Mr. Chair, this is exactly the point I was making. I think the member for Dufferin—Caledon has illustrated it perfectly.
Conservatives do not read the trade agreements, they do not understand what is at stake and they do not do any impact studies. They just throw it up in the air and say, “Of course, this must create jobs”.
The Conservatives have absolutely no fundamentals and there is no due diligence that they have done to actually make the case. This is the essential problem in why Conservatives have a fundamentally dysfunctional trade policy.
There has been one credible study, and not a fantasyland study like the minister tried to commission, which was promptly rebutted. There is one credible study that shows a net loss of 150,000 jobs in Canada.
For those who are among the half million Canadians who have seen their manufacturing jobs lost, the idea that one can simply throw something in the air and say that it must be good is exactly the fundamental problem that so many Canadians are having with, and it is almost an oxymoron, the Conservative trade policy or their economic policy. The study shows 150,000 lost jobs. There is nothing credible on the Conservative side to show the contrary. It shows a 30% increase in drug costs, but there is nothing on the Conservative side to show, in any credible way, that they have even examined the issue.
It costs Canadians every time the Conservatives throw something up in the air, whether it is the softwood lumber sellout, the shipbuilding sellout, or this particular deal. The Conservatives have not done their homework, they have not done their due diligence, and that shows.