Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to enter into this debate.
The motion is that the government should show leadership and enact a tax on financial transaction in concert with the international community. I certainly applaud the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle on that motion and I very strongly support it.
Of course we need an international agreement and we know that will certainly not happen unless somebody takes leadership. It only makes sense to me in the kind of government we have. We show leadership in a lot of areas. We certainly could show leadership in the international community in this area.
I am told that Canada has explored the idea during the Halifax summit, at which time it became apparent that a number of G-7 countries were very strongly opposed to the idea. I recognize their positions have not changed. But they will never change unless we provide the evidence to them on why it should change. We have to enter into that debate at a global level and go out there and make the arguments for putting in place a Tobin tax.
I realize that even if we had all the industrial on side it would not be sufficient for the proposal to work. But we have to start somewhere. I suggest we can start here, that we need strong political will on the part of the Government of Canada and on the few allies that we can achieve in the beginning and exercise that political will so that we can institute a Tobin tax some time down the road.
We are not talking about a big percentage tax here. It would be a very small percentage tax. But imagine on the amount of speculation of money in this world what that small percentage tax would do in terms of benefiting and improving the lives of people around the world, in Canada, in Nicaragua, in Honduras, in Central America. All around the world it would improve the lives of people and those are the kinds of things that we should be doing.
I heard the member from the Conservative Party speak earlier. He used the example of someone in the community who did a lot of volunteer work. I respect what that individual did. I applaud what that individual did. But the member tried to leave the impression that this was a tax that would hurt that individual. It would not. I doubt that individual was a money speculator. He was not a financial money speculator. Who are these people?
I am a primary producer and I know about speculation in terms of the hog market, the grain industry and the beef industry. I know very well that those people that play those markets make huge profits many times by shuffling a little paper around and playing with the futures market and so on. The primary producer who does all the work, who takes all the risks, who creates the investment and puts his family to work and works himself, ends up many times loosing money. The speculators make money.
It is even worse when we get to the financial speculators, the money speculators. They play games, not only with countries, and with the new technology that is available today millions even billions of dollars can be moved in the flash of a second.
There was a rumour in New York where someone said that Canada was a basket case. Of course when we became the government we changed that and the government is no longer a basket case. Remember what happened? One trade, a supposedly respected trader, said internationally that Canada was a basket case. Suddenly our dollar started to go down. That was the financial money speculators playing games and they are not playing games only with countries, they are playing games with people's lives.