Madam Speaker, it is great to come up and speak to Bill C-13. Before I go on, I want to recognize that I am sharing my time with the member for Chatham-Kent—Leamington. He is such a great member, and another good member of the committee. I will talk a bit more about him later.
Being a member of the trade committee, I do want to compliment the committee on how well the members worked together in getting this agreement done. I want to compliment the committee because this is something that we actually worked on together and got it through.
I also want to highlight the fact that there has been lots of discussion of Bill C-13. I do not think I need to repeat all that. I think we all know what Bill C-13 is, but I do want to highlight one thing. This agreement would just enforce things that we are already doing at our borders and customs. It would bring the world level up to the Canadian level. It is very important to highlight the fact that other countries in the world looked at the Canadian system that was, under the Conservative government, pretty good, and said that they agreed and they were going to bring their systems up to the Canadian system as it was under the Conservative government. Let us hope the Liberals do not drop the ball on that one.
Sixty per cent of our GDP is reliant on trade. Canada is a trading nation. In order for Canadians to succeed and thrive and have strong families and the quality of life they deserve, we have to sell things abroad. However, people love what we have to offer. The parliamentary secretary talked about tractors out of Winnipeg. Ukrainians love those tractors. Americans love those tractors. There are so many Versatile tractors in Australia it is unreal, and so many Versatile tractors in Ukraine. I know first-hand because I worked in that sector.
However, the member could have also talked about MacDon Industries out of Winnipeg. Again, the machinery it makes is sold all over the world, and it is so good at it that big companies like John Deere, New Holland, Case, and AGCO would rather just buy from these guys. They know they do it so well, so why compete? Just let them do it. That is a great company out of Winnipeg.
Then manufacturers out of Saskatchewan are Bourgault Industries, Morris Industries, Seed Hawk, Conserva Pak, and Flexi-Coil, the company I used to work with, which is part of New Holland now. These guys sell machinery around the world.
The interesting thing about this machinery, and it kind of ties into the carbon sequestering comments, is that they have been sequestering carbon with no-till probably for 12 to 15 years now. They have been sinking that carbon in the soil by going no-till. They have reduced erosion. They have reduced their chemical and water usage. It used to be that a crop in the Prairies needed about 12 to 15 inches of rain to go from planting to harvest. If there was not that amount of rain, the farmers would not get a crop. I was talking to a farmer this past summer and he said that if he had four inches, he would get a crop. He said he had such great organic material in his soil it was second to none, so his fertilizer use is going down and his chemical use is going down, and his yields are going up. That is all based on innovation in Saskatchewan and in western Canada, which now the rest of the world is embracing and wants to buy. We have to make sure those people get access to it.
Bill C-13 will go through the House I assume unopposed, and it should. All the heavy lifting was done in the committee, and the committee did a great job. That is where I want to talk about the member for Chatham-Kent—Leamington. He was sitting there and he was so co-operative, providing positive input, and moving the bill forward. This is the type of co-operation that Canadians want to see on something as simple as this, because it is so good for all of Canada to have it go through. There is no reason to play politics with it and it never happened. There were no politics played with this one. It actually moved forward and came back to the House. I assume it will go through very quickly here also.
However, I do have to talk about CETA and about TPP. It would be a shame to let the parliamentary secretary get away with some of the comments he made there.
On CETA, we gave the Liberals the playbook. When the Liberals took government, CETA was done. They had to make a few little adjustments and then they had to get it across the finish line. To say that they are out renegotiating the CETA deal is just not right.
TPP is one thing that I think we need to really embrace. When we have CETA and we have TPP and Canada is in the middle, look at the customers we have and look at the spending power that the customers have to buy our products.
When I was the marketing manager for seeding equipment in eastern and western Europe and into the Ukraine, one of the problems we always had was getting cash for our product. These markets in western Europe are rich markets. These markets in Asia are wealthy markets. They have the money to buy the goods that we build and create, and to buy our technology. They want it. We have to give them access to it. We need to have trade agreements like CETA and TPP to do that.
What is really confusing for our manufacturers, farmers, and other service sectors here in Canada is when they see something like TPP they say, “It is great. It is going to open up this whole market. The Japanese are going to be in it now. I am going to have access to sell my beef into that market tariff free”. Then they see the Liberals just saying that they are going to restudy it.
I find that really interesting. They say we did not consult; Conservatives did not consult. I asked who was told they could not participate in the consultations; who asked if they could be involved in the consultations to whom we said no. I cannot find anybody. Anybody who wanted to be consulted, who wanted to consult with us and be part of the process, could have. The process was there.
The witnesses who come in front of the committee on TPP—because we have been studying it now for almost a year—are saying that this is the third or fourth time they have made their presentation on this topic and are asking why they are doing it again.
The sad thing about it is that we will do the report, it will come back into the House, hopefully the Liberals will see the light of the day and actually bring in legislation, and then it will go back to the committee. Then we will do it for a fifth time.
Is that a good use of resources? I do not think so. I think Canadians would be very upset if they realized what a dog and pony show is going on with these TPP consultations.
It is one thing to talk about the importance of trade, and it is one thing for some parties to say that they are pro-trade when they are not, and it is quite obvious in how they go about conducting themselves. It is quite obvious in how they go and ask the questions, how they conduct themselves in committee, and how they conduct themselves here in the House.
Some parties just do not understand the importance of trade. They do not understand that Canadians can compete with anybody in the world. They are not scared to compete. Our small and medium enterprises are not scared to go out and compete with anybody in the world. If they are given a level playing field, they will compete.
What they are concerned about is having things forced upon them, like a carbon tax that brings up their costs and that their competitors do not have. Look at a situation where there is a product made with hydro out of Manitoba, which is very green power, and yet they are competing against somebody making something in China, using coal. They can look at that and say they are paying a carbon tax with green power and losing market share because their costs are so high, but the same product made in China with coal power is now coming in and taking their market. That is what is concerning them about this carbon tax.
That is why it is very dangerous for one jurisdiction to move into situations like this, on a carbon tax or a green power program like the one they did here in Ontario, by itself without having other jurisdictions follow. If we have a true commitment to reduce global warming and carbon, then we have to do it as a globe. That means it has to be a level playing field across the globe. We cannot give preferential treatment to other areas of the world and expect Canadians to bear the brunt of it.
When I look back to trade, I also want to highlight some of the other things that are very important about trade. We can talk about the Honduras deal. That is a deal that will hopefully help Honduras and the people of Honduras establish themselves in a quality of life that actually will help them raise their families, get educated, and get good jobs, so they can turn away from violence and crime and just have a good job and be able to go home and spend time with their family, go to church on Sunday morning. That is what they really want, but when they are not given the opportunities to sell what they have and they do not have the opportunities to have investment into their country, then that does not happen. What happens is they relate to crime and other things.
I will stop right there and take questions on this. The reality is that Bill C-13 should be done. It should go through here with no problem at all. I look forward to seeing TPP come forward. I am looking forward to CETA coming forward. I think that is a trade deal to which everybody in Canada is looking forward.
As one last point, I was talking to some lobster guys in Nova Scotia. Do members know how much lobster is being shipped because of TPP and other trade deals now? The impact of trade deals and what they do for people's quality of life is amazing. Do members know who is driving the new trucks in Nova Scotia? It is lobster fishermen. That tells us of the impacts of trade deals. These guys have a better quality of life, and they buy a truck. Where is the truck made? It is made in Ontario. I cannot see how that can be a bad thing.
