Mr. Speaker, my colleague has raised the concerns that most people have been discussing.
I would like to address his first point concerning the haste with which the bill has come into the House, given that those preferential tariffs will be expiring very shortly. It is kind of hard to believe that the government has waited this long to address this issue so that we could have had further debate or a further study even in committee to maybe look at different approaches.
Because of the interest of the committee, I was glad we were able to raise the idea of specifically addressing the textile and apparel industries and the disadvantage in which they may be placed. Hopefully we can give recommendations to the finance department.
However, as I have outlined, the bill would extend those general tariffs in a way that has been consistent with the way Canadians have approached the issue. It does not necessarily give a disadvantage to the other industries that my hon. colleague mentioned.
I believe it is the government's responsibility, in pursuing these free trade agreements and in pursuing either remission holders or other areas that will help various industries to compete effectively internationally, to do it vigilantly, to make sure we keep our industry on an equal footing and that we do not put our industries at a disadvantage.
We can do that in many ways, but mainly, as I said before, by pursuing freer trade agreements with many of these countries. Currently we have bilateral agreements with various countries and they only touch on various industries. They are not as extensive as possibly they could be to allow for Canadians to take advantage of some of those issues of employment here at home, sourcing products here at home, those sorts of things that help our economy and that continue to produce new products and stay innovative and competitive.
I would say the government has failed to address those issues and to create that here at home, which is why we often have problems with countries going overseas.
Many of the countries that are sourcing these products are not developed countries, and we should not fool ourselves. They are just markets where they actually get cheaper products and cheaper goods. We have to make that distinction, and I am glad my hon. colleague did that.