Madam Speaker, I represent a riding that has a huge cattle industry and a large hog industry. U.S. protectionism has definitely hurt our industries. One of the largest employers in my riding is Gerdau Ameristeel with over 700 staff. There is a number of other steel companies besides Gerdau Ameristeel in my riding around Selkirk area. This whole debate about what is happening with the Americans and their whole protectionist attitude is very disconcerting to the people in my riding.
It is great to hear the dogma coming from the New Democratic Party saying that it is okay to have protectionism, but they do not realize that this type of mentality, the isolationist theories that have been floating around since the dirty thirties, actually exacerbated the problem in the United States during that time and forced the entire world into a global recession. We do not need to turn back the page and go down that path.
The hon. member talked about the concerns of the cattle industry and we know what happened with the R-CALF group. It was the Conservative Party that stood up and made sure that we were represented at the hearings. The member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound and I were at the judicial hearings as well as the court proceedings and appeals in Seattle, Portland, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota to ensure that the Canadian position was represented well since we were not seeing it from the other parties. This was back when we were still in opposition, never mind now that we are in government, and we were standing up for Canadian producers.
Agriculture is really dependent upon trade. We have to have trade rules. NAFTA, WTO, those things are important. Over 80% of our producers are dependent upon strong agriculture trade around the world.
We look at the philosophy that buy American is okay, and if that is the NDP's philosophy, then the NDP must be saying that COOL, country of original labelling, is okay, because that is buy American policy that the American government is forcing upon Canadian producers. That has caused a real injury to cattle and hog producers. We are seeing prices plummet. It is a sad day when the NDP stand up in the House and say that it wants to have a buy American policy so that it can continue to force injury on Canadian producers. Shame on the NDP.