Mr. Speaker, let the record show that was not totally unanimous as there was a latent undercurrent, but I thank members of the House for allowing me to say a few words on this subject.
The Bloc is well motivated with respect to the desire to remind Canadians that within the global economic picture there still is an element, albeit in a permissive way, for there to be a concept of buying local, for example, buying agricultural products that are produced by our farmers which are the best agricultural products in the world. We are reminded of our forestry industry. We have the best fibre in the world and yet we have an industry that is in serious decline. It is affecting towns and communities rights across the country.
I appreciate and I am sure the House appreciates the spirit and motivation of the Bloc in bringing forward this bill. Within the context of globalization, the movement of capital, the serious competitiveness of the movement of capital and God knows that we need to have capital invested in the commercialization of technology, we are trying to transform our economy. At the time when we need to identify these global trends and not only stay within the spirit of the WTO and globalization, but also the law itself, this is not the time for us to disaggregate our capacity with respect to competitiveness.
I would suggest that while the Bloc may not intend that, we could see a disaggregation with respect to our national strategy to compete in a global sense. At the very time when we think we are doing the right thing for our regions and provinces, we would be doing the very opposite. While I understand the motivation, I think that the Bloc should reconsider this issue.
Very recently, for different reasons, we have been looking at drawing closer relationships, for example, with the CARICOM countries of the West Indies. We have been looking at more of a hemispheric approach with respect to our ties with Colombia and Peru. There is a serious debate in terms of why we should embark upon that particular strategy, but the reason I mentioned that is that those particular initiatives are in keeping with globalization and, where there is a balance of payments and a capital deficiency with respect to investment, to open doors that would redress that and to bring Canadian products into a competitive mode and to balance that out against our interests.
While the bill may not intend to undermine or be contrary to what our global strategy should be, in fact that is what it does. From my perspective it invites a retaliation. If it is not deemed to be in the interests of our national policies, if it is deemed to be protectionist, then the perception of that will drive those whom we are attempting to reach out to, to be in trade relationships and the extension of that to drawing capital and investment here, we would be going the very opposite way.
For those reasons, as I said, I believe the Bloc is well intentioned on this, but in actual fact the bill would have exactly the opposite reaction to what the Bloc is hoping to accomplish.