Mr. Speaker, I am glad we will be voting the same way on this bill, although that does not seem to be impeding other kinds of disagreements during the debate.
I disagree with the premise of the question. I do not think there is some inherent superiority of bilateral trade deals over multilateral trade deals. This reflects a different understanding of what a trade deal is all about. I do not mean this pejoratively, but this is sort of the Donald Trump approach to trade deals and the NDP approach to trade deals, which is that it is all about wins and losses, that we are either winning or we are losing in a trade deal, and therefore if we are negotiating smaller trade deals, we are more likely to be winning as opposed to losing.
However, trade deals are not about beating other countries in the negotiations. Trade deals are actually about expanding the space for shared prosperity. Free trade is really about extending the space for liberty and allowing individuals greater opportunity to buy and sell products from other countries. Of course, nations are involved in the negotiating process as that proceeds, but the goal really is to open opportunities for individuals as well as businesses in both countries. In cases where it is possible to negotiate larger-scale multilateral trade deals that include more countries, it is always better to pursue free trade with more countries. We can do that through bilateral deals or through multilateral deals, but it takes longer to get to more countries if we do it solely on a bilateral basis.