Mr. Speaker, that is correct. There have been side agreements with respect to labour and the environment. It will not only allow us to maintain our identity, our culture and protect our standards in these areas and expand on them, but it also gives us an opportunity to help Costa Rica if it has areas of concern. It can see what we are doing.
In my discussions with the minister in Costa Rica, I discovered the people were quite interested in learning about our standards. It is an evolving nation which is growing rapidly. It is not only for the betterment of our nation to maintain our standards, but it also helps to improve theirs, which I think is great for society.
Coming back to the member's earlier point about challenges. There is no illusion. Look at NAFTA and the softwood lumber mess. There is no place in the country where it hurts more than in my province. We have to work through that. I think we will. I am very confident that we will get through this, and hopefully very soon. However, we can work through it.
If we had scrapped the North American Free Trade Agreement back in 1994, we would not be sitting at $1 billion plus trade per day between our nations. There are 200 million crossings a year.
Yes, there are challenges as we go down this road and we need to rise to the occasion to deal with those. However, Canadians will be better off and so will the country.