Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague opposite with great interest. He asked a question about what would take precedence, NAFTA, WTO or FTAA. Clearly the cornerstone of the government's trade policy is WTO. Having said that, we proceed on three fronts. Recently we had a Canada-Costa Rica and a Canada-Chile bilateral in NAFTA or FTAA, which is a new initiative, then regionally in those areas, then of course multilaterally at the WTO. The WTO is the cornerstone, but softwood is a sad example unfortunately. They compliment each other and to some extent there is an overlap. We will be taking action at NAFTA and WTO. It is not a case of them being mutually exclusive oftentimes.
The member talked about the issue of possible assistance to certain industries such as textiles and so on. When I was in Shanghai representing the Minister for International Trade last June at the APEC trade ministers meetings, I had a chance to intervene for businesses in my own part of Ontario. Their problem was the bureaucracy they faced in China and the rules for doing business there.
My question for the member is this. Does the member not feel that by having China as a member of WTO it will force the Chinese to move toward respecting rules based trade and will that not benefit all Canadian companies?