Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and talk about CETA, the trade arrangement between Canada and Europe. What is interesting is that we have this agreement coming forth, and one of the things that we have not heard much about in the debate is the measurables of a trade agreement. I have raised it a few times myself. The measurables of a trade agreement that matter for Canadians are whether or not they are getting a job or their children's future is going to be better because of the agreements that Canada signs.
I will include the Liberals and Conservatives in the ideological right. Remarkably the right argue that, if we just have free trade, everything gets better. We hear that argument that we should just open these markets and have trade that goes back and forth. Then they start to realize and complain later that the reason we do not do well in these agreements is that Canadian labour is too high and that the governments do other things. They have the concerns in the same sentence, but they never connect the two.
When we try to add labour rights, environmental rights, and social responsibility rights, they are often put on the side of these trade agreements. There is an advantage in this agreement because we have Europe, which has some commonalities with us for that, but we also do not take into account the massive corporate subsidizations that take place in the European Union. I can point no further than to the auto sector, for example, which receives massive and state involvement.
Liberal members say it is going to be a fair market, but meanwhile they promote and sacrifice industries like the auto industry in deals like the one with South Korea, for example, where state-owned companies compete against us. They close their markets as well. They do non-tariff barriers. The Liberals say we are going to trade more and we are going to have more accessibility and, by the way, we are going to compete against state-owned car companies that are owned by the people, have a national strategy, and get massive subsidization that imports millions into our country over the terms of the deals and we hardly get any back to South Korea; just dozens. It is not reciprocal, but the Liberals are okay with that.
I know there are fireworks today because the Prime Minister is attending fundraisers with the Chinese and other business people from a Communist state government, but the reality is the use of their dollar and their environment and their dirty energy competing with Canadian companies. We brag and boast about the fact that we are going to sell our energy everywhere and make a difference in the world. However, we sell it for fire sale prices to countries that use the energy that is subsidized to build things and put Canadian workers and companies out of business and attract other business there, because they use energy as a subsidy for development and production of goods and services.
However, we cannot talk about those things. We do not have that type of mature debate in the House of Commons. The reality is that we actually facilitate the demise of Canadian jobs, not based on competition but on the fact that we are okay with others' manipulation of the so-called free market economy and state intervention, and state subsidization against our workers here who beg for a national strategy on certain issues but get nothing.
Take, for example, our exports of automobiles to Japan. Canadian automobiles are equal or better on J.D. Power and other types of independent assessments of vehicles for quality, workmanship, production value, and for consumers; yet we cannot produce and ship into those markets. How fair is that? It is not. Yet this says that if we just opened more markets, then we should be doing great and we should be doing well.
From the year 2000, for trade agreements, promotion and protection agreements, and investment agreements, this is where we are at. We basically go to countries and we increase corporate rights. We do the work that taxpayers fund and we have no expectations on these agreements leading to Canadian jobs. We do the work for the corporations to get them into these markets without any expectations of what is going to take place with regard to jobs.
I will give the House an example and this one is really sad. Over the last number of years I have heard both the provincial and federal Liberals talking about trade and doing missions in India. Some companies have gone over there on the Canadian taxpayer's dime. I coach hockey and I know the people who come out with their kids. These are working people. Some are engineers. These engineers are in the process of losing their jobs. They are training people from India who come over here with an engineering degree and take their jobs. Congratulations on a great strategy. Those people are funding the trips from India and the expenditure and now are going to subsidize the fact and deal with the reality. They have to deal with the reality that day to day they will work with the people who will get their jobs even though those jobs are considered value-added jobs in Canada. These are well-paying jobs in Canada. This is taking place in a tool and die and mould-making company that is a stalwart of our local economy. It is a Canadian success story that is unequalled in the world in terms of quality and workmanship. It cannot be denied that tool and die and mould-making in Canada is the best. We are facing subsidization of our jobs.
Since 2000, we have signed agreements with countries, agreements that are supposed to give jobs to Canadians, that are supposed to increase the chances for economic improvement for not only themselves but collectively for the nation. Here are some of the countries that we have signed agreements with since 2000: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Guyana, Hong Kong, Iceland, Jordan, Korea, Kuwait, Latvia, Mali, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Poland, Romania, Senegal, Serbia, Slovakia, Switzerland, Tanzania, and Ukraine. These agreements were signed just in 2000 alone. There has been no talk about the others.
Let us be clear about this. Some of the provisions in CETA will crush Canadian industries. We have signed all of these agreements but where are the jobs? The Conservatives get up on a daily basis and tell the Liberals that they have not created a single job despite the fact that we have signed a number of different trade agreements over the last number of years. Where are the jobs? We would like to know. We would like to see what they are so we can at least measure them.
We will have certain exposures in these agreements that are well known. The cost of pharmaceuticals is a huge one. Investment-state provisions is another, and the dairy industry.
We need to at least hear from the government about what the measurables are that we are going to put in. The government pulled a number out for the agricultural industry in terms of supply management. We need to know, just like the Chilean agreement and others that we have signed in the past, where the jobs are, where our neighbours are employed, and most important, if there will be an adverse effect on the cost of living. We need to know what the agreement will do for us because we have subsidized it.