Mr. Speaker, I too want to thank the hon. member for his comments with respect to the issue of child poverty.
However, to bring this debate back to the question of the upcoming summit of the Americas and in particular the proposed free trade of the Americas agreement, I wonder if the hon. member is aware of the fact that the hemisphere which is the site of the FTAA in fact has the most unequal distribution of wealth on the entire planet.
There is nothing whatsoever in the proposed FTAA that would in any way reduce the gap between rich and poor. On January 1, 1994, the date that NAFTA came into force, the indigenous people of Chiapas rose up because of their concern that this would lead to greater poverty as they were pushed off their subsistence farming lands so that cash export crops could be grown by giant corporate agribusinesses.
We know as well that as a result of social dumping the number of Canadian families who are unemployed, who are now eligible for employment insurance, has risen dramatically. It is now about 35%, which means more children living in poverty.
I would like to ask the hon. member how he can defend a proposed agreement, the FTAA, that would lead to greater poverty and even more attacks on families throughout the hemisphere.