Mr. Speaker, as I was saying before question period and statements, the New Democratic Party is not opposed to international trade. We strongly support fair trade.
If I may digress for a moment, this week the agriculture committee had the opportunity to be in eastern Canada, in the maritime provinces, to hear from farmers. One farmer had a very good definition of the free trade agreement that Canada has with the United States. This gentleman said that under the free trade agreement, the U.S. had rights and Canada had obligations. I think that is a very significant statement and one that deserves to be underlined.
We support fair trade, but if Canada imports Chinese products, and we are talking about Bill C-50 today, that are manufactured by workers receiving paltry wages, subjected to unsafe working conditions and denied the right to organize to bargain collectively, then such trade cannot be considered fair. Trade which results in the perpetuation or augmentation of global inequality is not fair trade.
We are living in a time of unprecedented international trade and yet the differences in income among citizens of the world has never been more stark. A report in the latest edition of the Economic Journal says that the richest 1% of people around the world receive as much as the bottom 57% of citizens. It goes on to say that if poverty is defined as the average income level at which citizens of western Europe and North America are eligible for social assistance, then a full 78% of the global population should be considered to be impoverished.
International trade has been heralded for too long as the solution to global poverty and underdevelopment. The truth is that when trade is conducted under the auspices of fundamentally undemocratic organizations controlled by the corporations that they are designed to serve, trade will only serve to perpetuate global inequality and poverty.
I will say simply that this party is opposed to Bill C-50.