Mr. Speaker, we hear so much about trade. I keep hearing the words “free trade” or “free traders”. It is an ideology that everything is for free, and it makes me nervous. I feel like I am in a used car lot, where someone is trying to sell me a $40,000 car and it is almost free. The person says I will be given $2,000 if I buy the car. That is how people feel in my community.
Port Alberni had the highest median income in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Right now, it has the highest unemployment rate on Vancouver Island. What comes with that? It comes with high poverty, high suicide rates, and high teenage pregnancy. We did something wrong when we made the trade deals in the past, because coastal communities are being left out.
I want to ask the member this. What are we going to do differently in this trade deal, instead of just giving away our jobs and resources for free? How are we going to build up communities in the right way? That is what the NDP wants. We are for trade. We are for fair trade and we are for fairly protecting our communities and resources.