Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that the United States is going through some very difficult and troubling times. I personally predict that we will see culprits. We will see the blame laid squarely at the feet of different actors in American society who I think concocted a sub-prime mortgage scam that has affected many vulnerable Americans. I wish our American cousins all the best in the recovery that we would like to see in the United States and, of course, the spill over effects in helping to keep Canada's trading arrangements there robust and healthy.
However, there is no doubt that Canada needs to expand its reach. We are already trading all over the planet but the formalization of this trading arrangement with four nation states goes another certain distance to help us diversify. Diversification is good. Dependency on one particular market is not so good. We are seeing that there are risks now despite the fact that so many hard decisions were taken by the previous government to prepare the country to deliver 10 years of surpluses consecutively, to pay down so much debt and to lower taxation while addressing core social equity and justice questions.
Canada is well positioned and well prepared to weather the storm, although we are not sure what the fallout effects will be of the recent 30 months of decisions taken by the government.
However, more important, expanding our reach in terms of trade builds on our people. The single greatest asset we will have over time will be people: their brain capacity, their training and their skills levels. We have people from every corner of the planet now living right across this beautiful country. It is up to us now to play intelligent hockey and to build on those relationships all over the world and to strengthen our trading relationships.