Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my hon. friend from the other side a simple question that relates to a comment made by the parliamentary secretary to the solicitor general. He said that the government had done everything in its power to pursue free trade.
I suggest that is fantasy and not fact. The government has pursued free trade on the one hand but has tied the hands of our exporters and companies by keeping very high taxes. That creates an uneven playing field for exporters. It has also imposed, and continues to fail to act to remove, the interprovincial barriers to trade that compromise our exporters and companies from competing on a level playing field.
My question is simply this. Will the member ask his ministers to pursue, with the same zeal that they do internationally, the removal of interprovincial barriers to trade and the reduction of taxes in the country that choke off the ability of our private sector to compete?