Mr. Speaker, maybe the member for London West missed it during my remarks but the reason we are doing so well in the export arena to this day, including in China, is because of some of the trade trips Prime Minister Chrétien took premiers and business folks on with him. That is where we started expanding trade. Maybe he missed it.
As I also said in my remarks, this is the first time in 30 years that we have had a deficit in merchandise trade and the current government is there. Just talking about trade is not enough. We have trade agreements in place with the United States, being one. We have a good export market in South Korea, being another. However, because we are not in the South Korean market, because I think the Minister of International Trade has caved in to the Minister of Finance, we are now seeing ourselves in the position of losing a billion dollars worth of pork and beef exports to Korea. As the member for London West and I found out when we were in Europe, and good work by the committee there I will admit, we probably will not regain the pork market, which we have lost in Korea, in Europe.
My point is that, while it is important to establish new agreements, it is even more important to not lose ground in the agreements that we have already established with the United States, Korea and elsewhere. That is where the government is going wrong. That is why we have a merchandise trade deficit for the first time in 30 years.
I would ask the member for London West and certainly the Minister of International Trade to wake up and smell the roses. They must start standing up for Canadians in the trade agreements we already have. Yes, do the expansion, but hold our ground on the trade agreements that we already have and see that we are not taken of advantage of by protectionism in the United States south of the border.