Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government is accusing us of being ideologically stubborn and against free trade. However, our position is very pragmatic: we oppose the kind of free trade proposed by the members opposite. We oppose free trade when it is negotiated without any economic, industrial or energy strategies.
Free trade agreements do not come out of a Cracker Jack box. They must be taken more seriously. The future of the country is at stake, and we are keenly aware of that.
We are asking these legitimate questions on behalf of Canadians. We are worried about the government's ability to negotiate these kinds of agreements.
I myself am by no means an expert in international trade. However, because of what I do know, I am worried about what this government is doing. One negotiator has said that only the intellectual property issue remains to be settled and that it will not take long, because it is a formality. In my opinion, he does not really understand what is happening.
We now realize just how important intellectual property is. All major conflicts and serious disputes in relation to international trade end up in lawsuits over intellectual property. And that is merely one aspect.
When a dispute arises after a treaty is signed, the problem is often not solved by lawyers but by discussions about semantics. Two words can easily cost billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs.
For example, two English phrases from article 14 of the North American Free Trade Agreement—“in comparison with” and “in relation to”—were challenged. In the end, after debating the meaning of these phrases, the United States levied a preposterous tax that almost destroyed Canada's softwood lumber industry and cost tens of thousands of jobs.
In the long term, we are gambling with the future of our country. I remember that, when I was young, we built locomotives and cargo ships. We manufactured and exported every kind of product. Naturally, things have changed, but soon we may not even be manufacturing hockey sticks or curling brooms anymore. It is time we had an intelligent long-term strategy for international trade.
It used to be that when I travelled abroad, people would tell me that Canada was a great country that had a coherent international policy and did a lot for foreign aid. Now, I am still told that Canada is a great country, but people tell me that it takes one week to travel by car from Montreal Island to Vancouver. That is not exactly the kind of grandeur to which we aspire. That is all about geography. Canada is fading as a great economic and diplomatic power. We must stop tarnishing our image. The members opposite need to think and listen when we ask intelligent questions.