Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member for Welland, but I agree with him that it would be kind of nice to see the fine print and details before voting. I am absolutely sure Canadians would not want us to vote on something and commit ourselves to something without seeing the details, especially from a government that Canadians know they cannot trust. We are certainly not going to do that. We want to see the details of the plan.
The member for Welland talked about the opportunities here, and I agree there are. The parliamentary secretary talked about the billion dollar market availability. He said it would be there, but he cannot say definitely it will be. There is a market there. Will we seize it? We might.
I am going to give a little history on trade agreements, and the government should listen to this. I have looked at many of them and when it comes to trade agreements after Canada signs them, whether it is us or them, we do not do as well as our competitors under the trade agreement. Yes, we increase the economy and the GDP, but on a surplus deficit basis, we start to fall behind. Why?
I think the answer is that as a country do not have a strategic plan on how to take advantage of that market agreement that we sign. Canada signs a trade agreement and “There you are, boys; go to her.” We need a strategic plan on how we will seize the opportunities in that.
Does the member for Welland think we are getting that from the government? Specifically on the beef issue, the member for Welland said that we did not fill the quota for non-hormone fed beef. That is true. Now we have more quota and we will not fill that market unless we have a a beef plant and infrastructure to get the beef into the plant, process it and market it in Europe. Would the member for Welland agree with me, and should the government be involved in providing that infrastructure and plan?