Madam Speaker, I am not trying to offend anyone with the point that I am striving to make. Our primary concern as Canadians should be to maintain our economic and national sovereignty. As a fiercely proud Canadian nationalist I see very few other people speaking in those terms. We used to hear that kind of argument from the Liberal benches back in the days of Walter Gordon and Paul Martin Senior, and when the current member from Windsor used to espouse those lines.
We used to hear Liberal members talking about ensuring that too much foreign ownership does not dominate Canadian industries. That used to be a popular theme for them. Laws and regulations were put in place to make sure that did not happen. Part of their argument was that if our economic sovereignty was lost we would lose the ability to be a sovereign nation.
The most paramount idea about being a sovereign nation is to be able to chart our own destiny and control matters such as international military exercises like the one we are about to see the Americans embark on.
We have been essentially threatened. President Bush told us in his speech last night that countries are either shoulder to shoulder with America or they are with the terrorists. I find that offensive as a Canadian who is not unquestionably shoulder to shoulder with the Americans but that does not make me shoulder to shoulder with the terrorists.
We are advocating a third way to deal with the international tragedy that happened at the World Trade Center within the parameters of the international community, and that is to bring these criminals to justice without embarking on a unilateral military exercise such as that being contemplated by the U.S.
Canada must be cautious not to drift along with the particular exercise. Unless we have control of our economic sovereignty we are subject to the coercion associated with the threat of branch plants closing and the border being sealed up.
Those are the issues that concern us about Bill S-23. The legislation should not be up for consideration in the House of Commons at this sensitive time in our nation's history. The bill should be put back on ice. The flow of goods and services across our border should be dealt with at some less sensitive time.
We are hearing all the typical and familiar buzzwords in the news that give us cause for concern about what is the real agenda. The current ambassador of the United States to Canada is talking about the need for a NAFTA plus. Bill S-23 is the Liberal government's answer to a NAFTA plus.
I remind the House that sometimes the wishes of Americans are brought about in a circular way for procedural reasons. In 1983 the previous ambassador of the United States to Canada, Mr. Paul Robinson, in a Maclean's magazine article stated:
--Back in January of 1983, I asked my embassy staff to see what we could do to initiate a free trade deal with Canada. I realized, of course, that the public initiative had to come from Canada, because if it came from us it would look as if we were trying to gobble up our neighbour.
He had to get a Canadian entity to start calling for the trade agreement, knowing full well that it was hugely to their advantage. However the Americans wanted it to come from Canada. Otherwise Canadians would see, in a very transparent way, that it was really their intention to gobble up their neighbour.
The Toronto Star reports that then U.S. Ambassador Robinson took the idea to Thomas d'Aquino, president of the Business Council on National Issues and unofficial prime minister, at his Ottawa home. He was exactly who the Americans needed to promote the idea of the free trade agreement, an agreement that would be hugely in their favour.
Interestingly enough, when the president of BCNI talks about those days he reverses what history tells us and says it is important to remember that it was Canadians who took the first step and asked for the free trade agreement. It was in fact the U.S. ambassador visiting d'Aquino in his home who asked for it, and d'Aquino dutifully delivered over the next number of years.
We in the NDP believe the issue of North American integration is cause for great concern. It is a subject we should be debating. We are not afraid of having the debate but we do not think it should be in this context. It should not be wrapped in the envelope of the issue of customs and excise. That is crazy.
This is a Trojan horse idea. We are ostensibly here today to debate the idea of free movement of goods and services across the international border between Canada and the United States, but the debate is really about western hemispheric integration into one United States of America from the Arctic Ocean to Tierra del Fuego.
It worries us when we hear the Liberal chair of the finance committee saying that no one can deny that North American integration is taking place. The newspaper article reports that he has emerged as the chief advocate for a no holds barred debate on integration, an issue which did not appear in Liberal election campaign literature in 2000.
