Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
I would not want to hazard a guess as to why the U.S. Congress has not decided to go ahead with this free trade agreement, but it is clear that countries should not be in a hurry to sign free trade agreements. Unfortunately, I get the feeling that the Conservative government is in a hurry. It is rushing to sign bilateral agreements with a number of countries in order to head off other countries that are doing the same thing.
As I said in my speech, instead of focusing its efforts on this sort of thing, the government needs to sit down with other countries and really do what it takes to ensure that major multilateral agreements see the light of day, for the sake of Canadians and Quebeckers.