Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his wonderful speech and for his work on the trade files in previous Parliaments. He certainly has been an asset to me in helping me in my new role. I want to talk about what he spoke about, around working-class people.
There is another section of working-class people who will be impacted dramatically in CETA and that is those who are in the maritime jobs sector. CETA will for the first time legally allow foreign-owned vessels and foreign crews to transport goods between Canadian ports, which is called cabotage, and will open up domestic dredging contracts to foreign suppliers. CETA will lead to the immediate loss of approximately 3,000 Canadian seafarers' jobs. These are high-quality, well-paid jobs.
The industry as a whole supports over 250,000 direct and indirect jobs. Foreign boats will bring in foreign workers with no requirement for LMIAs. These workers can be paid as little as $2 an hour. We are going to be permitting more foreign flagged vessels and we are going to hurt yet another sector, but unfortunately, the Liberal government does not want to speak about the impacts of this deal and address them so that we can get it right.
Does the member agree that these are serious concerns that deserve parliamentarians' consideration before we rubber-stamp this agreement?