Mr. Speaker, those western companies are not here but I am happy to make a brief comment. Our premier was part of the team Canada visits. We have yet to see great fruit bearing from the visits, but I support the Prime Minister and the premiers in their efforts to expand trade around the world. There are few who would argue that we should not expand trade and our exports.
A country like Canada will only survive, will only thrive, if we have healthy exporting markets and an environment within Canada which encourages businesses to respond to those markets.
The member picked up on the point I was raising. With the agreements made first with the United States and then with Mexico, Canada's trade is focused on one market. Surely nobody would regard that as good. Nobody would regard our increased focus on trade with the United States as good. One of the reasons that focus has taken place is precisely because of the free trade agreements that have been negotiated.
There were efforts by earlier Liberal prime ministers to open up trade much more with Europe, a much bigger market than that of the United States, a market that is becoming bigger and bigger.
Those efforts did not take us very far. We did not diversify back in the eighties to other markets, but we were beginning to export more to other countries than the United States slowly but surely through the eighties and prior to the free trade agreements being signed.
Since those agreements have been signed the focus has become evermore dependent on one market. I merely wanted to reiterate that. In the process I can certainly refer to the many meetings I have had with exporting companies in my province and in other provinces that are doing very well at the present time, certainly those in my province.
Recently the Globe and Mail wrote about the western economies having reached full employment. They must be doing something right.
The New Democratic Government of Saskatchewan has an effective approach to business and job creation. It has consistently had the lowest unemployment rate in the country over the last two years. It leads the country in economic indicators. It must be doing something right. That approach is one of partnership with business, labour, government, aboriginal peoples and the communities as a whole to represent and develop an economy which supports all people of Saskatchewan. It is a diversified economy and is becoming ever more diversified unlike the Canadian economy.
I just wanted to make that point. I will pass on to western exporting corporations the good wishes of the member opposite.