Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his question.
He is right in saying there is overlap between the international agreements, and in referring to the softwood situation. All party politics aside, we hope this dispute will be settled as soon as possible. I know the parliamentary secretary wants the same thing. He is deeply committed to this.
As far as the agreement with China is concerned, the parliamentary secretary is right. There is the question of bureaucracy and respect for existing international rules. A U.S. committee said that, over the last ten years, China has not abided by a single international agreement. Naturally we hope that, with China becoming a member of the WTO, it will abide by the rules of that organization, and will comply with all the subsidiary agreements or parallel agreements existing between China and other countries or continents of the world.
We support this bill because we truly believe that the attitude of the People's Republic of China toward Canadian investors, and toward the industries in the parliamentary secretary's riding, will be such that they will not only find a market, but a real openness. When we say that we will open up a market, we must also recognize that we will have to facilitate access to that market.
What the parliamentary secretary said is true. There is some red tape and too much of it. It is complicated. Some have even alluded to the fact, inaccurate I hope, that little envelopes were being handed out here and there. If the market does open up, it will not only be an opening for 1.250 billion people, it will also mean access to a certain way of doing things. I believe the WTO will modernize China's way of dealing with other countries and that Canada will profit from that. However, we must be very careful about the China's weak points in view of its accession to the WTO.