Mr. Speaker, a little earlier in my speech I spoke about some of the enormous commercial opportunities that would take place in Panama. It is putting huge investments into infrastructure projects. I commented about the billions of dollars that would go into Panama. Even the expansion of the Panama Canal would allow opportunities for infrastructure dollars to go there.
We know the U.S.-Panama free trade agreement came into effect on October 31, essentially giving United States companies the opportunity to move into that market now. Therefore, with the expertise that we have in Quebec in the aerospace industry, in machinery, in agriculture, why would my colleague want to put Quebec companies behind the eight ball and not allow them access to bid on some of those contracts?