Mr. Speaker, I find it more than a bit surprising that the hon. member wants answers to direct questions, but he wants to ask those questions that are full of fallacy and innuendo, maybe and might and could be.
Here is the reality for the member. We are negotiating a comprehensive economic trade agreement with the European Union. We have negotiated trade agreements already with nine countries around the world. This one will be by far the largest, with 27 member states of the European Union, and 28 member states after Croatia joins on July 1. The hon. member knows that he will have to take a stand and that is really the issue about which he is concerned. He will have to balance this agreement in a reasonable, rational way. He wants to find a reason not to support it, but he will have to make a decision and he will have to present that decision based on some type of real logic to the Canadian public, because there will be real numbers in front of him at the time.
We make no apologies for negotiating this trade agreement on behalf of Canadians and we make no apologies for negotiating this trade agreement directly with the European Union. When it is negotiated, it will come back to the House for open, lengthy and fulsome debate, as it should without question.
In the meantime, the hon. member has to take a look at his own riding in Malpeque in Prince Edward Island. He has to ask himself these questions. Why not give his constituents greater access for potatoes in the European marketplace? Why not give his constituents greater access to the European marketplace for fish and seafood? P.E.I. produces some of the best seafood in the world. It is a great producer of Atlantic blue mussels.
I was at the Boston Seafood Show, the third-largest seafood show in the world, talking to our producers, many of them from the member's riding, about the advantages to reducing an average 12% tariff on seafood going into the European market with tariffs as high as 25%. If we can reduce that to zero, that is a tremendous boost for the member's constituents. The problem is that the member will have to make a decision. He will have to balance the facts, not the rumours or innuendo, of a completed agreement and he will have to make a decision.
I hope he makes that decision on behalf of his constituents, for the sake of the country and not for the sake of political gain. We have far too much of that in this place, and it is time the opposition members look beyond what they see as a quick, easy political gain to what is in the best interest of the nation.