Mr. Speaker, I listened very intently to my colleague's comments. She gave a fine dissertation on socialism. I would like to compare two countries, India and Zimbabwe.
India is a country that had very high levels of poverty. That country liberalized its markets, reduced restrictions, enabled the private sector to expand and improved trade among and between its neighbours. The outcome has been a dramatic decline in the poor in that country, with a burgeoning middle class.
While blanket free trade is not the answer and checks and balances have to occur and it must be fair trade, I would like to ask my hon. colleague for her comments. Hernando de Soto and Mohammed Unis and other people have spent their lives reducing poverty and they have spoken about the merits of free and fair trade. Does she not think that free trade agreements with countries enables those countries to raise their standards to the standards that our workers enjoy? In that way we are able to improve the lot in those countries, instead of erecting barriers to development, barriers to trade. Such barriers actually enable countries to maintain the restrictive covenants within their countries and hamstring the private sector and ultimately lead to a greater number of people living in poverty.