Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Lethbridge for the great speech. He made a great case for why, while we support free trade, we do have some concerns about the pattern we see developing with respect to how we treat sugar when it comes to dealing with the CA-4 countries in upcoming trade negotiations.
I want to start out by talking about free trade more broadly and simply make the point that free trade does raise the standard of living for all people. It does provide better working conditions. It does ultimately lead to a cleaner environment. It leads to higher wages. Everybody benefits when we engage in free trade.
Canada is a trading nation. Forty-three per cent of our GDP comes from trade. Canada, better than most nations and perhaps better than just about any nation in the world, understands the benefits of free and unfettered trade. It leaves people better off and provides higher standards of living, all those sorts of things.
While my NDP friends talk on the one hand about their belief that trade is good, on the other hand what we always see from them is rhetoric suggesting that trade is a disaster. I have yet to see the NDP members support any kind of trade arrangement. I do not think they have ever supported one, and that is unfortunate because in the countries they are concerned about, Costa Rica in this case, trade arrangements will allow those people, who in some cases are very poor, to become much wealthier. It raises their standard of living.
Probably the best example recently is Mexico when we entered into the NAFTA agreement. Mexico has seen its middle class increase dramatically. After years of having very wealthy people and a very large group of poor people, Mexico is now starting to see its middle class develop.
We have seen that same process occur in other countries. One of the best examples is India where a couple of hundred million people have now become part of the middle class. This has happened in many other countries around the world. Free trade is a very good thing.
The NDP member for Churchill who spoke earlier suggested that sometimes trade can be compared to hockey where all the talented players are on one side and the players who are not so good are on the other. She suggested that sometimes a big country will dominate a little country like a big team will dominate a little team in hockey. As I pointed out to her, the difference is that in hockey when one team wins the other team loses and the team that wins takes the two points and goes on to the next game. In trade both sides come out ahead because it is a voluntary exchange. The analogy I used was that if someone produces a hammer and sells it for $10, the person who buys it is happy because he or she gets a hammer and can use it for something useful. The person who gets the $10 for the hammer is happy because he or she can use it for whatever. In essence, that is what trade is all about. Both sides come out ahead.
The member for Churchill offered some examples that are simply not the case. She wanted to know what would happen if some got 20 cents for it. I would say that the person is probably happy to get 20 cents if he or she were only getting 10 cents for whatever they produced before. People enter into these things voluntarily. They enter into them because it leaves them better off. Surely the member for Churchill wants to see people better off.
I want to talk specifically about Bill C-32, the Costa Rica free trade legislation.
As my friend said at the outset, we believe in this but we do have concerns about the sugar component. Why? Is it because we do not believe in free trade? We do believe in free trade, but the problem is that Canada is being opened up to the import of sugar from all kinds of countries, not necessarily through Bill C-32, because Costa Rica at this point does not have the capacity to send us refined sugar, but we are concerned that it might be a template for what will happen when we enter into negotiations with the CA-4 countries, like Guatemala, which have a big capacity to export refined sugar.
The concern is not that we would have that sugar coming here but that we also have access to the U.S. market. The U.S. is Canada's natural export market, but in the last number of years Canada's ability to export sugar has declined.
We produce sugar in this country. A lot of people do not appreciate that. There is a sugar beet industry in my riding and in the riding of my friend from Lethbridge. It produces a lot of very good sugar. Our sugar producers can compete with anyone in the United States which also produces a lot of beet sugar. We can compete with any of them. We have an excellent facility in Taber, Alberta, that has just been upgraded. Several million dollars have been put into it. We can compete.
The problem is that the Americans are protectionist on sugar and our government has not been able to crack that open. Not only has it been unable to crack open the American market, the amount of sugar we export to the U.S. market has shrunk from 55,000 tonnes a few years ago to 15,000 tonnes today.
In the end it is the decision of Americans. However the government has not done a good job of looking after the interests of our sugar producers. It has not made it a priority. The reason it has not done so is that it is a relatively small industry compared to, for instance, the supply management industries.
The government gets heat constantly from the United States and other countries about supply management. Instead of threatening a big industry like supply management our government trades off sugar. It does it over and over again. In the free trade deal there is no question that sugar was traded off.
The Americans are happy to protect it. They like protecting it because a number of senators and congressmen have the industry in their areas and want to protect it for political reasons. We have not pushed them too hard on the issue. However it is time for the government to find a spine and push the Americans hard.
I am glad to stand by the Americans at any time. We will certainly stand by them during their time of need. However today we are talking about free trade. The Americans are protectionist on this and other issues. Softwood lumber is another example. We could go through the list. It is time the government started to push them.
The government thinks sugar is a small industry and no big deal but it is a critical industry to the people involved in it. It is not important in terms of overall GDP but to the people involved it is their livelihoods. It is very important to them.
I urge the government to make cracking open the American market more of a priority. It should at least raise the quota back to the 55,000 tonnes we used to have. That is still not a lot, frankly. It was not a big amount of sugar to export relative to what we produced but it was three times better than what we export today. It is critical that the government take that into account when it sits with the Americans the next time because this is unacceptable.
In my riding and across the prairies it is a difficult time in agriculture. People know that. Sugar beets provide a real option for a lot of people. They provide a good livelihood not just for producers but for all the people who work at the facility in my riding.
If we cannot appeal to the government to make it a priority on the grounds that the sugar industry is important, we appeal to it on the grounds that farmers need options at a time when wheat prices are low and they do not have many options.