Mr. Speaker, the member from Toronto made a very good comment. He talked about the multinational or transnational corporations that can hold us to ransom for the jobs in our communities.
Part of the problem with the trade deals today is that they are like charters of rights for transnational corporations. We must somehow augment that with an international people's charter of rights which builds into these agreements minimum standards in terms of labour and labour mobility and in terms of environmental and social standards. Such a charter might even look at radical ideas such as a minimum global tax on transnational corporations so they cannot play off one country against the other.
In other words, I think many powers once enjoyed by the nation state must now be transferred to the international forum.
We have transferred the powers of capital to huge transnational corporations, but we have not counterbalanced that with a counterweight, which is the democratic control of people through their governments as institutions, and transferred other powers such as people's rights, labour rights, agricultural rights, environmental rights and environmental standards. One of them might be a minimum tax on transnational corporations.
Another idea endorsed by parliament in a 2:1 vote was contained in a private member's motion which I put before the House two years ago endorsing the idea of what was called a Tobin tax on currency speculation to help curb speculation in currency. About a trillion dollars are traded every day. There is no control of this or of the international casino of currency which distorts a lot of economies.
We became the first parliament in the world to endorse the idea of a small currency tax, which is called a Tobin tax, in concert with the world community. Our government should be aggressively selling the position of the Parliament of Canada at international fora like the World Bank and the IMF. These are some of the things we can do.
The main point is that democracy has been denied, thwarted and abrogated because of trade deals and because of transnational corporations. We have lost that democracy. These people report to no one. We as a nation have to take a leading role in trying to get that power back for ordinary people.