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Results: 1501 - 1515 of 1564
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, Canada lost a staggering 112,000 private sector jobs in August. Over the past year, our working-age population has grown by 375,000, but only 15,000 new full-time jobs were created.
The Conservatives' small business tax credit will make this dire situation worse by giving employers a perverse incentive to actually cut jobs. The Liberal plan would foster growth and help create as many as 176,000 new jobs.
Why would the government not adopt our plan?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Justice recently made remarks to the Ontario Bar Association that were so strikingly sexist that lawyers there described them as offensive.
As one of the many mothers of young children in this House, I wonder whether the minister believes that we, too, should be intimidated by the old boys' network. Does the minister think that we, too, should stay at home because of our special maternal bond with our young children?
Will the minister apologize for his blatant chauvinism?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, this month Toronto will have the honour of hosting the WorldPride Celebration. My constituency of Toronto Centre will be at the heart of the festivities.
We can be proud this landmark celebration will take place nearly nine years after gay marriage became legal across Canada.
What better symbol of our decade of equality than our victorious premier, Kathleen Wynne, the Commonwealth's first openly lesbian elected head of government?
WorldPride is a moment for us to redouble our work to support LGBT rights. Here at home, a particular focus must be LGBT youth, who are too often a target of bullying and disproportionately find themselves homeless and unemployed.
WorldPride is an essential time for us to speak out about LGBT rights around the globe as well. Too many countries, ranging from Russia to Uganda, are turning back the clock.
LGBT rights are human rights. Canada must be both a world leader and a global haven on this crucial issue.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, it does seem cruel to be talking about Canada's excellent cheeses at a quarter to six. I got very hungry listening to the previous presentation.
Having heard about the hon. member's great love for Canadian cows and Canadian dairy, I cannot resist sharing with the House the fact that I am not only the daughter-in-law of a dairy farmer but also a granddaughter of dairy farmers, and so I join everyone here in our support for our great dairy industry and the tremendous innovations that are happening there.
What I would like to talk about today, and what I think this gives us an opportunity to talk about more broadly, is our trade policy. I would like to discuss what is happening with the CETA deal and the need for transparency in our trade policy so that Canadians can see what is happening and the House can discuss what the deal actually contains. I want to talk about a trade policy that actually delivers, a policy whereby deals that are announced are actually concluded and whereby the deals that now stand concluded actually deliver the results. We in the Liberal Party know a good trade policy can and must deliver for the Canadian economy.
We need trade to work for us because we are a small country—not in geography, but in population—in a huge world economy. Without effectively joining Canada into the global economy, Canada will fail. Our middle class will fail to have the rising incomes that we are not getting now and that we really need.
We are really supportive of an effective trading policy. However, I am sad to say that we do not feel we are getting the results that a truly liberal trade policy should be delivering. In particular, I would like to talk about CETA.
The CETA deal, as we all know, was signed with a lot of fanfare on October 18 of last fall by the Prime Minister and the President of the EU, José Manuel Barroso. We still do not have that deal concluded, although we have had some opportunities. The Prime Minister was recently in Brussels. There was a lot of speculation and a lot of hope among Canadians that he would come home with a done deal. He has not done that. We would like to hear why. We would like to know what is going on.
The irony of the situation for us as Canadian legislators, at least for those of us on this side of the House, is that right now we and Canadian citizens are hearing more from EU officials and EU diplomats.They have been quite open in talking about how the deal is not quite ready and talking, quite frankly, about how that initial agreement was signed much earlier than is normal in these trade negotiations and that much more work needed to be done then. More seems to still need to be done now than we were led to believe when the agreement was signed with such great fanfare.
It is even the case that we have had a hard time tracking down what was actually signed. We submitted an access to information request to access the agreement that was actually signed by the Prime Minister and the President of the EU. Here is what we were told by the Privy Council Office:
A thorough search of the records under the control of PCO was carried out on your behalf; however, no records relevant to your request were found.
This really is theatre of the absurd. We really would like to know. I think everyone in the House would like to know and needs to know. As the private member's bill suggests, we need more transparency on what is happening. We need not just great photo ops, but the details of what is going on with these trade deals that are so essential for the Canadian economy and for Canadians.
