Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague, as chair of the trade committee, always operates that committee with an even hand and is fair to members from all parties in terms of his deliberations and judgment as chair of that committee.
I can disagree without being disagreeable with the hon. member, but I do disagree with him in terms of this agreement. I think it was a one-sided agreement. I think the Americans knew that the Canadian government was very keen on getting a domestic political announcement in place and was operating against the time clock and effectively forced our hand and dragged the puck until most of the stimulus was gone, forcing Canadian companies to live with the crumbs.
However, we need to get this debate focused on the future and how we can deepen our trade relationship with the U.S. while we diversify our relations elsewhere and improve our capacity to defend ourselves against protectionism.