Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague, the member for Charlottetown, for his insightful remarks on Bill C-55, sponsored by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
For Canadians who are watching or following it is an important outcome for the amount of investment, energy and time that has been invested in negotiating an agreement between Canada and what is called the European Free Trade Association. We are not talking here about the European Union, the 26 or 27 member states that form the EU. We are talking about a much smaller conglomeration of states in Europe: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
It is a move forward for Canada to be able to move to ratify yet another bilateral trading agreement like so many others we have ratified in the past and others that we are presently negotiating.
We support initiatives on this side of the House in the official opposition that improve market access for Canadian businesses. We are a profoundly steeped in trading tradition nation. On balance we support the European free trade agreement deal and the bill that implements it.
Having said that, as we just heard in the previous exchange, there are some legitimate concerns surrounding Canada's shipbuilding industry and not inconsequential concerns. In large part, as we have just heard from my colleague from Charlottetown, it was the negotiating of those provisions that deal with shipbuilding that in part accounted for the 10 years it took to negotiate the deal.
We believe that there are some profound concerns around shipbuilding. We share these concerns, but we also believe that the unusually long tariff phase-outs and what are called the snap back provisions address these issues, and I will come back to that in a few moments.
We are anxious to send Bill C-55 to committee to ensure that the bill implements the agreement as has been described by the committee report dated April 7. So again, what is this all about?