Madam Speaker, I say to my hon. friend that it has never been more important to encourage these economies to become more open and, if I may use the word proudly, liberal in their trading practices. I am pleased to say we are now getting signals from Asia that the countries are moving to further modernize their economies and overcome these effects.
The problem of the financial downturn for Asia was partly the lack of transparency in business practices and in government regulation. At a time of dynamic economic growth across Asia and in an environment of readily available loans, a pattern of imprudent borrowing and lending has developed with a concentration of investment in overheated property markets. This did nothing to contribute to the productive base of the affected countries.
A more transparent system of controls, accounting and financial statements could have alerted national authorities, overseas lenders and international financial institutions earlier to the true underlying picture and perhaps could have prevented the crisis from developing. Given the current realities of globalization, Canada can promote the return to stable economic growth, enhanced trade and future prosperity by encouraging increased transparency and liberalization. Moreover, we lessen in the future the probability of financial shocks of this nature.
By supporting trade liberalization we improve the climate for Canadian firms seeking to do business in Asia. This is what Canada, its G-7 partners, the IMF and other international financial institutions are striving to achieve—