Mr. Speaker, thank you for your forbearance and that of the House officers and servants of the House in making it possible for myself and colleagues to continue this important debate on the upcoming summit on the free trade agreement of the Americas.
I point out at the outset that this is an important matter, so important that indeed the government itself placed the issue before the House in the form of a take note debate. Yet I am discouraged to report that it appears evident that far more members of the opposition parties, which represent 40% of the seats in the House, will have participated in the debate than members of the very government that brought it forward. That reflects in part, I think, the esteem in which members of the government, with the very notable exception of the member for Yukon, hold this place as a chamber of democratic deliberation.
Canadian Alliance members have been very active in articulating their views about the positive elements of free trade and the impact it has on democracy. I make special note of the very committed participation in this debate of the small but spirited and thoughtful contributions from the members of the New Democratic Party caucus, with whom I disagree for reasons of principle. However, one cannot question their willingness to use this opportunity to express their very genuine concerns about this upcoming summit and the agreement which it will conclude in.
Many members of my party have outlined our general support for the principle of free trade and the objectives of the upcoming summit. However, let me just say as a matter of first principle that we often take for granted the incredible wealth of our society. We hear Liberal politicians say, almost as a truism, that Canada is the finest country in the world in which to live and I concur.
One of the principal reasons it is such a great country in which to live is the high degree of economic development that has resulted largely from a system of free markets. As well, as a country that is an enormous exporter of goods and services, we benefit enormously and are enriched as a nation by trade across the world, particularly with nations within this hemisphere and in particular the United States of America.
We do take for granted this level of development. We ought to occasionally reflect on the fact that today an average Canadian middle class family enjoys a standard of living that is virtually inconceivable for most of the world's population, most of the population of the western hemisphere and certainly most of the people who have ever lived throughout history.
Middle class Canadians, people of relatively modest means, enjoy goods and services, comforts and security, life expectancy and health, a level of education, disposable income and political freedom which is in the long context of human history almost unparalleled.
It would be fair to say that a middle class family today enjoys greater economic benefits, in many respects more luxuries, than a Tudor king would have 500 years ago or a Roman emperor 2,000 years ago. We should think how tremendously we benefit from the advanced standards established by the free market system and the free trade system upon which it is predicated.
In the past couple of centuries the countries of the west, particularly northern Europe and North America, have seen by far the fastest rate of growth in the standard of living, increases in life expectancy, human health and wellness of any time in history. That again is because of the system of trade which has allowed for efficiencies in national economies by exchanging the value of the goods which they produce.
One of the leading contemporary political theorists, Michael Novak, wrote a brilliant book entitled The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism in which he attempted a theory to explain this tremendous political and economic freedom from which we benefit in this and other similar western societies. He said that democratic capitalism stood on a three-legged stool.
Those three legs consist of first, a free market system predicated on private property and its entrenchment, and on the principle that people has a right to possess and retain the fruits of their labour.
Second, it is predicated on a political system which itself is based on a conception of the human person which see the human person as possessing an inviolable dignity created in the image and likeness of God and, because of this inviolable dignity, entitled to self-government and a free democratic political society.
The third basic foundation of democratic capitalism according to Michael Novak is a moral culture based on virtue where the tendency of human nature to pursue one's best interests in the marketplace or in the political sphere is tempered by the moral impulse to try to be virtuous. He said that these three things together were what have created a society with unparalleled wealth, prosperity and health.
As a matter of principle, and as the hon. Leader of the Opposition said earlier today in his remarks on the motion, it is important that we make the moral case for free trade. There are some 800 million people in this hemisphere, roughly 300 million of whom are participants in this cycle of prosperity. However the vast majority of them live beneath what we in Canada would consider the poverty line and live with limited economic opportunities.
We should be generous and bring those people into the cycle of prosperity through trade, allowing them to sell to us the goods that they produce, the services which they provide and similarly to benefit from the additional economic choices and efficiencies from goods and services which we can export to them. That is what the free trade agreement of the Americas is all about. It is about expanding the cycle of productivity and hence prosperity to all 800 million inhabitants of this hemisphere.
We know there are many hysterical voices suggesting that this represents some hidden agenda to undermine democracy. Many people with this point of view will be gathering in Quebec City engaging deliberately in campaigns of civil disobedience to disrupt the summit.
How dare these advocates of civil disobedience claim to represent the people and the civil societies of their respective countries and of Canada in particular? Canadians who will be attending the summit in protest and who have been funded, shockingly, to the tune of $300,000 by the government in the so-called people's summit, represent a point of view so marginal that it obtains virtually no meaningful political support in the democratic elections of the country.
With respect to my colleagues in the NDP, their party received 8% or 9% of the popular vote in the last general election, I believe, meaning that over 90% of Canadians rejected their message of protectionism vis-à-vis trade.
I say in closing that those opponents of the agreement have no legitimate right to claim to be the champions of democracy. Each of these national governments is accountable to its electorate. As we continue to increase economic prosperity we will create a middle class in these societies which will increase the stability of democratic institutions and democratic accountability. That is the virtuous cycle into which we should invite all of the nations in the western hemisphere.