Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my neighbour and colleague on his re-election.
I appreciate the question, but I just want to be clear for the record. I think the member said that the throne speech refers to more free trade agreements. I am going to quote page 8 of the throne speech where it says, “New trade agreements will be pursued in Asia and the Americas”. It did not specifically say what type of agreements.
To understand the philosophy of this government, there are two important things. I have heard the Prime Minister speak about two very important things with respect to the auto industry. The first is that we need to find ways to help the industry be more competitive against the rest of the world. We started with our auto action plan in that regard. The auto action plan proposes a number of initiatives, including helping the industry retool to produce products that are extremely competitive not only in North America but also globally.
The second thing I have heard the Prime Minister say is very important is that deals are not going to be signed that are not going to guarantee us some access. We bring the issue of South Korean negotiations into this one because this is an important question. Everybody says, “These guys have a signed agreement and it is going to sell the industry out”. The Prime Minister has been clear. First, we have no agreement in principle and the precise reason is that in the negotiations we do not yet have guarantees that we are going to get into their market. We have to have proven demonstrable access to their market before we will conclude agreements. That is the wise position to take. We have not been in a rush to conclude something that is necessarily going to expose our industries to further disadvantage. We want access to markets.