Mr. Speaker, I believe the Liberal Party has been very consistent over the decades in terms of supporting the idea of world trade. Where it is possible for us to enter into free trade agreements, we encourage and support that in principle. Canadians need to be very much aware that ever since the Conservative government came to power there has been a graph that is fairly alarming. That is the surplus versus deficit of trade in Canada.
Ever since the Conservatives have been in government, we have seen a sharp decrease from when they took office and there was a multibillion-dollar trade surplus. Today we have a multibillion-dollar trade deficit. Even though the Conservatives like to crow about agreements, some of which, including this one, were initiated by Paul Martin, the former prime minister of Canada, why have Conservatives done such a poor job on the overall trade balance file? That equates to tens of thousands of jobs. Why such a poor performance on international trade?