Mr. Speaker, it is a slight stretch in terms of the topic of the day, but I have a short question. The member was making it very clear that we have a balanced budget today and that the fiscal framework in the country is far more solid today than it was a decade ago. I think the hon. member would probably understand, in fact, that initiatives of great magnitude take a little time to actually take effect. They do not necessarily happen overnight.
The question is this. Could the economic strength that our country has today ever have occurred if we had not had the free trade agreement of 1988, which moved our two way trade from about $90 billion in 1988 to about $760 billion each and every day now? Would that economic strength have occurred place if it had not been for free trade and NAFTA? Was the Liberal Party dead wrong when it opposed free trade and NAFTA?