Mr. Speaker, when I had the opportunity to question the Minister for International Trade on the signing of the free trade agreement between Chile and Canada, he situated this agreement to some extent within the context of Canada's general international trade in his response.
I think we must look at this agreement in the context of what we are doing in Canada to diversify our trade with the United States and to find new markets, especially markets opening up in the Asia-Pacific region and in Latin America. In this context, it seems to me that Chile is very important, because it is now associated with Mercasur, an association of four Latin American countries: Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil.
If we really intend to create a free trade zone in the Americas by 2005, as stated in Miami a year ago, we must remember that there is a lot of work to be done in terms of international trade and the signing of agreements like the one we have with Chile.
In that context I would like to pursue my question of the minister. In his answer to my question, he specifically said that he perceived that the additional advantage this agreement would bring to this country would be in the areas of investment, tariff reduction and perhaps serving as a model whereby the United States would be brought into this process.
Clearly tariff reduction is there. That is a factor in every agreement of this nature, so let us leave that aside and speak for a moment on both the investment issue and the American issue. I would like to ask additional questions of the parliamentary secretary.
How do we see Chile in terms of its investment regulations? My understanding is that when the tesobonos problems arose with Mexico it shook the very foundations of the financial markets of Latin America. Chile was one country which survived that experience precisely because it had in place investment controls which were more strict than those of other Latin American countries. Mexico in fact collapsed and then Argentina very nearly collapsed on top of it, but Chile survived.
Surely it would seem to me that when we enter into an agreement with Chile that we would want to reinforce and enable that type of arrangement to be in place. We would be a part of it and we would relate that to the International Monetary Fund and other monetary policies. That is certainly an issue which I think is preoccupying for many of us when we look at this agreement.
Perhaps more preoccupying is the role of the United States in this. It is clear that it would be beneficial to bring the United States into this agreement. It is clear that if free trade of the Americas is going to be realized by the year 2005, an essential first step is to bring in the United States.
Will the United States be brought in with environmental and labour standards side agreements such as those we have insisted on in NAFTA? My understanding is that the present political climate in Washington is that an ever increasingly conservative Congress will resist a great deal any suggestion by the administration that we should have side agreements of this nature attached to the Chile agreement.
It seems to me that if ultimately Chile is going to be a part of NAFTA, then we have to incorporate into its arrangements with us these very important agreements because we are all concerned with the problem of the harmonization of standards.