Mr. Speaker, special interest anti-free trade groups with ties to the NDP are today spreading the same falsehoods they were spreading during the NAFTA negotiations. These groups say that free trade is bad for Canada. They were wrong then and they are wrong now.
The Canada-Europe trade agreement will make Canada the only major developed country to have preferential access to the world's two largest markets: the European Union and the United States. This deal will add $12 billion to our economy annually. That is the equivalent of 80,000 new Canadian jobs.
Sadly, the NDP remains beholden, both financially and organizationally, to the big union bosses and these special interest anti-trade activist groups. The NDP's position on denouncing free trade is well known, given their record of voting against almost every single trade deal put forward by our government. Its shameful position on opposing the Canada-Europe trade deal is not very surprising.