Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the NDP and we on the Conservative side of the House have different views of trade agreements. It is clear from the NDP trade critic, who has been quoted as saying that countries like Honduras, Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica, and others are not key economies with any kind of strategic value for Canada.
Clearly, when we can provide trade with countries like Honduras and some of the others that New Democrats have listed, we not only improve our own standard of living by providing more jobs and security here in our own country but also improve the lives of the people in those countries.
I have had the opportunity to visit a few of them, and we should do anything we can to try to promote trade with them, because they get to export their products in some of these cases as well. When a country relies as heavily on trade as Honduras does, this is a big benefit.
I talked about the benefits to the agricultural sector more than some of the others, but it would certainly be a benefit to us in terms of industrial machinery. The tariff on that is in the neighbourhood of 15%, and it would be eliminated. The tariffs on aerospace would be eliminated as well. That is a big industry in Manitoba, the province I come from. There are a number of other industries in coastal provinces that would benefit from this agreement as well. Certainly the plastic industries would gain from a trade agreement with Honduras.
In replying today to the same question that was just asked, one of my other colleagues indicated that there was a recession in 2008. Very clearly, we are all in recovery from that 2008 recession, and Honduras and the Central American countries are no different.