Mr. Speaker, I regret to inform the hon. member that the negotiations are not yet completed with respect to an internal trade agreement.
As I always understood the position of the Bloc Quebecois, it favoured trade liberalizing agreements. Apparently it favours them with other countries but not with other provinces. This is a difficult thing for me to comprehend.
With respect to the specific question on regional economic development, let me say that we have conducted discussions throughout the process as a multilateral negotiation. The federal government is at the table with a position. Provincial governments of various political colours are at the table and they have different positions.
Our position from the point of view of the federal government is we want the maximum possible trade liberalizing measures within the internal trade agreement. We believe that is essential in order to enable Canadian firms to develop the domestic market to make them competitive in the international trading arenas in which they find themselves, whether we talk of NAFTA or whether we talk of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the Uruguay round which was concluded recently. That is our objective.
At the end of the day, the provinces and the federal government are going to have to look at the deal that has been negotiated. The provinces are entitled to put forward what they want. Collectively we will have to decide whether we have an agreement which makes a measurable improvement both in economic terms as well as in the structured terms over the existing conditions.