Madam Speaker, I could have gone into much greater detail about this in my speech, but as I said, in a perfect world, trade would benefit both parties, not bring less well-off countries down even farther.
However, trade is not a cure-all. When companies invest abroad, I do not think that their first priority is improving the standard of living of the people in the countries where they set up shop. Their priority is making money.
I am not suggesting that all multinationals are brutes, but I am sure that the first priority is making a profit. Things do not balance out automatically or magically. There must be a will to improve things. Setting up shop in places where wages are low is not enough.
Still, efforts have to be made, and this has to be set out much more clearly in free trade agreements. There are no regulations governing mining companies working abroad. I said during my speech that this is important. Many foreign mining companies have their headquarters in Canada in order to exploit other countries, knowing full well that they will be free to do more or less as they please, because those countries do not have very stringent environmental rules and the companies cannot be reprimanded by the Canadian government.
I think that regulations are needed. Mining companies are a good example. There need to be strict regulations and a code of ethics to prevent mining companies from damaging and destroying the environment in other countries and contributing to population displacement. I am not saying that would happen in Peru, but we have seen it happen in other countries. This sort of thing must not happen again.