Mr. Speaker, there were a couple of issues which my colleague raised during his speech which I just could not wait to comment on. One of them was about the sweat shops. He did express the concern which we hear about a lot here and out in the general public as well about the sweat shops which are in existence in some third world countries and actually, regrettably, in Toronto and Montreal as well.
Certainly, in third world countries there are quite a lot of sweat shops manufacturing products which we consume. The real question is, how do we as a nation help to get rid of these sweat shops and improve the quality of life for those people and improve their wages?
The NDP and a lot of left wing activists would have us get the corporations out of there and close these sweat shops. Of course, anybody who thinks through the problem will realize that does not solve it at all. All it does is throw the people into more poverty, so it really is not an answer. In fact, it is cruel to even suggest that should be done.
The correct way to do it and perhaps I will relate back to the example I gave earlier going back a couple of centuries to good old England. At that time, there were little boys working as chimney sweeps, climbing the insides of chimneys. Many of them died at a young age from cancer of the scrotum because of all the carbon that was on their skin.
These were the horrible conditions that existed only a couple of hundred years ago in a society that we now consider very advanced. How did that situation improve? By encouraging initiative, free trade and expanding markets so that companies could expand and improve the lot for their workers. Unions appeared and were able to improve working conditions.
The answer is not to close down the sweat shops. Tough as it seems, we may just have to continue to buy the goods and hopefully, within a very short time because of the expansion of the markets, those sweat shops will start to disappear.
Another issue the member mentioned was the failure of the government to offer any real vision for this country. It is ramming through these bills at the last minute before the election.
During question period we saw an absolutely disgraceful display of a standing ovation on the other side when a member tried to bring up an absolutely heinous crime that occurred in B.C., which the people of B.C. are absolutely outraged about. It has been front page news there. It is on all the talk shows and people are absolutely outraged that a person who almost murdered his wife, raping her and beating her, was sentenced to probation. It is absolutely an outrageous crime and to see these people over there standing and applauding a mindless answer from the minister really indicates where their heads are.
They claim to have a monopoly on compassion, tolerance and understanding in this country. In fact, they are the least compassionate, least tolerant, and least understanding people in the whole country. They should be treating that as a serious issue that needs attention. It should be part of the vision for the country to correct those imbalances in the legislation, instead of rushing through and taking the ridiculous attitude of rushing through pieces of legislation at the last minute. That is what we are faced with.
I would like to ask the member, reverting back to the sweat shops, does he see some way that we can contribute to closing those down through these free trade agreements and lessening of tariffs?