A member just said that we were fearmongering about free trade. In fact, our predictions came true. It is not fearmongering any more. It is like slanderous and slander when it is the truth.
In actual fact, our worst fears were realized. We watched half a million good jobs flow south of the border. We heard that great flushing sound Ross Perot used to talk about. Whoosh, the jobs went right past us. We were not wrong about that. We were absolutely right.
Fortunately we intervened recently on the MAI. Everybody in this room except for our party, this whole House of Commons was willing to walk blindly into the new multilateral agreement on investment. Thank goodness somebody did sound the alarm on that.
Now that the dust has settled on that liberalized trade agreement called the MAI, we know what the real motivation was. The people who were pushing the MAI said there is a surplus of democracy in the world today that is interfering with the free movement of capital. The global capitalists were worried about a surplus of democracy, meaning that people like us, those of us in this House are a nuisance and interfere with corporations doing exactly what they want to do when they want to do it.
That is exactly what we have heard today from the Reform Party. Reform members have been saying that this House does not have the right to make rules to look after our own well-being because the corporate sector in the United States will punish us. I am not prepared to accept that. As a fiercely proud Canadian nationalist, I will never accept that.
It is our duty to do all we can to take charge of our own destiny and to do what we think is right in this country, by majority vote. Not everybody will always agree all the time with the right course to take. In this example, Bill C-55, that is pretty clear. Four parties out of five, and 250 votes out of 301 say the right thing to do is to protect our cultural sovereignty, to protect our arts and culture community, our heritage industries.
The Reform Party is more interested in the Heritage Front than it is in the heritage industry. The only time I ever hear of heritage associated with the Reform Party is by some of its members who are leaders in the Heritage Front. It has nothing to do with arts and culture, does it?