Mr. Speaker, after listening to the speech of the hon. member for Dartmouth, I do not think he is a Liberal. He spoke of all the virtues and strengths and benefits of a free trade agreement, of the North American free trade agreement and this wonderful agreement with Chile. My goodness, he sounds like an entrepreneur and a free enterpriser if I ever heard one.
He also spoke of the advantages of Halifax. With his forward vision I am surprised that the Liberal Party under John Turner was against free trade. We hear these great sounding speeches from Liberal members which is quite an about face, but I might add a welcomed about face. However, I take exception to the reference in his speech about the NAFTA in terms of the dispute mechanism settlement.
When the Liberals ran in the last election their three big issues were jobs, jobs, jobs; get rid of the GST and renegotiating NAFTA. We all know that they did not renegotiate NAFTA. They signed it the way it was presented.
They made the mistake of not sticking to their original principles and by not adhering to their commitment to hold the agreement up until there was a satisfactory dispute settlement mechanism. That has really cost this country severely. It has caused a severe problem in international trade and trade with our partners because the Americans are taking advantage of us very chance they get. We would not have the dispute over softwood lumber. It would have been settled. Settlements would be a lot faster if there was a proper dispute settlement mechanism in place in the NAFTA.
Based on the comments in his speech that he feels this is a good deal with Chile because it is the same as the one Canada has with the States, I submit we are not happy with the one with the United States. It is causing some problems. I would like clarification of that kind of double talk.