Mr. Speaker, let me wrap up in terms of why this is so important.
It is funny how the member for Charlottetown tied it together well in his closing remarks, pursuant to a question that was posed to him. Let me reframe and restate before concluding.
A lot of the multilateral approaches in which we are presently involved in terms of multilateral trading arrangements are stalled. Canada, in my view, needs to pursue and adopt bilateral trade agreements in order to remain globally competitive. We have benefited well. We are, as many describe, the most trade dependent nation on the face of the planet and, therefore, this is a good step forward.
As I said earlier, there is no evidence that the expansion of rules based trading regimes is in fact decelerating. On the contrary, it was China only several years ago that managed to break through and join the WTO after more than a decade of aggressive negotiations and positioning.
Here we have a win-win situation. We have the biggest concern addressed coherently in shipbuilding. Some concerns on supply management we have spoken to. We believe the bill addresses that imbalance as well. In fact, it took roughly 10 years to complete this negotiation because of the shipbuilding concerns that I believe have been adequately addressed. It is not a total carve out, as the member for Charlottetown indicated, but it is a good, solid agreement on which to move forward, to expand Canada's trading relationships and to create the wealth, the jobs and the investment that we need to move forward.