Mr. Speaker, I share the outrage of my colleague from the Bloc Québécois. For 10 years or more, the NDP has raised the issue of garment workers and the garment industry and how successive federal governments have abandoned this industry sector.
There is a clear simple thing that the current federal government could do that would be of great benefit to the Canadian garment industry. It has to do, as my colleague raised, with the WTO and the safeguards put in place.
When China entered the WTO, it contemplated the impact that this surge of Chinese garments coming into Canada, without any tariff or duty, would have on the domestic industry. Other governments like the United States, the European Union, Mexico, Turkey, Argentina and other countries around the world took advantage of the available safeguards and limited the increase of the Chinese imports to 7.5% per year. Our Canadian government, in some zeal to be free traders, allowed 200% and 300% per year increases. Some sectors were flooded with specific garments such as ladies pants. It was as much as a 385% increase.
This devastated, undermined and almost crippled the industry in my home town of Winnipeg, in which I have 43 garment manufacturers. At least the last time I checked, I had 43 garment manufacturers. By the end of today, we have probably lost two or three more. They are dropping like flies because of the negligence of successive federal governments, which refused to take advantage of even those protective measures that were available to them.
Could my colleague give us any indication what possible reason the government could have for not implementing the safeguards available to us under the WTO? What is the rationale?