Mr. Speaker, I am gratified to know that the Liberal Party will be supporting this bill. Free trade is a very essential component of the Conservatives' platform. We are headed toward some 60 free trade agreements, with 38 of them now in place. This is the key to prosperity.
The Liberals might be surprised to know that some countries are asking what is in it for them. Canada is a land that is rich, not only in natural resources but also many manufactured goods, environmental technologies, and intellectual property, which we are able to export around the world. They are somewhat concerned that they will not be able to benefit as much as Canada is benefiting from these free trade agreements.
Make no mistake about it, that is something we are concerned about. We want to make sure that other countries can benefit from having these agreements, but these agreements will very much benefit Canada. This is a way to get our exports out into the world. We used to depend on the U.S. as our primary trading partner. It had $368 billion worth of trade in Canadian exports in 2008. In 2009, that dropped to $270 billion, and it has not been back to the 2008 levels. We must go out to the world to sell our products, and that is the key to Canadian jobs and Canadian success.