Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for announcing that he will be supporting our motion. That is a very good sign. I hope that his minister and his government will listen to him. I also hope that his Prime Minister will do likewise, as requested.
I find it rather ironic that such a spectre be raised concerning the election when, yesterday, in this House, all parties except the government party supported the NDP motion asking precisely that the government call an election after the holiday season.
Had his government supported this motion, as the Bloc Québécois did, from December 13 to 18, the minister would have gone to Hong Kong, but he will go anyway, even in the midst of an election campaign. This kind of scaremongering will not have me believe that the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and the Minister of International Trade will lose any legitimacy because we will be in an election campaign. If they take part in negotiations in Hong Kong, they should hold their own. As I said earlier, we will stand behind them even if an election campaign is under way. We will say that the minister is doing a fine job, if he does what is asked of him.
I imagine that, among the 147 WTO member countries, there might be some besides ours that will be holding an election around the same time. Will that take any legitimacy away from their ministers participating in the negotiations? Of course not. As if other countries would care about how long the minister will remain in office. Should his time be short, another minister will take over. That is not a problem.
I find that the hon. member is brandishing a totally ridiculous spectre, especially since he and his party had the opportunity, yesterday, to support, as we did, a motion that would have allowed an election to be called after the holidays.