Madam Speaker, I appreciate the chance to rise and debate the issue today, the summit of the Americas. While I was not going to just at this point, I do want to pick up on the theme at the point where my leader left off because I think it is very important. That is the idea that we as leaders in this place need to make the moral argument, along with the economic argument, for the idea of free trade.
For too long I think a lot of us in this place and outside of it have been cowed by people who make the argument, sometimes by a protest, that we will lose our democracy if we give into the idea of a radical notion like free trade. I want to dispel that.
First, it is simply not true historically, ever since Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson and David Hume sat around and talked about these ideas in Scotland 250 years ago and ultimately brought them about and made Scotland a leading country at that time. At the time they were first debating this, Scotland was a poor second cousin to its friends below in England. They embraced the idea of free trade and actually exceeded what was being done in England.
The idea spread and ultimately became the new orthodoxy, to the point where we of course have it all across North America and in the European Union, but also to the point where we have Labour Party prime ministers like Tony Blair coming into this place saying that we must have free trade, that free trade is the answer for people who are on the low end of the economic scale and that if we really want to help people who have been poor throughout their lives then we need to embrace ideas like free trade.
I make that point especially to my friends in the New Democratic Party, who I think sometimes have resisted this idea far too much, to the point where I think they are hurting the very people they would help.
It is time for us in this place to stand up and make the argument, without fear, for free trade. There is no question that not only does it affirm the principle of freedom that the people in this party, at least, believe in so strongly, but it also does leave people better off economically.
I have to congratulate the foreign affairs minister, who made a very good point and presented a good argument about how the North American Free Trade Agreement has benefited the poorest people in Mexico. He pointed to northern Mexico, particularly around Monterrey, where people have prospered to the point where their unemployment rate has dropped quite dramatically. People who have been unemployed or certainly underemployed now have well paid jobs because of NAFTA, because of free trade.
I think we need to extend it and try to help people in other parts of the Americas as well. I talked during my question period about free trade for the people in the Caribbean. Those are economies that are completely underdeveloped. Canada to some degree stood in the way of that, because we have tariffs in place on things like textiles, a value added product that they could be sending here.
Now we want reciprocity. We want to be able to get into their markets as well, but we must remember that when we lower our trade barriers and they lower theirs, efficiencies are created. Productivity increases. Jobs are created. Wages go up. Everybody is better off. That is why we must have free trade. It helps people.
It is not a question of undermining democracy. In fact, it is the most pro-democracy idea around, because what we have when we have free trade is people who vote with their dollars. They say they do not only want to have the choice of buying the high tariff product that their country has protected from competition. They want to be able to choose from all those products out there, products that in some cases are much less costly for them than those that have been protected by tariffs in their country for a long time. They want that option.
People who can scarcely afford a tariff economy are the ones who benefit the most when they have free trade. They can use those dollars to purchase the things that are important to them. There is a real democracy that occurs when we finally allow people to choose the goods and services they want, with their own money. We need to recognize that idea of voluntary exchange. We get away from the idea of forcing people to choose from a very limited scope of products and allow people to voluntarily exchange goods and services across borders as well as within their country. That is a very democratic idea, this idea of freedom and voluntary exchange. We should embrace those things if we believe in democracy.
I do want to switch gears now, if I may. Just a couple of minutes ago, my friend the foreign affairs minister said that Canada, as part of the agreement, would spread the news about democracy and make the case that other countries should become more democratic.
I want to argue that it is precisely because this place has fallen into disrepair that in some cases we have undermined our own argument for democracy. We have to resort now to holding parallel summits at the summit of the Americas, in part, I would argue, because a lot of people today can argue that this place no longer represents their point of view. Therefore, they try to do an end run around what is supposed to be the most democratic institution in the country. The result is that the government caves in and says it will set up the people's summit as well.
We would not have to resort to that if this place were reformed along the lines that many of my colleagues have argued. I think of the House leader for the Canadian Alliance who has made a powerful case that we could do a lot in this place to give confidence to people that their views will be represented in the House of Commons.
If people across the country felt that way, then they would not be doing the end run around parliament. There would not have to be a people's summit. They would come to committee and make their case for free trade or against free trade. The people on that committee would take their views seriously and would make recommendations that would have weight in this place. People would know that this democratic institution counted for something.
However, they do not have that confidence today. As a result, we have people who in many cases, I would argue, do not represent very many people, but who can make the plausible case that parliament is no longer representative so they want to have this parallel summit.
I want to make the point that I do not agree with those groups. I do not even necessarily agree with the people's summit, but I do think this place should represent the views of those people who are going to that people's summit. There should be room for those people to come before whatever committee, make their case and have representatives in parliament carry their case forward.
For reasons that are not clear to me, the NDP in particular has not been successful in carrying the case for some of those people who are opposed to the free trade agreement, but that is the NDP's problem. I simply want to say that parliament could be a lot more effective than it has been in reflecting the views of people who feel strongly about free trade.
Finally I want to make the point that several years ago the MAI, the multilateral agreement on investment, was being discussed by the government, along with many other countries. I think they had a good end in mind. They basically wanted to encourage rules based trade in investment, but unfortunately because they conducted everything in secrecy the whole deal was ultimately torpedoed.
It was the Reform Party at the time that sponsored the only debate on that issue. We in the Reform Party were the only ones who brought that issue forward. We said that the best way to ensure that there was not all kinds of conjecture and speculation about the MAI, which in some cases was unwarranted, was to sponsor debate, get the information out there and allow people to find out what was really going on. Ultimately that deal collapsed because there was not enough scrutiny of what was going on. People did not have confidence in it.
However, let that be a lesson. This place could stand more debates like that one we sponsored several years ago. We are happy about this debate tonight, but it should go beyond that. When this free trade agreement is ultimately consummated, as we hope it will be, and comes to this place, as we hope it will, we would like to have a debate. We would like to have a vote in this place on the free trade agreement of the Americas. It should not be something the government just signs and then that is all there is. We want to have a debate here and we want to have a vote on that agreement, yes or no.
I will conclude by again affirming what my leader has said, which is that we need to have free trade. It is the morally correct thing to do for the people of the western hemisphere because it leaves those people better off no matter what income group they are in. Second, we need to reform this place so that we do not need to have these parallel summits, so that people can have confidence in what should be highest democratic forum in the country.