Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Drummond for her excellent question. It is indeed a basic issue.
The Bloc Québécois has always been fairly critical of the plan for a free trade area of the Americas, especially in social and environmental terms. In terms of trade, though, there would be obvious advantages. A good trade agreement, with strong environmental and social guarantees, would be better than what we have now.
For example, if the Government of Canada allowed Canadian textiles to be processed in the West Indies, as are American textiles currently, this processed clothing still could not enter the US market because it would not be considered to have sufficient Canadian content to be covered by the North American Free Trade Agreement. That is a problem. But it does not mean that we should not take this step immediately for the Canadian market. However, it would not enable us to enter the US market.
However, as I said, the Prime Minister announced that he was going to meet Mr. Fox and Mr. Bush in March and April. Under the Free Trade Agreement, nothing would prevent Canadian textiles processed in the West Indies from being recognized as North American in origin, just like clothing made from US textiles processed in the West Indies. This approach requires political will as well as some vision in regard to the development of our manufacturing industry, especially clothing and textiles.
The Liberals seem to be crossing out an industrial sector because of their prejudices, they are unaware of the reality, they do not want to look at the context in which problems arise. In this case, they put forward measures like those announced in December. They are a first, inadequate step toward resolving the problem.
This situation also demonstrates the urgency of reviving the negotiations on the free trade area of the Americas. This means that the Government of Canada should drop its approach of protecting investment, which can be seen wall to wall in NAFTA and under which companies have more rights than do governments. We know that people do not want this in South America.
Those primarily responsible for the current impasse in the negotiations over a free trade area are, first of all, the Canadian government and secondly the American government.