Mr. Speaker, at the Summit of the Americas held in Miami, the three trade partners currently in NAFTA invited Chile to join. Even though the negotiations will only start in May, preparatory work will begin as early as January. We in the official opposition welcome and applaud this initiative taken by the NAFTA partners.
Besides the above mentioned negotiations, the 34 countries at the Summit of the Americas agreed to begin negotiations on hemisphere-wide free trade with a target date of 2005, and NAFTA will eventually be part of this broader agreement.
Given such openness, we are convinced that Quebec, as one of the most fervent proponents of free trade on the American continent, will be warmly welcome by the trading nations when it becomes sovereign. But for now, on behalf of the official opposition, let me say Bienvenido al Chile.