Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour to stand in the House on behalf of my constituents of Surrey North to speak to this legislation tonight.
Before I get to the contents of this legislation, I want to take this opportunity to congratulate some individuals. There are four high schools in my riding: Kwantlen Park Secondary School; Guildford Park Secondary School; Queen Elizabeth Secondary School, my former school from which I graduated 28 years ago; and L.A. Matheson Secondary School. I had the opportunity to attend high school graduations at these four schools. Young people across this country are in the process of graduating from high school. I want to congratulate not only the students but their parents. It is reassuring to know that we have such bright young people going to universities. Canada has a bright future ahead with these young people. Again, congratulations to all the parents and students.
I had the opportunity to sit on the international trade committee, where I learned this file fairly extensively. I will be talking about some of the things I learned while on this committee and in particular about the things I learned with respect to this agreement between Canada and Honduras.
We need criteria as to who we will have free trade agreements with. There has to be some sort of yardstick when we enter into trade agreements with countries around the world. Before we sign an agreement, we should look at the country's labour standards and environmental standards and whether it has Canadian values or is on the path toward some of the values we cherish in this country. Democracy is another basic foundation we should look at before we enter into any sort of trade agreement with a foreign country.
Second, we should look at whether the economy of that particular country is of strategic value to Canada. Would it make sense for us to engage with that country?
Third, we should look at the deal itself. Is it satisfactory? Would it improve our lot and at the same time, hopefully, improve the lot of the country we are engaging with?
I want to point out that this particular agreement does not meet these criteria.
A number of speakers have talked about the horrendous democratic and human rights record in Honduras as well as the drug trafficking that goes on there, the military coups that are taking place, and the unfair, undemocratic elections. These certainly do not pass the test for negotiating an agreement with a democratic country or a country with Canadian values. Honduras certainly does not fit into that particular category.
With regard to the strategic value of Honduras, as the previous member pointed out, Honduras ranks 104th on the list of countries we have trade with. We do an insignificant amount of trade with that country.
The fourth criterion is whether this agreement would be satisfactory for us. That is clearly not the case.
Canadians had the opportunity to engage in a wider trade agreement on a regional level. When we could not find the regional areas to dance with, we looked at picking a weak link in Central America to try to negotiate a one-on-one deal with Honduras. We should be looking at a multi-country, multilateral trade deal that would help not only Canadian interests but also regions in Central America.
Let me talk about the Conservative record. My friends across the aisle do not like the facts. I know that they are used to Kijiji facts or making up facts, but I am going to share some facts with the members that will surprise the Speaker as well as Canadians.
The trade record of the government is horrendous. When we look at the facts, the bare numbers, they are quite surprising. When the Conservatives formed the government back in 2006, we had a trade surplus of $18 billion. Let me put that into layman's terms. I know that my constituents would appreciate that. That trade surplus of $18 billion meant that we were selling more products to other countries than we were buying. That was a good number, and that was when the Conservatives took over the government.
Eight years later, Canada's current account deficit stands at $62 billion. That is a turnaround of $80 billion over eight years. That is like $10 billion less we export every year than we import. It is evident that the government's policy of signing so many free trade agreements is not bearing fruit for Canadians. We are exporting less than we are importing.
A deficit of $62 billion is a lot of money and a lot of jobs being exported out of our country. That is the current government's record. It talks about having signed eight trade agreements to improve our economy. I looked at some of those deals. One of them was with Liechtenstein. I had to look at the map to see where Liechtenstein was. It is a small country in Europe with very few people. These are the kinds of facts the Conservatives like to present to Canadians. They say that they are negotiating these trade deals and improving the lot of Canadians. That is clearly not the case.
We have been advocating a fair free trade agreement with Europe. The Prime Minister took the plane and flew over to Europe to say that he signed the deal, but we have not seen the text. Eight months later, we have not seen the text of the agreement. The third party, the Liberal leader and his caucus, endorsed the deal without even seeing the text. This is how the Conservatives and the Liberals work. How can we approve a deal or say we like a deal when we have not even seen the text? This is the Conservative record.
I also want to talk about a couple of other things. The merchandise trade agreement has ballooned under the government. That means that the amount of value-added goods we are manufacturing and exporting is going down. We are importing more merchandise, more value-added goods. Basically, we are exporting jobs out of Canada to other countries. Any trade agreement that needs to be negotiated has to take into consideration how we help our exporters and how we bring well-paying jobs to Canada, which is not what the Conservatives are doing. Their record has been that they have clearly mismanaged international trade. We have gone from a surplus of $18 billion to a current deficit of $62 billion. That is not acceptable to me or to my constituents. We need to do better. We need to create more local jobs, and the government needs to start working on that.