Mr. Speaker, when I first came to Parliament, I went to Doha for a WTO meeting, called the Doha Round. There was a huge number of countries in the WTO. This was going to be the agreement that would open up trade around the world. Unfortunately, all of that optimism slowly dissipated as more and more protectionism came from these countries.
The member has very rightly pointed out that the opening up of the markets and of free trade routes is one of the ways that not only Canada prospers, but everybody in the world prospers. If we look back at history, when there was free trade all around the world, there was a massive income increase. When the protectionism comes, then the whole world economy goes down and everybody suffers.
Taking that into account, it is a good thing to ratify this.