Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned the issues of poverty and trade and the fact that the director general of the WTO said that poverty is the enemy, not trade.
Our position is that the increasing levels of poverty in the world and the growing gap between the rich and the poor, both within countries and between countries, is a direct result of the kind of trade liberalization that we have seen over the last 10 to 15 years, and that in fact trade is the problem, or at least the current model of trade is the problem. It is not a question of not trading. Of course, we continue to be misrepresented in that respect, as if we want to build walls and all of the other things that the Conservatives used to say to the Liberals and the Liberals did not like, but now they have no qualms about saying them to other people. It is not a question of building walls; it is a question of what kind of rules we are going to have.
Finally, the member said that the WTO is not the proper venue for dealing with a lot of these questions: labour questions, environmental questions and social questions. While that may be so, it is not the NDP position, I want to inform the hon. member, that these things have to be dealt with at the WTO. What we are saying is that they have to be dealt with either at the WTO or at the ILO, or UNESCO, or whatever other international institution we might designate, but they have to be dealt with in an enforceable way before there is any further trade liberalization.
That is our position. It is not that the WTO has to do these things, but—