Mr. Chairman, I congratulate the member on her speech. The difficulty I had with it was the notion that world trade would benefit all countries. I know that was the essence of her speech.
J. S. Woodsworth said “What we desire for ourselves, we wish for all”. Our party has a different view on this. We are more skeptical that world trade will bring the same sort of benefit for everyone.
I recently read an article by Jeffrey Sachs, director of the center for international development at Harvard. He was talking about landlocked countries and the difficulty for them to further their cause and get ahead. He pointed out that Japan, coastal China and countries in North America and parts of South America really account for about 52% of the world's gross national product.
He could only identify two landlocked countries that were actual success stories. His rationale was that both those countries, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, were surrounded by well off countries of western Europe.
It is difficult to envisage how through trade we would have an economic policy for Eritrea, Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is very difficult to have an economic policy if one is not close to navigable waterways or an ocean because it is so expensive to ship one's goods to other countries. Would the member have any comment about those special challenges for certain countries of the world?