Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Winnipeg North for his speech and for the Liberal Party's support of the Honduran trade deal. His remarks showcasing the NDP's decades of opposition to trade were absolutely on the money.
The member also made reference to the historic Team Canada missions that the last Liberal government, under former Prime Minister Chrétien, held. He mentioned the China mission in particular, which had 600 people on a plane. There were many mayors and premiers and that sort of thing. He said that after those missions, “literally hundreds of millions of dollars of...economic activity was created”.
I would invite the member to look at the testimony before our trade committee from just two weeks ago from Professor Keith Head of the University of British Columbia, who actually did an empirical analysis of the Team Canada missions and showed that the member's statement is actually incorrect. From those missions, which Professor Head characterized as more photo-op driven than meaningfully driven, there was actually no positive impact on trade. They were photo-op driven. In fact, Professor Head talked about serving beaver tails in China. We are actually making commitments to trade commissioners to expand trade for small and medium-sized enterprises.
I would like the member to tell this House where he is getting his figures of hundreds of millions of dollars driven by the team Canada missions.