Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak this afternoon to the trade agreement that we have been able to establish with our friends from South Korea.
First of all, let me give my congratulations to the Minister of International Trade for making this happen. The minister has been very busy on the international trade files and meeting with a number of countries, including Korea and our recent announcement of CETA. He is working very hard on other issues in the Asian market, such as a bilateral agreement with Japan. There is also the TPP, the trans-Pacific partnership, which is a larger trade pact where countries from Asia and in the Pacific are working very hard to put together an appropriate free trade zone so that countries like Canada can take advantage of those large markets for our goods and services. Right now, due to trade barriers, we have an issue accessing them.
We have to remember that Canada only has about 33 million people. The trade partners that we are after are much larger than Canada. Their markets are much larger than Canada's. It only makes sense that Canada would be a trading country. It started as a trading country, and it should continue that.
I would like to congratulate, under the leadership of our Prime Minister, our foreign affairs advocates, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Industry and the Minister of International Trade, who all work together to try to promote opportunities for Canadian business in other areas of the world. We simply cannot survive on the Canadian market alone.
I have two stories that I would like to share. I am from Burlington, which is an urban riding. There is no one large employer. The largest employer in Burlington is a pork production facility. That is right. It is food processing. There are hogs that come in every day by the truckload and they are processed there. Its number one client in the past was South Korea, until South Korea signed a deal with the United States.
The deal had a significant impact on the ability of our Canadian companies, such as this one. It is owned by Canadians who own a number of food processing facilities across the country. They are the largest employer in Burlington, with about 800 or 600 people who work there now.
As a member of Parliament, the owners called me in. This was a number of years ago. They said that they were losing market share to their competitors because Canada was not at the table with a trade agreement with South Korea. This was not a secondary customer or a tertiary customer. South Korea was one of their primary customers. Some 90% of the product leaving this plant was for export, either to the United States or to Korea. The Korean deal with the United States had a major impact, not only on their bottom line but on our ability to maintain good-quality, high-paying jobs in Burlington.
With that information, I came back here and there was a discussion. I did what all of us on this side of the House would do. We are all free traders here on this side of the House. Being a Conservative means that we support free trade, and we make no apologies for that. We do not make excuses for that. We believe that free trade will create opportunities and employment for Canadians here at home for their products and services abroad, so I was very happy to find out that we were working hard on a South Korean deal and that things were progressing.
The largest employer within the boundaries of Burlington is this food production facility for pork production. However, in the riding next to me in Oakville is the head office for Ford Canada. I had a number of meetings with Ford Canada, which is an automotive producer with an excellent production facility here in Canada. The workers, bar none, are the best automotive workers available to Ford in North America.
Ford had some concerns about the South Korean deal. There was a tariff on the import of Korean vehicles of 6.1% or 6.2%. Ford was concerned that would give Korea somewhat of a market advantage. I was very clear with our friends at Ford, including the president for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect. I told the company that a Conservative government will continue to work on free trade agreements with key partners around the world because it is good for the overall economic business of this country. In my view, it is also good for Ford.
The automotive sector south of the border signed on to the deal. Things are a bit different south of the border. The tariff in the United States on Korean-made cars was slightly over 2%, which on a $30,000 car is not as significant as 6%. Ford felt the protective tariff that was there was not nearly as severe. However, tariffs on automobiles going into South Korea were around 8%. This deal will provide us with the opportunity to reduce tariffs on both sides. I have heard many times from previous questioners that there are non-tariff barriers to getting into those markets.
I have never been to South Korea but I have been to Japan numerous times. Based on the products that I have seen in Japan, we need to make vehicles that are designed for that marketplace to be successful and have access to that marketplace. North American manufacturers are getting there. They might be there already. It would be fair to say that before the recession, trucks and SUVs were not that popular in some Asian markets, including what I know of Japan.
That is why I wanted to talk about this today. We need to understand that our free trade agreement with South Korea is comprehensive. It will affect all marketplaces across this country. It will even affect small Burlington. It will have a huge impact on employment and our ability to trade.
Burlington has a close relationship with South Korea. A number of Canadians who fought for the freedom of South Korea live in Burlington. This past summer we unveiled a new naval monument on the lakefront to commemorate the activity of Canadian soldiers in the Korean War, particularly those in the navy. The HMCS Haida, which participated in that conflict, is in Hamilton. A lot of my constituents in Burlington served bravely for Canada in that conflict.
I am happy that we have been able to develop not only a diplomatic relationship with South Korea but a much closer economic relationship. I look forward to this trade agreement coming into force in the new year. It will benefit all communities across this country.