Mr. Speaker, I always listen intently to my colleague from Vancouver Kingsway. It is always interesting and informative. Like any good fiction novel, there is a storyline that can be followed and after a while, we can see a story starting to unfold.
Let me start with the bogeyman theory because that is really what he is talking about. The NDP are not going to support trade so they need a bogeyman, something that will take Canadians' rights away—that we will lose our border, our culture, our water, our self-esteem, our children, and our dog is going to run away. It just makes me shake my head.
Let us set the record straight. What did Canada give up to join the trans-Pacific partnership? Nothing. Zero. We gave up nothing to join the trans-Pacific partnership. We are a trading nation; our future and our children's future is based on trade. We are a country with 33 million people and a vast amount of resources, with a great wealth of individuals and people who make up this nation, who are entrepreneurs, who go out to work every day and make a living selling things to other parts of the world. This is not a complicated issue. We do not need to find a problem with something that is not a problem. We are in the beginning stages of the trans-Pacific partnership. There is a lot of negotiating to go yet.
We will continue to negotiate the trans-Pacific partnership. We will continue to negotiate other trade agreements. We formed government in 2006 and we have signed free trade agreements with nine countries. We are negotiating another 50 agreements around the world.
I would ask the hon. member to get on board. What do NDP members want to talk about? They want to talk about a free trade agreement with India. We are already there and working on that. Is it going to happen tomorrow? No, there is a long series of negotiations ahead of us. The NDP did not support the foreign investment promotion protection agreement with China. They voted against a free trade agreement with Panama. They cannot have it both ways: we cannot say that we need to be a trading nation and then shut other countries out.
As far as the investor-state provisions are concerned, they ensure that an investor from a foreign country will be treated the same as Canadian companies. There is nothing wrong with that. It is pretty basic stuff. There have been hundreds of filings over the years about the rules being broken, and only eight of them have been successful. If someone breaks those rules, they have recourse to the courts. That is not unusual. There is nothing wrong with that. That is a good way to do business. Where there is rules-based trading, everyone knows what we are talking about and everyone plays by the same set of rules and things are fair straight across the table.
I would ask my hon. colleague to stop fearmongering about the trans-Pacific partnership. We are in the early days of negotiations. I am not expecting to see it anytime soon, but if he wants to take a pro-trade stance, there is lots he can do to help with this.