Mr. Speaker, let me reassure the member that if not a lot happens between now and 2019, the Conservatives will certainly resume a robust trade agenda after 2019.
The question of where we should be going next is an important one. Through the work of Brian Mulroney's Conservative government, there was free trade with our partners in North America. Now, thanks to the hard work undertaken by the Harper Conservative government, we are moving forward with trade with Europe.
The next step, and the member alluded to this, is to expand trade with like-minded democracies within Asia. Of course, there is a lot of economic growth happening there and some real opportunities. The Conservative government began the process of seeking free trade with India. Given the strong people-to-people ties that Canada has with India, and the economic opportunities that exist there, this is certainly very important. However, we should pursue multilateral trade arrangements within Asia as well.
The government has talked about seeking bilateral free trade with China, but I would suggest that if we focus on working with like-minded democracies, we have an opportunity to establish the terms of trade along rule of law lines that respect human rights, labour rights, environmental concerns, and other issues, and we can do that through a kind of partnership like the TPP. That would be a good basis on which to explore subsequent trade with China and other powers. However, the first step is to establish partnerships with countries like Australia, New Zealand, Japan, India, the Philippines, and others, with whom we clearly have relatively similar systems of government and ideas about the rule of law and democracy.