Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure for me to speak today on the Bloc motion that has been put forward to address one very important, fundamental issue that is taking place in this country, that is, the free trade, the business environment and globalization change that has taken place in the last 10 to 15 years since the WTO was formed.
I want to say at the outset that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Cambridge.
Since the WTO was formed there has been a fundamental change in the way the world sees how business is to be conducted and in how Canada needs to conduct its business. Canada is a trading nation. Our prosperity lies in trade. Close to 46% of our GDP is in international trade, so international trade does become a very critical part of Canada's long term planning to have a good standard of living.
To that end, the Conservative Party and I have always been in support of free trade. It has been my pleasure to attend WTO meetings in Seattle and in Doha. At the time I attended, it became very evident that the fundamental changes taking place around the globe with the opening of the markets and globalization would have a profound impact on countries like ours and even on developing countries as well.
We knew that the day would come when we in Canada would be facing the questions that we face today. As we look around, we see crises brewing, with a crisis in BSE, a crisis in softwood lumber and now a crisis in the textile industry, all directly related to our trade agreements.
It leads us to wonder, when we signed the trade deals of which we are very supportive, did we do enough studies? Did we recognize the impact they were going to have on our domestic industries and on Canadians? At that time I stood in the House in support of all those agreements and thought we had done so, and yes, we had trade agreements that would address these issues.
NAFTA was an agreement to allow us to have open access to the American market. We supported the free trade area of the Americas so that we could have access there; of course the FTAA has not started. We went to the WTO because we wanted fair trade and a rules based system whereby we could trade freely with stronger economies like those of the U.S.A. and now the European Union.
We supported all these agreements, but we also thought that the government with all its resources would understand the impact they would have on the domestic industries. I was on one of the trade missions in India when it opened up its markets. Its workers were facing a crisis in light industry as well. Today in the U.S.A. and in Canada, we can see the IT crisis taking place. The presidential election focused on the IT sector because of the same crisis facing the domestic industry. It has been happening everywhere, so we should have known this was coming.
As I listen to this debate today, I hear the Liberals talking about how much they have done for the textile industry to help the textile industry become competitive and more modernized and all these things. The facts speak differently.
This Bloc motion talks about six industries closing down in Huntingdon. The colleague next to me has had job losses in his riding as well. As we see, there are job losses happening. It was anticipated that there would be change and job losses, but we needed to be prepared for these days to arrive and not wait until the end and then say, “Oh, now we have to do something. Now we will run around and do something”. That is the typical Liberal approach: waiting right to the end before starting to do anything.
Today's speeches the Liberal members are making about how much money they have given or what they have given are of no comfort to the workers who have lost or who will be losing their jobs. They want to know what is in store for them. If they had had time, they could have prepared for retraining. The government could have made sure that other areas were there which would be viable in a long term solution working with industry.
We have a letter from the industry representatives in which they have given some excellent proposals, but the government seems not to have listened. All this government thinks is that if it throws money around it will be fine and this problem will go away.
This problem will not go away in the textile industry with the WTO agreements that we have signed. And let us be very blunt about it: we need the WTO because we are a smaller economy and we can be marginalized out of the world economy by others.
We need the WTO, but we have enough time and resources to think about how we can address this changing environment and not wait until we face this crisis of workers losing their jobs.
One of the reasons why the Conservative Party will support the Bloc motion is to tell the government that it has failed in its response, its obligation and its duty to Canadians. The BSE crisis and even the softwood lumber crisis really reflect the issue of what is wrong with our trading relationships. When we sign trade agreements, we also need to ensure that there are teeth behind our trade agreements. We must not just run around and say that we have signed a trade agreement and it is great for us, only to find out later on that it is not great for us.
Insofar as the textile industry is concerned, where the job losses are, I can address the issue. I was here and I applauded when the government allowed the least developed countries free access to our country, because I had attended the conference in Geneva on the least developed countries and that was one of the areas where the government could help them. But as my colleague from Edmonton indicated, while opening up our market we ensured that others would take advantage of that, not the least developed countries. Economies like China's, Pakistan's and India's could access our markets through the back door. That was not the intent when I stood in support of the initiative.
It boils down to the fact that this government had not been preparing itself for the changing global environment that it knew was happening. That is why we are standing here today debating an issue which really should not have to be discussed. It should have been easy for us to stand and say that we have done this, we have done that, and so there will be no closures taking place. The textile industry, with this help, would have been more healthy than it is today. Today the Liberals stand and say that this portion of the textile industry is healthy while we have other portions closing down. The Liberals say that those portions are inefficient and everything, but they are all Canadian and we need to have programs that assist them.
I have only one minute left, so I will say in conclusion that while the Conservative Party supports free trade and we understand the impact that globalization will have, we must also make sure that Canadians do not unnecessarily suffer from this globalization and that we have programs and assistance packages to help them in this transition. At the same time, we must make sure that these industries are viable. Because opportunities always take place; when one door closes, another door opens. It is up to us to make sure that we take advantage of this and that we do not just run around the country signing trade deals without looking at what is happening in the background.