Mr. Speaker, I wholeheartedly support this agreement. Canada is a trading nation and always has been, and I would be remiss if I did not talk about why that is the case.
If we look at the record of various governments over time in terms of the execution of trade agreements, we would find that our Conservative government signed more than 50 free trade agreements, whereas the previous Liberal regime signed fewer than five. It is the Conservatives in Canada who have seen the vision of Canada in terms of our ability to be a trading nation, and we actually executed those agreements. I want to give thanks to some of my colleagues here in the House, our former trade minister, our former agriculture minister, and former prime minister Stephen Harper for his vision on this agreement. This agreement was negotiated essentially through the blood, sweat, and tears of trade negotiators with whom our party worked within our government. I give a big shout-out to Canada's public service for working with our political leadership on this file. This deal was hand-wrapped, tied with a bow, and put under the Christmas tree for the Liberals to execute. I will give credit where credit is due on that particular note.
I would like to make a few points on why free trade is important and why it is important right now. I am very worried about the trend toward protectionism and nationalism that we are seeing internationally right now. The reality is that it benefits no one. The global economy is such that we are integrated. The global economy has an integrated supply chain in a lot of different areas, so to think that closing the doors to free trade would somehow bolster an industry within a country, or not have an impact on a nation's consumers, is a fallacy. I say that as a note of caution to colleagues around the world who might be looking at implementing protectionist policy without really thinking about the ramifications in the global economy of 2016. That is not a particularly productive thing.
I strongly encourage our government, when entering into negotiations or into discussions or diplomatic relationships with countries, to vigorously support the notion of trade. There are some in the House who would not support the notion of trade, but there are a lot of people here who would support that notion. Why is it important? I touched on a couple of those things briefly already.
One thing that has not really been talked about is the impact of this agreement on consumers in Canada. The removal of duties and tariffs on the range of products that we would have—specifically duties, in this case—would increase Canadian consumers' purchasing power by a large order of magnitude. When we look at economic downturns in a country and the ability of Canadian families to make ends meet, it is important to have free trade agreements, because the removal of these types of fees and penalties in the right environments can be translated into savings for families. It is also a more diverse set of goods. Consumer purchasing power can sometimes be increased simply by substituting goods for a monopoly product and introducing those substitute goods into at market through free trade agreements. That will also impact the ability of consumers to spend, and that is a fantastic thing.
The big win with this agreement is the job creating opportunities it presents.
If I have time, I will go into some of the specific benefits for Alberta, given that Alberta is in such a problematic situation with the job crisis there right now. I want to speak first about what I think needs to happen next, in order to realize the full benefits of this agreement.
I will transition by saying that opening up new markets for our products is a form of economic diversification. I will use the example of Alberta energy products. Obviously there are energy infrastructure issues associated with that. People often talk about value-added or how we get greater value-added for the extractive industry in Alberta around similar oil and gas products.
Whenever that discussion comes up, they refer simply to refining or additional refining capacity in Canada. I have read some interesting economic literature that looked at how simply opening up Canada's market access for those products would create a larger delta in ability to capitalize on greater profits from that. That is a very positive thing. If we translate that concept into the market access that is provided by this agreement, which I think is a market of over 500 million, that is a fantastic thing for basically every sector of the Canadian economy.
What do we need to do to capitalize on that? Economic diversification. When I was the minister of state for western economic diversification, one of the key priorities I articulated to my department was to ensure western Canadian companies, small and medium-sized enterprises, etc., were supported in both becoming aware of opportunities through agreements like CETA and also positioning them for success in a global supply chain. What does that mean? In the example of government procurement contracts, specifically military procurement, certainly CETA will open up our markets for us to participate in those kinds of contracts around the world.
How do small Canadian firms become certified such that OEMs in these types of companies would look at a Canadian firm to be part of a larger procurement project? Now that the government has taken a lot of the credit for signing this, the rubber will hit the road on how it programs that type of support service.
I have not heard a lot from the trade minister or from the industry minister as to concrete actions on how the government will look at supply chain development. Certainly, I have not heard a lot about the role of the economic development agencies in that perspective. I think there is already infrastructure within the government that could be utilized and leveraged in order to put that in place, of course with a large asterisk, making sure we are not picking winners or losers in government and that we are not being unwise stewards of taxpayer dollars on trade and promotion initiatives.
I want to give a shout-out to the Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership, or STEP, a perfect organization that we used to work with to connect small business producers in western Canada to larger trade and investment opportunities around the world. If we can have a larger market for our products, we will have a more profitable and vigorous economy in Canada. That is the whole point of having a trade agreement.
I also want to touch briefly on the concept of productivity in Canada. In order for Canadian firms to be productive in a post-CETA era, we need to focus on programming and policies that make them productive.
We also need to ensure we are not competitively disadvantaging Canada in a post-CETA era by adding complexity to our regulatory system. I am very worried about the government sending messages like it has been to the energy sector, where it has placed a huge degree of uncertainty on people who would be looking at investing in this sector, by saying it will change the environmental review process six times to Sunday but not saying how or when. It is musing about the coal ban and changing the rules.
When we change the rules without consultation and without understanding the broader economic implications, we hamper the ability of our economy to benefit from trade agreements like CETA. While the government is touting CETA, even though it did not really do anything to finalize it, there is a broader macro policy framework that will impede Canada's ability to be successful in this framework. Therefore, I very strongly encourage the government to stop marginalizing parts of our economy through very punitive and ill-thought-out policies, such as the ones the environment minister has been putting forward today.
While this is an excellent agreement, and I am fully supportive of it, there is much more work to be done. I hope all people in this place, regardless of political stripe, will stand up for Canada in pushing back against nationalist and protectionist rhetoric that hear in other parts of the world. That is very important. We need to push back on the fallacy that somehow closing our borders to trade will instantly bring back manufacturing jobs. We know that is not the case.
We know we need to look at things like the retention and training of skilled labour, ensuring we have an innovative economy where we retain intellectual property that is developed in Canada, ensuring we have a vibrant and robust intellectual property management framework, and that we attract venture capital to our country through regulatory certainty and other positive policies.