Mr. Speaker, I would offer an update on the numbers on direct investment between Canada and the European Free Trade Association countries.
The numbers for 2007 now show that investments are up at $28 billion, from $24 billion in 2006. So investment is a chapter that we intend to add, as well as a chapter on trade and services. The agreement makes provision for those to be added as chapters. It also stipulates that should be done within the next three years. So, we will be working with the EFTA countries to ensure that we put those chapters in place in a timely way.
I have spoken to shipbuilding. I will say again that the Canadian shipbuilding industry is about to go through a renaissance. I think it is dinosaur thinking to build the future of an industry as potentially dynamic as shipbuilding on the kind of protectionism that we have applied in the past. It is an industry that has the capacity in certain kinds of vessels and certain technologies to be globally competitive. It is an industry that can have a long term future, not just a future that is propped by interim protectionism. It is an industry that has a future.
The structured financing facility, as the member knows, is not in my bailiwick. That is the Minister of Industry's portfolio. However, I would say that we, as a government, will be assessing that on a go-forward basis, assessing whether it is sufficient to support the global competitiveness of the shipbuilding industry. Then we will see how it looks over the next couple of years.