Madam Speaker, certainly I can list countries that I think Canada should be pursuing agreements with. These would be countries that are world leaders with respect to the environment, labour standards and human rights. Countries like Sweden, Norway or Denmark would be a good start. However, I notice that the government is not engaging in discussions with those countries.
I think we should be carefully examining each country that we propose to trade with, and making sure that trade with those countries is beneficial to the Canadian economy and employers. Moreover, it is not necessarily the identity of the country all the time, but it is the terms on which that trade is going to be conducted. We should not be signing agreements with countries that do not squarely put labour standards, human rights and environmental standards in the text of the agreement. The government has taken an approach to relegate those important concepts to side deals that are not part of the text of the formal agreement, leading many to believe those concepts have secondary importance.
We on this side of the House are going to continue to make environmental, human rights, labour and employment standards central planks in any trade agreement we have with any country. If those countries agree to respect those standards, then an agreement could be good for their economy and the Canadian economy. We will support those agreements.