What I am particularly concerned about when it comes to the CETA deal is that because of the timing, because of the lag between today, in the middle of June, and October 18, Canada now finds itself behind the United States in the queue of nations that are negotiating trade with the EU. The story of Canada, the story of Canadian diplomacy in the world, is understanding what it means to be the neighbour of the United States. There can be big advantages, but it also means we have to dance delicately and lightly and act smarter.
While we were ahead of the U.S., while the U.S. proposals were not on the table, there was a real opportunity for us to have the full attention of EU officials and EU negotiators. Now, however, I am very sad to say that people informed about these deals are saying that EU officials are, understandably, focusing much more time and energy on their negotiations with the United States. We are now, I am afraid to say, in a position where important concerns, including concerns of the Canadian dairy industry and of Canadian auto manufacturers, are going to have to take a back seat to the deal being hammered out by the Americans, and we may well find ourselves having to settle not for a deal made for Canada in Europe but for a copy of what the Americans are able to negotiate.
It did not have to be that way, given that this deal was being worked on earlier, and we would really like to hear why we have let ourselves fall behind a party that has a bigger economy to bring to the table.
I would also like to point out that despite the fact that many of us in this House agree that trade and exports need to be, and are, an essential part of a healthy Canadian economy, we are just not seeing that performance today. We have photo ops and we have trade deals announced, but they are not moving the dial when it comes to Canada's actual economic performance.
I do not ask members to blindly trust my assertion. I do not ask members to simply take my word when it comes to the undeniable fact that Canada's trade policy, although we are getting the photo ops and the announcements, is not delivering for the Canadian economy. Here is who I do ask members to trust: the Bank of Canada.
In its financial system review published this month, this is what the Bank of Canada had to say, in part, about export and trade and its performance for the Canadian economy: “In Canada, the anticipated rebalancing of economic growth toward exports and investment remains elusive....”
These are damning words. It is not enough to have photo ops of trade deals. It is not even enough to have trade deals. What we need are trade deals that do the job we need them to do, and that is to strengthen the Canadian economy. Right now, as the Bank of Canada economists say, we need a tilt toward exports. Trade deals are meant to facilitate that, but as the Bank of Canada says, that shift remains elusive.
We really need to see and would like to see more transparency about what the government is doing on this file. We need and want to see harder work on this file and more delivered results.
I would like to cite another source, another group that is deeply concerned about Canada's export performance. This is another group that we in the Liberal Party listen to very closely, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. What business has to say about Canada's trade and about export performance in particular is very worrying. Its report was issued just last month, and even the title is very worrying: “Turning it Around: How to Restore Canada’s Trade Success”. It states that “... the increase in exports and outward investment has been slow in recent years, and diversification to emerging economies has been limited.”
This is echoing the Bank of Canada report. We are just not seeing the export performance that we need.
The Chamber of Commerce is worried. In referring to “Canada's lagging trade performance”, here is what it says:
Despite more firms looking abroad, Canada is lagging its peers according to several measures. Over the past decade, the value of exports has increased at only a modest pace.
Most worrying of all, the chamber did an interesting calculation in which it backed out the increase in commodity prices that has flattered Canada's export performance. It concluded:
If these price increases are excluded, the volume of merchandise exports shipped in 2012 was actually five per cent lower than in 2000 despite a 57 per cent increase in trade worldwide.
Therefore, the real story—what the numbers say, what the Chamber of Commerce is worried about, and what the Bank of Canada is warning us about—is that our trade performance is lagging behind. We need to do better.
To conclude, we very much hope that we will have more transparency and better performance on the CETA deal and on deals with some of the big emerging markets in the world.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, this month Toronto will have the honour of hosting the WorldPride celebration. This is an essential moment for us all to assert that LGBT rights are human rights, and to establish Canada both as a world leader and a global haven on this crucial issue.
My constituents understandably expect their Prime Minister to take part. Could the Prime Minister please tell the House which of the many Pride events he will be attending?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by saying that I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for Bourassa.
