Madam Speaker, today I am rising to follow up on a question I asked on December 2 of last year. This was a question about workers at CAMI Assembly in Ingersoll, Ontario, who at the time were on strike. They have since gone back to work, thankfully, but they have really been feeling the negative impacts of NAFTA on their community. It was wonderful to see their entire community come out in support of them and recognize the importance of auto manufacturing jobs to the health of their local economy.
NAFTA talks have continued this week and very little is focusing on its impact on working people. Before committing to any agreement, we need to ensure that Canadians' lives and our communities have been improved by this trade relationship.
Twenty-three years ago when NAFTA was originally negotiated by the Mulroney Conservatives they tried to sell Canadian workers on the idea that it would bring prosperity to everyone across the continent. Mulroney's government claimed that NAFTA would be a great equalizer and was a trade agreement that would float all boats. Labour and civil societies were deeply concerned that the weak labour side agreement would do nothing to change the alarming trend of growing income inequality in our country. However, the Conservative government pressed on, and today we know the harsh impact of this trade deal on working people.
Since 1994, successive governments have neglected to address the alarming and worsening reality that the NAFTA promise has not led to increased standards of living for all, and that the majority of the benefits have gone to those who already hold a great deal of power and influence.
Income and wealth inequality in Canada today is at a crisis level. To say that NAFTA has not played a role in that would be disingenuous. Just ask those 3,000 workers at GM's CAMI plant in Ingersoll who waged a long and bitter strike in order to get a commitment from the corporation to retain their jobs. Workers will still see their main production vehicle moved to two plants in Mexico, where workers are paid an average of $4 per hour.
This world-class facility in southwestern Ontario has provided the surrounding regions' economies with millions of dollars, but unfortunately, under NAFTA its fate is uncertain, as have been so many other production lines before it.
Often, proponents of free trade try to pass off the loss of automotive jobs as being due to an advancement in automation alone. Although automation has contributed to a small decline in jobs in manufacturing, we need to be very clear that the level of automation in a Mexican auto plant is identical to one in Canada. The real issue is that consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments have allowed corporations to take advantage of low-wage economies and workers worldwide, ignoring their rights while putting Canadian workers at a serious disadvantage.
The international standards for labour laws are codified by the International Labour Organization's eight core conventions, and although Canada signed on to ratify all of them, we cannot turn a blind eye to the reality of workers in North America. Canada must be a world leader when it comes to promoting labour standards around the world at all times. This means that the Liberal government cannot ignore labour standards while renegotiating NAFTA or other future trade agreements.
There is a question I need to ask. Is the labour chapter in NAFTA a red line for the Liberals that they will not dare cross in NAFTA or any other trade agreement we have, or like their predecessors, will they continue to protect the interests of their rich friends by raising them up while the rest of us continue to sink?