Mr. Speaker, to answer the hon. member's question, I would clearly agree with the hon. member that it took far too long for this to come to the House. I would also agree with him and my colleague, the Reform critic for international trade, that this issue should have gone to a NAFTA panel immediately. It is unfortunate that the government chose not to do that.
I hope that in the future the minister will know that he can receive co-operation from this side of the House in bringing these initiatives much more quickly through a NAFTA panel or the WTO. If this does come up in the future, I hope he will take this initiative.
Very soon after these initiatives take place, I am sure our Reform critic for international trade will be very happy to give his expert opinion on constructive ways we can resolve these very complicated issues in international trade.
As an aside, I hope that in dealing with the Canada-Israeli free trade agreement the minister is also going to take note of the impact on the Palestinian people. If he chooses to ignore this he is going to do damage to a key linchpin on helping to resolve some of the major issues in the current Middle East crisis.
Therefore I would strongly advise him to take heed and pay attention to acting co-operatively with the Palestinian people to ensure that the Canada-Israeli free trade agreement is going to deal with co-operative initiatives to improve the tragic and terrible economic situation that we see on the West Bank and Gaza strip.