It is a real honour and a pleasure to be talking about this subject here in this House today. Rising income inequality is one of the most striking and most important new characteristics of the 21st century economy. It is a way the world economy and, particularly, the economies of the western industrialized countries have changed.
For all of us here in this House grappling with that transformation, it should be our absolute priority to understand it and work on ways to make this new economy work for all Canadians.
I would like to start with some data points. According to the IMF, since 1980, the richest 1% increased their share of income in 24 out of 26 countries. That is a really significant data point, because very often debates about income inequality happen in a national context, as our debate is happening here, and we lose sight of the fact that this particular story is a global story.
Of course there are national aspects, but overall the shape of what is happening is something that is happening particularly across the western industrialized countries. We must understand that in order to really understand what is going on.
This is happening in Canada as well. In 1980, the top 1% collected $8 out of every $100 earned in Canada. By 2010, that had surged 50% to $12 out of every $100. In the meantime, middle-class incomes in this country have been stagnating.
In 1980, middle-class families reported income of $57,000, and 30 years later they were still at $57,000. This growing income divide—and as I said, an income divide that we are seeing growing across the western industrialized countries—is also translating into a growing wealth gap.
I would like to cite one figure. This is based on some very important research that Oxfam has done, which is really important and something for us to all focus on. Oxfam calculated that if we took the richest 85 people in the world, their wealth is equal to the wealth of the bottom 50% of the whole world, 35 billion people. That is just 85 people, which is a lot fewer than it would take to fill this House. It would fill maybe a quarter of my side of the House. Let us think for one moment about what that says about our world today and about how the world economy is working.
It is important when we are talking about this, and particularly when our conversation moves to talking about political solutions, to really reflect on and acknowledge the fact that this is a new phenomenon. The world economy today is working differently from the way it did, particularly in the post-war era, when I think many of our conceptions of how the world economy works, and certainly many of our political ideas, were formed.
In the post-war era, we had a Goldilocks economy. It was a time when there was very strong economic growth across the western industrialized world, and at the same time income inequality was actually decreasing.
Starting about 30 years ago, that changed. Even as the economy grew, we started to see income inequality surging: a growing share of the income going to the very top and incomes in the middle either stagnating or actually declining, depending on which measure and which timeframe.
There is a lot of debate about what is driving this phenomenon. Inevitably that debate becomes politically tinged. All of us who approach honestly what is happening will have to agree that there are three primary drivers. One of them is in fact political.
The 30 years in which we have seen this surging income inequality across the west also coincided with the rise of neo-liberalism, what we might want to call the Thatcher-Reagan revolution. We saw a combination of weaker protections for trade unions, a culture that accepted higher compensation, particularly for executives—higher CEO compensation—a new philosophy of shareholder value in companies, lower taxes at the top, and crucially, deregulation of many industries.
Therefore there was this political element, and again that political element had national features, of course, but it was also something that happened across countries, particularly because we are living in an age when so many businesses operate internationally and there has been, in many cases, particularly on the taxation front, competition across jurisdictions.
However, there are also two other factors that are really important drivers of what is going on, and those are globalization and the technology revolution. For me, those two factors are the ones on which it is really important to focus; and it is important for all of us, particularly those who see rising income inequality as a huge problem, to acknowledge that these two drivers of rising income inequality are also very positive. That is the paradoxical nature of what is going on.
The technology revolution, bringing us so many pluses, is also a driver of increasing income inequality. The same is true of globalization. If we are blind to that paradoxical nature of what is happening, we are not going to be able to come up with good solutions. Particularly when it comes to the technology revolution, it is important for us to understand something. I will refer to one of my favourite books on the subject, The Second Machine Age by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. They argue that there is no law in economics that provides that the technology revolution will lead to more jobs or evenly distributed rewards. That is really important to bear in mind. Changes in the economy, which are good in aggregate, may not be good for individuals, and it is going to be our job as legislators to find ways to strike that balance.
What can we do about this? I have talked about something that is big, that is new, and that is global. How can we cope with it? I would like to quickly talk about five ways in which we can approach it. The first is to do no harm, and that is why we in the Liberal Party are absolutely opposed to income splitting. At a time when there are powerful economic forces, many of them good, which are driving up income inequality, introducing changes to our own legislation, rather than pushing back against them, and increasing income inequality is absolute political and democratic malpractice.
