Mr. Speaker, as always I was delighted to hear the member for Halifax speak up in favour of Nova Scotians and shipyard workers. She raised a very interesting point, which is the NDP's fair trade approach as opposed to the Liberals and Conservatives and their tired old Bush-style unregulated free trade approach that sells out Canadian jobs. In agreement after agreement, we have seen the Conservatives just walking up and selling out whole industries. We saw that with the softwood lumber sellout that killed tens of thousands of jobs and continues to kill jobs, as the judgments based on the softwood sellout come through, another $400 million anticipated in the next few weeks. It is appallingly irresponsible bad policy, bad negotiating. It is like the Conservatives are just unable to get their minds around the Canadian public interest.
Now we have the shipbuilding sellout, which is unanimously described by people in the shipbuilding sector as a sellout. Unanimously. There is not a single representative from the shipbuilding industry, whether owners or workers, who said this was a good deal, who said the carve out should not happen.
My question to the member for Halifax is this. Given the unanimity from the industry, given the strategic importance, and given that Canada has the longest coastline in the world and should be reinforcing its shipbuilding industry like every other long coastline country, why are the Conservatives and Liberals conspiring to sell out thousands of shipyard workers and our shipbuilding industry despite the fact they have received hundreds of letters in the past few days telling them not to?