Mr. Speaker, today we have a motion by the NDP. Members will agree is a very, very tough one. There is reference to sabotage. It says that if there is no guarantee, we ought not to negotiate.
I have heard comments by just about everyone today, either here in the House or on television. Among these was the last comment made by our Bloc Quebecois colleague. He said that they had understood that the empty chair tactic does not work. Quebec must be present for negotiation, to be sure that it is not dealt a bad hand by Canada. Perhaps they ought to adopt the same attitude during negotiations within Canada. That might be a good thing.
That said, there must be openness to consultation with the provinces in order to ensure that indeed, when the time comes for the next round of negotiations, the position will suit the greatest possible number of Quebecers and Canadians.
Mr. Speaker, before I continue, I must indicate that I am going to share my time with the member for Kings—Hants. I forgot to say that when I started.
Today we also learned that our friends in the Liberal Party have discovered free trade. I have never heard such passionate speeches about free trade from Liberals. They are saying “We have always been for free trade, just not the Conservative brand of free trade”.
We remember the 1993 election campaign. After the election, they said “You know, there are some technicalities to be changed”. We never really knew what, and whether it was really important.
However, we must remember that free trade, despite everything that was said on both sides, was no miracle solution, but is now a vital tool for a country. It will not fix everything, however. Today, we have to pay attention, with what the NDP is telling us.
On the eve of the negotiations, a constructive and credible position is needed for the people of this country. The government has a report by the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade. The committee travelled, with some difficulty from time to time, and heard exceptional witnesses.
When the time came to write the recommendations, they were completely fudged. We hope that the response by the Minister for International Trade will improve the quality of the recommendations and the work done.
There are a number of examples. In cultural matters, I would like someone to show me where words such as “protection” and “cultural exemption” are to be found in the recommendations. They are not there.
All they did was come up with a new instrument that was unanimously approved, supposedly, by the cultural sector. There was no such unanimity. They said that if we were really not capable of getting real protection, real cultural exemption, we should have a mechanism as strong as the WTO or we would have to protect our culture. That was not a recommendation at all.
We hope that the government response to the recommendations will be much more credible. The upcoming negotiations have changed. Five, ten or twenty years after signing a treaty or a contract, we realize that there are some good things and some not so good things we did not think about. It is not possible to think of everything, because society is evolving as well. It is therefore normal that the major rounds of negotiation are occurring more frequently. Before, they were few and far between. Why is the cycle shortening? Because things are changing more quickly.
The Seattle negotiations are beginning. We cannot rest on our laurels, but things are not desperate either. The Progressive Conservative Party would approach things credibly. It would not put up a wall or establish measures to block free trade. Nor would it do as the Liberals are doing and claim to have rediscovered the true value of trade trade. Credibility must be maintained.
I would remind the House that the Liberals opposed free trade, and not just when the Progressive Conservatives were in power. One of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's speeches was mentioned. Members will recall that Sir Wilfrid Laurier had decided to open up the country's borders. Why? Because there was an economic boom in the United States.
Canada had just finished building a railroad, a financial ordeal, and it needed money, so that markets could be opened up for the new territories served, it needed the Americans' money, know-how, and enterprise here in Canada, especially in Quebec, to develop the country's economy. So, Laurier was interested in free trade because he needed money.
When Laurier came to power, Canada was in financial trouble. There was a lack of financial, human and technological resources with which to develop the country and there was definitely no market. The government had just opened up a huge country, built a railroad through uninhabited lands, and there was no market. So yes, Laurier made the right decision to open up to his American neighbour. He had no choice, however.
The Liberals did not always think this way, however. When Mr. Trudeau was in power, what exactly was the Foreign Investment Review Agency all about? It was one of the most protectionist measures Canada ever had. It was not the work of the Conservatives, but of the Liberals.
During the Trudeau era, they created a review agency that prevented billions of dollars of investments from getting in or out of the country. This limited the country's growth. Thank heaven, changes were made when the Conservatives came along. Instead of the concept of screening—surrounding Canada with a kind of sieve instead of a wall—they moved to a far more positive term: Investment Canada.
We must take care. The Liberals are not all that protectionist. But when they are really hungry, when they really have the bit in their teeth they go as far as they can, sometimes too far, not only up to the edge of the precipice, but right over it.
It is all very fine to sign agreements with the United States, with Mexico, Israel, Chile, all of the Americas in fact, excluding or including Cuba—we are not sure which, because Cuba was not at Toronto, so we do not know the government's position on it—but we must take care.
Today we see cases Canada has lost before the WTO and others it has won. In Europe at the present time, if one were to speak with the French parliamentarians for example, one would be told “That beef with hormones, you know, we don't want any more of that—nor genetically modified organisms—nor asbestos”. That is the situation in Europe right now, the barriers are not tariff barriers but non-tariff barriers. At the WTO, this is not sufficiently clear. In the report, a number of witnesses emphasized that this matter must be addressed.
There are currently problems in international trade that have a direct effect on events in this country. We would like them addressed in a credible and proper way.
We should not make free trade available to everyone, and say thank you very much. With our experience, we should look nevertheless at the real effects. Positive, yes, because the Liberals are quite happy to have had free trade. Without these new agreements, Canada would have been in an economic downturn for over three years under the Liberals.
We would have had a recession, because the domestic market was in a slump. Foreign trade, however, was strong. So it is all very well to run around saying that we are open to the world, but when we open the door of our house, we do not want people to go off with our furniture. They are welcome to buy. They can come in and leave as they wish, but they cannot go off with our furniture. So, we are saying we have to take care.
Last weekend, I had occasion to meet Bill Phipps, when he was in my riding. He is the moderator of the United Church of Canada. The member for Winnipeg—Transcona knows him very well, being a United Church minister himself.
I discussed trade with Mr. Phipps. Since becoming the moderator of the United Church, he has spoken of faith and the economy. He raises some very interesting issues; not necessarily miracle solutions from any one point of view, but issues that are worthy of discussion.
What we are saying is that the issue of the individual rights of Canadians is important, but the impact on other people living in a country with whom we have free trade relations should also be taken into consideration. We are saying that free trade is important, as is being outward-looking. Canada has always been an outward-looking nation. This has evolved through successive governments.
However, through experience we have learned to look before we leap, as it were. New information is now available to us and we must do a proper analysis.