The second absolutely important thing is to focus on equality of opportunity. A terrific Canadian economist, Miles Corak, has identified something that has been dubbed by his admirers The Great Gatsby curve, which shows that rising income inequality correlates with declining social mobility. We have to push back against that, particularly with investment in schools, families, and early childhood education.
A third area that is absolutely essential is to be open to innovation, particularly innovation for people who might not have the opportunities and networks. One thing we are seeing is that old businesses are dying. That is part of the technology revolution and of globalization. We have to be the country where it is easiest for someone with a great idea to start a new business.
Finally, and this is really crucial, we have to understand that we operate in a globally connected economy. We are living at a time when capital is global, but politics and legislation very often are not. If we want to capture the wealth that is being accumulated in the world, we are going to have to come up with some global answers. I am going to quote Larry Summers, the former U.S. secretary of the treasury, and then Pope Francis. Larry Summers stated:
The share of corporate profits taken by tax authorities around the world is probably a little more than half of what it was 40 years ago. And the reason is a basic process of competition, a basic ability to move business activity or to use accounting tricks to move income to low-tax jurisdictions.
Therefore, we are going to have to work together to push against that trend.
In conclusion, I would like to cite a higher authority on why this is so much of an issue and that is, as threatened, Pope Francis himself. He has said that increasing income inequality is the root of social evil. I really believe that. I hope that together in the House we can identify this as a major problem and work together to try to fix it for Canadians.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I did not misspeak. It is the position of our party that we believe, like the late minister Jim Flaherty, that income splitting would increase income inequality and we are not in favour of it.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, absolutely, I think the Nordic countries provide some very important examples and lessons for us. Interestingly, if we look at market incomes before government intervention, they too have experienced an increase in income inequality among those countries, as my hon. colleague knows very well, and the IMF has cited in its research.
What they have done though to push against those tides is a few things. They have had a very great focus on social opportunity, particularly on education, and I think Finland in particular has some important lessons. They have had a very great focus on innovation and opportunity for economic innovation. There I would say we have a lot to learn from Sweden and maybe from Norway.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, today what we are talking about is future policies. As we have discussed, and we have heard some very good data cited today, income splitting has been supported and advocated by the Prime Minister, although it was opposed by the late minister of finance, Jim Flaherty. It is something that we oppose precisely because we believe, as the C.D. Howe Institute has argued, as most reputable economists have argued, that it would increase income inequality.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I think there is no dishonour in agreeing, sometimes, with my hon. colleagues in the NDP or in citing someone I think we all respected very much, the late Jim Flaherty.
As I tried to argue in my comments, this is a phenomenon that has been going on for 30 years. The IMF found income inequality increasing over 30 years in 24 of 26 countries it studied. Of course, it is our job to try to pinpoint specific moments of legislation, but this is a global trend. We have to, if we are being honest, see it that way, try to understand it that way, and try to figure out what to do about it.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, tomorrow Petro Poroshenko will be inaugurated as president of Ukraine, after earning a powerful democratic mandate in last month's election. However, Ukraine continues to face extreme pressure from Russia. Crimea has been annexed, and Russian nationals, armed by Russia, are terrorizing the people and undermining the government in Donbass.
When will Canada finally join our ally, the United States, in adding Igor Sechin, president of Rosneft and a member of the Kremlin inner circle, to our sanctions list?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister flew to Brussels amid great fanfare last October to sign an agreement in principle on the European trade deal, but that deal has now stalled, and when we requested the documents signed in public by the Prime Minister, the Privy Council Office replied that, quote, “no records relevant to the request were found”.
Did the Prime Minister sign anything at all in October, or was it merely an expensive photo op with no substance behind it?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, tonight I will speak about why the Liberal Party is supportive of free trade as an important, essential part of Canada's economic strategy. I will talk about why we support this Honduran free trade deal. I will talk about some of the problems with this deal that we need to be aware of. We think it is a deal that we need to enter into with eyes wide open, and I will speak about some of the overall problems that we are seeing in the trade strategy being pursued by the government.
