Mr. Speaker, the member from across the aisle heckles that the Liberals should have acted on it. My colleague from Montreal is right, we did.
Paul Martin acted on it within the year. Within the year, we had action being taken by the Paul Martin government, because the Liberals recognized it, as we had in the past. It is not unique. When we talk about the other countries, whether it is Honduras, and I made reference to El Salvador, those are all agreements. Yes, the Conservatives did sign on the line, but they were actually initiated under Paul Martin or Jean Chrétien. However, the Conservatives will still take the credit. That is fine; they did sign them.
Getting back to Korea, in 2003, Korea had this ambitious road that it wanted to go on in terms of free trade agreements. The Paul Martin government acted on it right away. What did the current Prime Minister do with it? He did not even put it on the back burner. He took it completely off the stove. He did nothing on the file. It sat for years. Then, all of a sudden, the United States signed up. The European Union signed up with Korea. Now, all of a sudden, we have a government that says, “No, no no. We are negotiating this agreement and we want to have a free trade agreement with Korea”. It is somewhat late to get a little anxious.
What has happened because the government fell asleep on the job? It is not only the U.S. and the European Union. Even countries like Chile and Peru beat Canada to the punch, and we have a huge vested interest.
I come from the province of Manitoba, where the pork industry is a very important industry. I can tell members that pork sales have been lost because of the Conservative government's incompetence and inability to be able to come up with an agreement with South Korea in a more timely fashion—