Mr. Speaker, we in the NDP support free trade deals as long as they are fair, protect the environment and respect the rights of workers and their families. Then there would be no problem and we would support them.
My hon. colleague, who is from the very beautiful riding of Kelowna—Lake Country, by the way, brought up a very good point. I mentioned the figure of $22 billion, but the potential for shipbuilding is $40 billion to $60 billion down the road. However, if we keep negotiating these types of deals with EFTA, the EU and then Korea, an awful lot of that work could end up in the hands of foreign countries.
There may come a day very soon when we may lose the capability of building the ships in this country because some of the yards may have to shrink their operations or shut down completely. My hon. colleague mentioned the Saint John yard. We put millions of dollars into the yard in Saint John, New Brunswick. We built the frigates and then we gave them $55 million to shut the yard down. That made no economic sense whatsoever. It may end up happening again if we are not smart and make sure that shipbuilding is carved out of the EFTA.
It is not just EFTA; it is the European trade talks which are coming up, the Korean talks and everything else. If the United States recognizes the importance of this industry, then so should Canada.