Let me start by talking a little bit about free trade and why it is so essential to Canada. Eighty per cent of our economy is in some way connected with international trade. We are a big country geographically, but there are not too many of us. In this globalized world economy, it is absolutely essential for Canada to be open to the world economy. Some 19.2% of jobs in Canada are directly connected with trade. In addition, each job in the export sector adds another 1.9 jobs, so trade is really an essential part of any economic strategy to make Canada grow.
With the Honduras deal in particular, we have been talking about the relative size of this deal, the relative size of the Honduran economy, why it is really a small piece of our overall trade puzzle, and that is absolutely right, but it is also really important to get Honduran trade right. In fact, right now, I am sad to report that when it comes to Honduras, we are not dealing particularly well. Currently, as of 2012, we exported $39 million worth of goods to Honduras, and imported $219 million worth of goods.
A little bit earlier in the debate we heard some loose talk about Ricardo, and how, when it comes to trade, we should not worry too much about trade deficits. It all evens out in the end. Trade is just basically good. That is a nice theory and a nice point of view, but I submit, when it comes to jobs in Canada and the real lives of middle-class Canadians, it is absolutely essential that we have a strong, export-led, and export-driven economy. I would urge people who are interested in the works of Ricardo, if they have read them, to actually look at the more recent experience of highly successful economies like Germany, where we have seen very powerful, very strong, very strategic export-led growth be a recipe for a strong middle class. I think to argue that deficits do not matter, trade deficits do not matter, is a very profound mistake.
I would like to talk a little bit now about the Honduras deal and an issue that I think is very important for us to bear in mind, and that is the value side of the equation. As I have said, we support this deal. We believe in trade and we believe in trading with the world, but it is important to note that Honduras is a country that has a very troubled political and human rights record. We do not think that is a reason to not trade with Honduras. We are great believers that engagement, that trade, can be a way for Canada's democracy to help countries along that continuum. We have seen that happen in many parts of the world.
We also believe it is absolutely essential to be aware of these issues from the start, and to enter into this trading relationship aware of them and with a plan to monitor them. I would urge all of us, as we are talking about expanding our trade relations with Honduras, to be very mindful of the example of Russia, a country I personally know very well and really love.
As Russia moved out of Communism on the path to a market economy and democracy, we made a similar argument, that trade and engagement would be a valuable way of helping Russia become a more open society, and for many years, I believe that was the case. However, sometimes that just does not work, and what we have seen with Russia is Russia making a choice with Ukraine in November 2013, and most crucially and tragically, with Crimea in February 2014, to exclude itself from the international community.
What that has meant is that the countries that made this pact with Russia, which said they were going to extend a hand of friendship and trade with it, are now having to pull back, and that means a real economic cost. I would say to all of us here, particularly those members who, like the Liberal Party, support this deal with Honduras, let us make a pledge tonight that part of the deal is putting values first.
Part of the deal, of course, is about the Canadian economy and the importance of trade, but we also need to pledge to watch very closely what is happening with democracy, journalists, labour activists, indigenous people, women, and the LGBT community. If there is a tipping point, we have to be prepared, even if it comes at an economic cost, to pull out of that trading relationship. I cannot emphasize how important it is to us as a country to put those values at the centre.
Having spoken about Honduras, I would like to speak a bit more generally about where our free trade agenda is in the picture of the Canadian economy. Like everyone in the House, I noted with great disappointment the surprising trade deficit in April, which was $638 million according to Statistics Canada. That is a very poor performance and it is very worrying.
I suspect that my respected colleagues, especially those on the other side of the House, may not take my word for it when it comes to where Canada's trading relationship and performance are. I think there is an organization, you gentlemen, and it is only gentlemen this evening—we could talk about gender issues, but we will not do that right now—I think you gentlemen are probably interested in the Canadian—
Mr. Jeff Watson: Why is everything a gender issue with you?
Ms. Chrystia Freeland: I think you gentlemen are probably interested—
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I will do that, although I would ask you to help ensure more collegial behaviour on all sides of the House.
