Mr. Speaker, it is a sad state when members of the official opposition make statements in which they clearly indicate that they do not support freer trade or free trade agreements in principle because it is not their political party that has brought them into place.
It reminds me of the leader of the official opposition's position, very much an anti-western divide and conquer mentality. He says, in essence, that he has no problem taking shots at the industries out in western Canada. I must say that westerners, including myself as a member of Parliament from the Prairies, took great exception to his divide and conquer mentality. Other members on the front bench feed into this anti-trade sentiment. I do not say this lightly.
Let us talk about a specific issue. Let us talk about the Panama agreement.
Manitoba has a huge potato industry. I like to think it is only a question of time before we could be first place in Canada. Now, some of my colleagues in Atlantic Canada might have something to say on that point, but I do believe that there is an opportunity for Manitoba to be number one in Canada. Ultimately, if we approach the industry in an aggressive way, we could surprise a lot of people throughout the world. We have three processing plants in Manitoba that take that raw material and generate roughly 1,000 jobs for the province of Manitoba. That is a lot of good-quality jobs.
Those potatoes and processed potatoes are being sent to countries like the United States, the Philippines and Panama. Many Manitobans, when they see the agreement that we are looking at today, ask if it could be better. Sure, it could be better. There is no doubt it could be better. If only the government would see the wisdom in some potential amendments, maybe we could make some significant headway.
There are many stakeholders in Manitoba and, because I do not want to be selfish, many individuals across Canada who would see the benefits and would question why not, if the argument is strictly a human rights issue or an environmental law issue. I remember having a debate with one of our NDP colleagues earlier about China and how much we import from China. The New Democratic Party is not talking about stopping those exports in order to protect human rights issues.
I think all political parties are concerned, and I can guarantee the Liberal Party is concerned, about human rights. We are concerned about labour laws. We are concerned about environmental laws. We are going to do what we can to try to influence so that we have a better world. Canada has a leadership role to play.
However, we in the Liberal Party believe in freer trade. In fact, one of the best, most significant free trade agreements ever achieved in our country was through Lester Pearson. It was the Auto Pact. That created tens of thousands of jobs yesterday, and is still creating jobs today--