I do not think the Liberal Party campaigned to trade away what little is left of our economic sovereignty. I do not think its intention upon re-election for a third term was to start passing legislation specifically asked for by the U.S. ambassador, that would see us lose our ability to chart our own destiny. I do not think the Liberals intended to embark on such an agenda. I did not notice it anywhere in their party's year 2000 election campaign literature.
We are not against having a more open border at some point. We are not against free movement of goods and services between us and our neighbour to the south. However let us do it on equal terms. Let us do it in a way similar to the way the European Union undertook integration. It had a bigger problem. It has 15 nation states but it took care of basic social issues first. It took care of the social charter that would equalize the standard of living.
There is a huge historic imbalance in the power relationship between Canada and the United States. That is why this is like the lion laying down with the lamb. It is not a deal between two equals. It is a deal between Canada and the largest economy in the world which happens to own 88% of Canadian industry. The U.S. already has a huge stake in Canada. It is the remaining 12% of Canadian ownership of our industries that we are bargaining with.
Some of us are not ready to give up on the idea of a sovereign nation state in Canada that is unique and different and does not need to harmonize with all things American.
The Canadian Alliance Party since it has been here has thought that all things American are good and all things Canadian are retarded. That is what we hear from the Canadian Alliance. It gets all its inspiration from the right wing evangelical movement in the United States. Whatever Pat Buchanan and Pat Robinson say in the United States, the Alliance brings here and tries to sell to the Canadian public.
However we are not buying it. We are not interested. There are still enough of us intent on preserving a distinct identity that Canada will not buy into that mindless idea.
I hate to say it but there are those who would exploit the tragedy in New York to expedite their vision of a single, integrated western hemispheric identity. It is not fair to exploit the tragedy in New York. The issue must be dealt with independently and not within the parameters of a simpler debate about the free movement of goods and services.
There are those of us who still care about the issue. I hate to sound like a Liberal but I probably sound like a Liberal from 1967 when Walter Gordon, Paul Martin Senior and others who had a vision of a unique Canadian identity used to stand proudly in the House of Commons and argue that we should not be economically dominated by foreign nations. They used to set rules and regulations about foreign ownership.
Where are the champions today? The only person outside the NDP who has spoken out in a loud and clear way is David Orchard of the Progressive Conservative Party. He asks those questions. Hardly anyone else seems to. Members seem to have resigned themselves to the benign indifference of the universe. They feel that American manifest destiny is inevitable and that there is no point in fighting it because we cannot resist it.
I put it to the House that we must have this debate without the emotional veil that has been thrust upon it by the tragedy at the World Trade Center in New York City. There will come a time when we must make a choice. Are we prepared to turn out the lights on the last shred of Canadian nationalism? Are we prepared to resign ourselves to the belief that we are merely Americans who are a little different?
The U.S. has sensed there is a difference today in that our Prime Minister did not rush automatically into the vengeance mode the Americans are justifiably feeling. No one blames the American government for speaking in strong terms about the need to avenge the assault on New York City. However our Prime Minister, to his credit, in the first reactions to the tragedy at the World Trade Center did not jump immediately into line with the American call for violent military intervention and revenge.
We are now paying the price for that. A significant number of Americans are disappointed with us. We first got snubbed when the U.S. president met with the president of Mexico before meeting with the Prime Minister of Canada. The second snub was in yesterday's speech, the single most important speech the president has ever given and arguably one of the most important speeches any U.S. president has given since the Checkers speech.
The speech did not contain one mention of Canada. Canada was shut out and snubbed. We were chastised in a diplomatic way for not being aggressive enough and falling into step, I would call it goose stepping, with the military initiative with which the Americans have seen fit to avenge the attack on their country.
I have pointed out some of the necessary and beneficial points of Bill S-23. However we in the NDP request that the Liberals delay consideration of the legislation until the World Trade Center tragedy has settled. We ask the government to freeze Bill S-23 pending investigation into its ramifications for western hemispheric integration.