Madam Speaker, I say first of all that I love debate and I like to talk about any topic, and will debate and discuss almost any topic at any time. However, we only have a certain amount of time.
The hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean brought forward the suggestion today that we strike a committee to look into the widening gap between haves and have nots and the growing gap between the rich and the poor in the country, in the world and in our communities. That is a laudable suggestion.
The motion put forward by the Bloc today has me puzzled. I wonder why the Bloc Quebecois would put forward a motion to at least consider seriously a Pan-American currency. Then I thought of one idea. If I was a separatist in Quebec and I was successful in separating, and then I had to have the Canadian dollar as my currency and the Bank of Canada setting monetary policy for an independent Quebec, this would be somewhat embarrassing. What else could be done? If we had a North American currency we could avoid this little dilemma and we could avoid this discussion in the whole debate around separation.
I now understand at least why we are having this discussion today. It is part of getting the fundamentals in place for a move toward another vote on separation. I will set that aside. That is the motivation. I think it is a useful discussion for us to have in the House today because I hope we can set this thing aside once and for all.
I must say that from time to time I feel a bit like a political eunuch. We pass legislation in the House and then the United States says it does not like the legislation and we yank it off the table. We saw that with the MMT legislation. The House of Commons passed legislation to protect the health of Canadians and then an American company said “Hold it. That is not right. We do not like that legislation”, and the government bent over, said it was sorry and backed off.
Now we have Bill C-55, the split-run magazine legislation. The Americans say they do not like it, so the government is saying it will see if it can come up with another deal. It goes on and on. We are losing our sovereignty.
We have seen imposed on us a form of economic feudalism. Our country was founded by people who fled feudalism. They fled those regimes around the world where they had no say, their voice was unheard. They had no power. They were unable to have elected representation. If we agree with the thrust of this motion, that is were we will move on monetary policy.
Let us face it, our economy with the United States is very much integrated. Eighty per cent of our trade is with one trading partner. There is not a single country in the world, other than a banana republic, that would even come close to that. To suggest that we now use the Yankee dollar as our currency, so that when we go to buy CDs or to the movies we reach into our pocket and bring out Uncle Sam's currency, that is not the Canada that Canadians want for the future.
If members went out on the streets and asked Canadians “Do you really want to have American dollars as your currency?”, they would think we were nuts. They would say “Of course not. We are proud to be Canadians. We are proud of our currency. We are proud to have a separate currency from that of the United States”.
I am having trouble with this debate. I am a bit critical about monetary policy. I think we are too integrated with our monetary policy as it is. It should be much more independent.
I am not saying that our monetary policy and our central bank do a great job. They do a good job, but they could be doing a much better job in terms of fighting issues like high levels of unemployment.
Let us acknowledge those who argue “Look what Europe has done”. I listened to my friend and I respect him. He said that we are seeing the French franc go out the door. We are seeing the German mark go out the door. It is quite a different situation in Europe where they have 11 economies which are relatively the same size. There are certainly four economies that are almost identical in size, influence and power. Here it is us against the U.S.A. I never slept with a mad grizzly bear or an elephant, but I can imagine what it must be like. I would not want to move. I would sit there paralyzed.
The point is that for us to be up against the U.S.A. on an equal basis is, first, laughable. I do not have to go any further than to look at today's La Presse . In La Presse the American government is pointing out that in the discussion of a North American currency it should not be suggested for a moment that it is interested in modifying any of its policies to correspond with problems in Mexico, Canada, Guatemala, Chile or wherever. It is an independent country. It has an independent monetary policy. It is basically saying to hell with anybody else. That is the American way.
The American government has made its views very clear about any form of Pan-America currency. We are not talking about the North American loonie or the North American dollar; we are talking about the American dollar, the American currency. In other words, everybody else in the Americas would join in on some aspect of the American currency. That is not on.
Let us look at an example of what is happening in Europe. After the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 and the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997, the European Council of Prime Ministers was set up. It has an incredible amount of power. I know there is a European parliament and other assemblies, but the real thrust comes from the European commission. It has the power. It is fair to say that when it decides on a particular course of action other governments have to abide by that decision. It can overrule legislation in other countries to fit in with the monetary union in Europe and so on. What Europeans have done is to say that they are going to give up some of their sovereignty to be part of that great economic union. That is what it is.
My friends previously talked about the mobility of workers between countries and so on. My friend in the Conservative Party reminded us that it took 40 years to develop a very integrated approach in Europe, and not simply on monetary policy. Here we are talking about monetary policy.
Let us face it, in Europe when it comes to economic issues and currency issues, the decisions are not made by those who are elected and representing the people, they are made by 20,000 faceless bureaucrats in secret. That is the way that system is operated. We have too much of that now. We have decisions about the trade between our countries being made in secret. We almost had the MAI imposed on us. We found out about it at the last minute. Again, negotiations were basically held in secret, behind closed doors. That is not what Canadians want.
Canadians have this sinking feeling that their voices are not being heard. They have a sinking feeling that they are alienated from the political process. There is a good reason for that feeling, because they are. The voices of Canadians are not being listened to.
To suggest that we will now integrate our currency with the United States is absolute folly. I feel a little reluctant to say that we will vote against this motion because debate is often helpful and useful, but if we totally disagree with the premise of the reason for having the debate and completely disagree with the reason to proceed with even considering a North American currency, why would we?
If my friends in the Bloc Quebecois are successful in proceeding with this, they are articulating a call to be a banana republic. They want Quebec to be a banana republic.
What is a banana republic? A banana republic is a country that has no voice over its monetary policy, no voice over fiscal policy. It just goes along with the dictating country, in this case the United States. Some of the representatives from Quebec may want this as an option. I do not think Canadians do generally and quite frankly I do not think Quebeckers do. The idea of turning Canada even more so into a banana republic, kowtowing to the United States, to adapt this version of economic feudalism is absolute folly.
Everyone has probably got the impression that we in the New Democratic Party are not that keen on the suggestion of currency integration. We have all kinds of other reasons to set out why this is not a good idea.
The chairman of the European Central Bank, Wim Duisenberg, who now is sort of king of the European Euro said the other day that unions no longer have a part to play in the new Euro Europe. I wonder if the people of Quebec know that this is what is being said about the Euro, and that the Quebec unions would have no role to play in a future Quebec based on a single currency for North America. That is what the chairman of the European Central Bank is saying about the new Euro.
I believe that when we revisit this issue in a few months or perhaps even in a few years, the reality of the Euro dollar will be in disrepair. Countries in Europe will realize the folly of continuing with this and those countries that have not opted into this situation will be doing much better.
In the end, later today we will not be supporting this motion.