Madam Speaker, I do think it is important to underline that New Westminster was the first capital of British Columbia before Victoria became the capital city.
The member for Welland is an extremely effective member of the trade committee and has brought a healthy dose of realism and main street reality to the discussions around trade.
I think most Conservatives and Liberals, not having done their homework on the issue, do not seem to understand this fundamental economic fact that since the free trade regime started back with the Canada U.S. free trade agreement, the real incomes for the vast majority of Canadian families have actually declined. That is a fundamental reality that no one on the Conservative or Liberal benches has even bothered to look into. They have this pap about free trade bringing prosperity but the reality has been fundamentally different. Statistics Canada tells every one of them that they are wrong. Real incomes have actually declined.
The member very effectively represents a riding that used to be represented by another member of the trade committee, a Liberal who always said that free trade was great, who never referenced the riding of Welland and who never went back to his constituents to find out what was going on on the ground. We know that region has been hit hard by many of the provisions of these bad trade agreements.
I would like to ask the member what it takes for Liberals and Conservatives to understand, to do their homework and to find out what is happening to real incomes in Canada. Does it take the defeat of all of the Liberals in northern Ontario after they supported the softwood sellout to get the message across, or does he think that Canadians just need to keep telling them that they are wrong on this issue?