Madam Speaker, there is no question that our free trade agreement with the United States and all aspects of our trade with the Americans should be done on principle. In any case where an unfair trade practice is undertaken by one of our trading partners, we should, within the rules and confines of our trade agreements, vigorously defend our position and our right to have free, open access to the markets of our trading partners.
However, my point here is that the NDP has taken a stand against free trade. Its members always spout this anti-American rhetoric despite the fact that Americans are our largest trading partner, our friends, our neighbours, our allies, and in fact even increasingly our relatives. Saskatchewan is good testimony to this because we in Saskatchewan have had a socialist government, in perpetuity it seems, and the NDP is responsible for the fact that we just keep exporting people from Saskatchewan, a lot to Alberta but many to the United States. Increasingly my constituents are telling me that their sons and daughters are going to the U.S. because of the socialist, backward mentality of the NDP in Saskatchewan.
I want to read into the record a brief statement made by Tony Blair, the leader of the social democratic party in Great Britain. When he addressed the House last year, he said:
It is time that we started to argue vigorously and clearly as to why free trade is right. It is the key to jobs for our people, to prosperity and actually to development in the poorest parts of the world. The case against it is misguided and, worse, unfair. However sincere the protests, they cannot be allowed to stand in the way of rational argument. We should start to make this case with force and determination.
I agree with the prime minister of Great Britain that NDP members have their heads screwed on backwards, and we should, as vigorously and intentionally and strongly as he did, make the case against their misguided rhetoric.