Mr. Speaker, he is absolutely right. The members of the House took great lengths to consult in their home ridings and across Canada. They got back some phenomenal support from some of the stakeholders in their own ridings.
I just want to quote a couple of them if I might. The Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters said:
It's 39 years since we updated [the preferential tariffs]. It was meant to help developing countries. I mean, countries like Hong Kong and Singapore, we were giving them preferential tariffs while their per capita GDP is higher than Canada’s. [...] The solution is what the government is doing: try to negotiate free trade agreements with countries around the world so that we not only drop our tariffs, but they drop their tariffs as well.
This is what we were hearing. We do not want to give special breaks to companies that are working in China; we want to give benefits to Canadian companies. We do not want to give benefits to companies whose booming economies outweigh our own; we are going to do what is right for Canadians.
It is unfortunate that the NDP and the other parties disagree with us.