Mr. Speaker, it seems to me in listening to the debate today that a lot of talk about protectionism is starting to creep into the discussion about the bill. It seems to me that the member wants to have his cake and eat it too.
At the same time that he is arguing for better working conditions and better wages for people in third world countries, he wants to cut them out of free trade by applying protectionism here. It is not as much from his speech but certainly from the speech of the Bloc member before him, trying to protect our industries from outside competition.
I will give an example. It is well known and plenty of studies have shown that countries with the most free trading policies have the highest standards of living for their people and the best working conditions. We can see it ourselves in China. When I first visited China in the late 1970s, people lived in abysmal conditions. Shanghai was a horrible place. Except for the few little tourist areas that were kept nice, everything else was really awful.
Shanghai today is a modern bustling city with good working conditions for people. The standard of living has improved out of sight because China now trades freely with the world. Sure, that has meant some adjustments in our country because inefficient industries that we used to run have gone out of business.
One example relates to what the member was just saying about the textile industry. We have a tariff in place to protect manufacturers of denim who do not even exist any more because the tariff never prevented them from going out of business in the first place. It was a misguided idea to have the tariff in the first place.
The reality of free trading and world trade is that we cannot stop the progression or the balancing of trade so that the countries that are best skilled at doing things do those things.
Canada leads the world with Northern Telecom. We provide the telecom equipment for the world. We set the standard for it. The BlackBerry, or the BlueBerry as it is now called, is another innovation. There is McCain Foods as well. We have our share of companies that dominate the market because they do things really well. It disturbs me to hear talk about the idea that we should start getting protectionist again.
I will give another example. In Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, there used to be a dreadful, terrible and disgusting shantytown. Because of the free trade agreement, there are now large American companies that have established beautiful and big industries with parklands. They have cleaned up all the streams and creeks that were full of--