I suspect that the members on the other side of the House will not doubt the credibility or the significance of a report from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, one of our country's leading industry bodies. In May 2014, it published a report called “Turning it Around: How to Restore Canada's Trade Success”. That title should worry us. It does not sound like it is too great a verdict.
The first chapter is called “Canada's Lagging Trade Performance”. Here is what it says:
International trade is one of the fastest and most effective ways for Canadian businesses to grow, create jobs and contribute to the economy. However, the increase in exports and outward investment has been slow in recent years, and diversification to emerging economies has been limited.
...Canada is lagging its peers according to several measures. Over the past decade, the value of exports has increased at only a modest pace.... If...price increases [in energy] are excluded, the volume of merchandise exports shipped in 2012 was actually five per cent lower than in 2000 despite a 57 per cent increase in trade worldwide.
For a party like the Liberal Party, which believes strongly in middle-class prosperity and in trade as a path toward that, these are damning words indeed.
According to the report:
Canada’s foreign investment trends tell a similar story. Export Development Canada has recorded significant growth in sales by Canadian foreign affiliates...but evidence suggests that sales levels are relatively higher for affiliates from the U.S., the U.K., Japan and Australia.
Not only are we doing less well than we did in 2000, despite a robustly globalizing world economy, we are lagging our international peers. This is why the Liberal Party believes so strongly in trade and why we would really like to see Canadian policy, Canadian action, that is not just about slogans, not just about photo ops, but is actually about a strategic approach and getting deals done.
That brings me to a deal we have been speaking about quite a lot this week, which is the European trade deal. In October, our Prime Minister, with great fanfare and at some expense, travelled to Brussels to sign an agreement in principle on the European trade deal. I am very sad to report that unfortunately, that deal has not yet been concluded, despite the fact that the Prime Minister has travelled again this week to Brussels, which would have been a great opportunity to conclude that very important deal.
I have more worrying news still to report. We requested from the government the actual documents the Prime Minister signed. We can see the Prime Minister signing it if we look at video of that October 18 event. Here was the response we had from the PCO:
A thorough search of the records under the control of the PCO was carried out on your behalf; however, no records relevant to your request were found.
We would like to hear at some point what the Prime Minister actually signed and what is happening with that deal. We believe the Honduras free trade deal is important, but obviously the European free trade deal is much more important.
In conclusion, we believe absolutely that particularly today, in 2014, in the age of globalization, in the age when technology has truly flattened the world economy, Canada has no choice but to be an energetically and strategically trading nation. That is our path to prosperity for our own middle class, and if we do it right and we do it with pure hearts, as well as with smart brains, we can use trade to be a real way of encouraging the growth of democracy in civil society around the world.
However, I am very sad to say that today in our trade agenda we see Canada falling behind. As the Canadian Chamber of Commerce itself concluded just last month, we have a lagging trade performance. I submit that it is because we are focusing far too much on photo ops, which may have been without an actual document signed. We would love to hear more about that.
We have much less of a clear strategy focusing on big trading partners and on the big places of growth in the world, and much less effective follow-through. We would love to see much more focus on Africa, for example.
Here is what Canada needs: a truly strategic global trade policy, a policy that is about world strategy and fitting Canada into the global economy, a policy that always remembers that we cannot be an effective trading nation without putting our values first, and finally, a trade policy that is not just about photo ops but is about actually getting the deal done.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I would like to start with the hon. member's point about Germany and how its apprenticeship system, which I think has a lot of admirable traits, may not be relevant to Canada.
I would like to point out to the member that his own employment minister speaks often and very favourably of the German apprenticeship program. Although the German apprenticeship program is not on the agenda tonight, it would be great for the government to get its act together, but maybe the talking points on apprenticeships were not on the top of the pile this evening.
To the point of trade, of course, anyone who advocates trade as strongly, wholeheartedly, and with as deep an interest in it as the Liberal Party does understands that trade is a two-way relationship. What I am arguing, however, is that right now what we are seeing in Canada is a worrying one-way relationship, as witnessed by that $638-million trade deficit in April. What we are seeing is that we are pretty good at buying goods from other people, but we are not that great at selling our stuff abroad. That worries me. It should worry everybody else in this House.
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