebec nationalists, not only nationalists in the Bloc Quebecois but also nationalists outside the Bloc Quebecois who are not necessarily sovereignists or separatists. There was always thought to be a great deal of affinity in so far as we held these social democratic values in common.

What has happened over the last several years, particularly since the creation of the Bloc, but going back to the beginning of the debate on the free trade agreement, is that we have disagreed with the Bloc Quebecois, and not just about separation, obviously. We are federalists and they are sovereignists. They understand that. We understand it. It is fair ball.

However, where we have had problems and why I welcome this motion as an opportunity for all of us to reflect, is the way in which we have seen the free trade agreement, the NAFTA, the WTO and now the MAI as models for globalization that work against social democracy, that work against the ability of governments to create, to preserve and to maintain social democratic values.

We have always found it odd, frustrating and even irritating on occasion to see Quebeckers of various political persuasions embracing free trade and the NAFTA. I say this in all earnestness. I am not trying to provoke a partisan debate, I am trying to extend an opportunity for all of us to reflect on this. Recently, they did not even bother to file a minority report on the MAI.

In the last little while there seems to have been a bit of a shift, within the ranks of the Bloc in particular, and I welcome this shift.

I think from our point of view this particular model of globalization, which the FTA, the NAFTA, the WTO and the MAI represent, is not just something that we should be sceptical about as social democrats from the point of view of whether it creates justice, because we certainly should be sceptical of it on those grounds. It has led to increasing poverty and increasing disparity between the rich and the poor, not just within countries, but between countries in many respects in terms of north, south and so on.

We also should be sceptical of it in so far as it is a threat to the sovereignty of governments; to the power of governments to intervene, to shape, to contain, to regulate, to do all of the things that we have been able to do in the economy over the years to create a more social democratic Canada, which Bloc members would want to have at their disposal if there was an independent Quebec and they wanted to shape the Quebec economy.

I hope this debate might be an opportunity to hear back from Bloc members on this. It has always been a bit of a puzzle to us why they embrace that particular view of the global economy and why at one point the former leader of the Bloc, now the premier of Quebec, talked about the end of ideology, that ideology had been replaced by trade. That was on March 15, 1994 in this House.

Trade in itself is an ideology, in particular liberalized trade without government regulation, without core labour standards. This is in itself an ideology and there is ideology to be debated within different models of how global trade will unfold.

To pretend somehow that there is no ideological debate here is to play the game that the government wants us to play, but not so much the Reform. I think they acknowledge that there is an ideological debate here and they are very clear about what side they are on.

I welcome this motion from the Bloc. I look forward to hearing more of what they have to say and reading more about how they square what they are saying today with some of the things that have been said in the past. I look forward to working together with them and with others who see the real threat that this model of globalization presents, not only to social justice, but to the sovereignty of all governments whether they be federalist or of any other nature.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:35 a.m.

Bloc

Antoine Dubé Bloc Lévis, QC

Mr. Speaker, the remarks of the House leader of the New Democratic Party are interesting and raise a number of questions. For instance, he sees a contradiction between our being Quebec sovereignists and our position with respect to globalization and our adherence to the free trade agreement with the United States, and then with Mexico.

I cannot speak for the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean, who is perfectly able to speak for himself, but there is not necessarily a contradiction. Globalization is an inescapable reality in our society. Whether we like it or not, we are headed in that direction.

As social democrats, we must however ask ourselves the following question: In the face of globalization, can we, as social democrats within our various parties, be it the Bloc or the NDP, contribute to the debate to make sure that this movement toward market globalization is more civilized and that a national perspective is taken to domestic interests? It is our duty as parliamentarians and members of Parliament.

I think we can also make a contribution with respect to working conditions, especially in countries like Mexico, and compliance with environmental rules that apply to every country in the world. Much remains to be done in this respect.

I think that is what the call from the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean is all about, by demanding that those who decide economic issues and political issues too—because he called on parliamentarians as well—finally comply with the terms and conditions that the people want to see enforced.

I clearly recall that, when they took position in favour of free trade, the members of the Bloc Quebecois knew at the time there would be a price to pay for this change and that transition measures would be required to help industries adjust.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:40 a.m.

The Deputy Speaker

The hon. member for Winnipeg—Transcona may want to respond to these comments.

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11:40 a.m.

NDP

Bill Blaikie NDP Winnipeg—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. It is true that globalization is a fact. But what is up for grabs is what kind of globalization we are going to have. Are we going to have globalization that is really just a global marketplace with this race to the bottom where governments and societies give up their social and economic values by trading away their labour standards and their environmental regulations in order to attract investment? Or is our form of globalization going to be a global community?

I think it raises the matter of global governance. In spite of what the member for Peace River keeps accusing the NDP of, we have never suggested that we should be isolationists, that we should put up tariff walls or that we should go back to the days of Sir John A. Macdonald. What we have suggested is that if we are going to have a global market we need to have forms of global governance that do for global markets what national governments used to do for national markets. That is the way ahead. We are not looking for a way back, we are looking for a way ahead that creates some form of global social and economic justice, and the MAI is not the way to do it.

The MAI is a replication of the NAFTA at a much larger level. I think that is something that people who were for the NAFTA have to take into account—