Mr. Speaker, first, let me deal with the last issue he raised. I may have to disagree with him a little bit on this. He raised the issue of short term capital flows and suggested that they were very destabilizing, especially when they occurred I expect during the Asian economic crisis couple of years ago. That bears some discussion.
The first point I would make about that is really what those short term capital flows reflected was a fundamental problem in that country. It may have been in some cases a situation where banks were out on a limb when it came to holding the paper of, for instance, a lot of banks that simply could not be supported. At some point investors become very nervous and they see it as a disaster in the making and pull their capital out of that country.
One of the problems is that we know that some of these countries are willing to put barriers in place to stop that from happening. Very often investors will want to get their money out of there before those barriers are put in place to stop them from getting their money out. In some ways I would argue that the ability of countries to put these barriers up act as a catalyst and actually make the problem worse.
The second point I would make is that this is only a symptom of the real problem. The real problem is what needs to be addressed. The short term capital flows are the symptom. The real problem is poor financial management in these countries. Very often it is crony capitalism where government and private institutions or private companies become completely integrated and decisions are not made on the basis of market signals. They are made on the basis of decisions that involve concerns of the government. They have political concerns and they are not always interested in the interests of their people. Sometimes they make decisions that simply benefit their political interests.
I would argue that those are the first problems that need to be resolved. If those sorts of problems are resolved, the issue of short term capital flows will become I think less critical.
The final point I would make is if people are investors and they invest in that country, does it make sense that those people should have to have their investments locked into that country, knowing that the currency will probably devalue terribly and their investment may be completely wiped out. That is the other side of the coin. The situation the investors are in is that they could see their investments completely wiped out. Remember that we all now have the ability to invest in other countries through merging market funds and that kind of thing.
I want to make a second point with respect to barriers to trade. Canada is engaged in a gross hypocrisy right now. On the one hand, we say that we care and that is why we want to give all kinds of aid to other countries. It is necessary that we give that aid. I understand that. We believe in humanitarian and developmental aid.
However, we should not say that we care very much on the one hand by offering aid and on the other hand say that we are going to block the ability of these countries to develop their own economies by putting in place barriers that prohibit the export of textiles from whatever developing country it is into Canada. This is a perfect example because textiles are something that are easy for those developing countries to produce. However, we make it impossible for them to get on their feet by putting these barriers in place.
Why do we say on the one hand we care, but on the other hand make it impossible for them to sell into our market? That is hypocrisy and that kind of thing should end.