Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. It is a good one. I certainly do not hold the Liberal Party at fault in this case for our not having come to an agreement on the appropriate amount of time for this bill. Had it only been a matter between us and the Liberals, there would have been no difficulty in coming to such an agreement. As I understand it, we share a perspective on this particular bill and on the appropriate way in which to manage House business.
I will remind the hon. member that we saw that remarkable experience this past Friday, when for the first time ever, the NDP stood up and said no, it did not need time allocation and was prepared to let a bill advance. Therefore, we can assume that what happened in all the other 60-plus cases, in terms of the NDP's perspective, was that it did not have the view that it was not necessary. In fact, it made it quite clear that it was necessary and it enjoys seeing the tally run up.
What we have tried to do as the government is adopt a balanced approach to try to assess as best we can the amount of interest in speaking to each particular bill and to utilize time allocation, as I think it was originally intended by those who inserted it within the Standing Orders, as a scheduling device to allow for adequate and appropriate debate but also to allow for decisions to be made. This is an important matter on which we need to have such a decision made, because it is a question of a free trade agreement that was entered into some time ago.
There have been criticisms, oddly, from the opposition, which claims to be concerned that free trade agreements are not moving quickly enough. Yet now we are trying to advance a free trade agreement, and there is from that same opposition party the complaint that we are advancing it. We can see that between the lines, it really only has one perspective, and that is the perspective of the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster that free trade is a bad thing. We disagree. We think free trade is a good thing. It delivers jobs. It delivers economic growth for Canadians. It delivers prosperity and opportunity for the future.
That is why we are very pleased that we will be having the opportunity, in the days ahead, to allow every member of Parliament a say in whether Canada will have a free trade agreement in place with Honduras and whether we will be able see the growth in sectors such as agricultural products and food products. Where we already have some trade, we have seen huge opportunities for future growth, opportunities for farmers to benefit, opportunities for those who work in the food processing sector, and opportunities for Canadian investors to benefit more. These are all good news for Canadians, and that is why we should be allowing this to advance to a vote and allowing Canadians an opportunity to share in the benefits of free trade, even with Honduras.