Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Saskatoon—University.
I am pleased to stand today and talk about the trans-Pacific partnership agreement.
I think we heard very clearly from the member for Abbotsford, as he opened the debate today, why this deal is important, what the motion actually said, and the tremendous amount of work that has gone into the deal in terms of creating the agreement among the 12 nations.
First of all, I want to make a couple of general comments. I do not think I need to repeat some of those important facts that the member stated, but I will make some general comments, and then I want to focus in on British Columbia and some of the important elements of this particular free trade agreement for British Columbians.
I was not elected until 2008, and of course, the previous government was elected in 2006. Over the years, I came to appreciate that the Conservatives had a plan that was elegant, comprehensive, and well executed. This is not just a plan about free trade agreements, and I can give members a very specific example.
In 2006, we announced the Asia-Pacific gateway initiative, and we have spent over $1 billion. The Asia-Pacific gateway initiative was a recognition of how important our trade was for western Canada, and somewhat for the east, but most importantly for western Canada. It was recognizing the importance of the supply chains and how we moved our goods and products in both directions.
What did this $1 billion-plus do? It did so many important things. It was a system of transportation. It included roads in the lower mainland, to make sure that there were no bottlenecks. It included ports, such as in Prince Rupert and in Vancouver. It included rail connections that reached across western Canada. In particular, there were a number of inland ports that were created. It also involved things such as major airports and border crossings. Of course, there was a lot of work done with the U.S. in terms of having a fluid border. This was one component of what was a comprehensive plan to make Canada prosperous.
At the same time as we were creating the ability for our supply chain to work effectively and efficiently, we embarked on a very comprehensive free trade agreement, and we are part of the trans-Pacific partnership.
I have to take a minute and contrast that to the Liberal approach to economic opportunity. What we were doing was trying to create opportunities for trade, and trying to reduce barriers to ensure the flow. However, the Liberal response that I can see to date is to say that we have a sluggish economy and that we need to spend taxpayers' dollars to help the economy. However, I would argue, that is exactly what we do not need to do.
What we need to be doing is moving forward with the tax decrease for our small and medium-sized businesses to continue the work of ensuring the free flow of our goods and services. I think members can see that we came to government with a comprehensive plan to ensure that Canada had a prosperous and robust future.
Having sort of talked about the comprehensive plan, it will be important to dig in to exactly what is happening in British Columbia and how important this deal is to British Columbia.
Between 2012 and 2016, there was $20.6 billion in exports to the Asia-Pacific region. As members can imagine, that is a huge piece of the economy of British Columbia.
Members will see a smile on my face, because I was looking through the products and the opportunities that are going to benefit. This is so much for the province that I am proud of in terms of how it is going to be able to exercise this opportunity.
There are things like duty-free market access to industrial goods, aluminum products, and iron and steel products. When we think of British Columbia, we have the iconic salmon and the beautiful oceans and, of course, the very healthy seafood that comes from our oceans . I think we can all appreciate the ability to have duty-free access to fish and seafood products, which include salmon and shrimp.
In the Lower Mainland, we can see the beautiful cranberry fields which provide us all with the cranberries we use at Christmastime and other times of the year. The Fraser Valley is a very critical supplier and exporter of cranberries. We have blueberries, a very healthy fruit. The beautiful, large blueberries of the Fraser Valley will now have increased market access.
There will be duty-free access for wood and other forestry products, including lumber, plywood, and veneer panels. I am going to use a local example. To be frank, I am not sure if this company currently exports its products, but it makes amazing doorframes and windows. The quality is superb. The company is Century Glass in Kamloops. It is a medium-sized business that sometimes has 50 or 60 workers. There is enormous opportunity within this agreement if the company decides to expand its market. Not only is it going to have tariff-free access, but there is a whole chapter for small and medium-sized enterprises that could take advantage of those opportunities. A company which might have 50 employees now will have access to a market of 800 million people predominantly tariff-free. These are quality products. We could then compete with the best of the world.
When the Liberals, hopefully, finally ratify this agreement, I will be delighted to bring the opportunities to our community of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
This is another important example. Sometimes we underestimate the importance of this particular issue. There is a company in Kamloops that had very highly technological medical equipment which came from overseas. There was no one in Canada who had the ability to service the equipment or the expertise to repair it. I received a phone call from this particular company. It was very concerned because there were so many constraints with respect to temporary entry to bring the skilled workers into Canada so that they could actually fix this piece of equipment. There was so much red tape and so many barriers that it took a number of weeks. That was a number of weeks during which a critical piece of medical equipment was unable to be serviced because of barriers which go both ways.
Not only will skilled Canadian workers have the opportunity for temporary access into countries where we might export some devices, but it will go both ways. In this case, we can imagine it would have made an enormous difference for this particular company to have had the ability to get its equipment fixed without involving an enormous amount of paperwork.
I could go on and on in terms of the specifics, but one thing that is important for ridings in British Columbia, Alberta, and throughout Canada, is our cattle industry, our beef industry. I would like to quote the general manager of the BC Cattlemen's Association:
For the beef industry, the Trans-Pacific Partnership is a must. It's opening up that door to Japan and putting us on an even playing field with the 12 other countries involved.
It will help our industry by quite a bit, possibly tripling some of our markets into those areas, so any time we have a market open up, it gives us opportunity to sell not only more animals but get a higher cut-out value for them.
I hope the Liberal government has been listening and will recognize that this is critically important for Canada, and critically important for British Columbia. It would be very advantageous to move forward with this particular agreement.