Mr. Speaker, I would like to challenge the member on one statement and that is with respect to poverty. Undoubtedly there are people around the world, including people in China, whose incomes are substantially less than our incomes in Canada. I would agree that we in our global community should do everything we can to reduce and eliminate such poverty. However the fact of the matter is that when one gets into trade agreements with countries like China, it increases economic activity. Generally that means there is an increase in demand, which means that there are more jobs for workers and the ability to produce more would normally increase the workers wages.
That would not always be the case. It depends on the kind of wage agreement. We know that members of parliament for example have a fixed wage regardless of whether they work 12 or 18 hours a day. Teachers are often paid exactly the same, regardless of how many hours they work. We have to take that into account as well.
Does the member not at least generally concede that these international trade agreements tend to improve the lot of both countries involved in the agreement?