Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, I give the Liberals credit for moving some of the deal across the goal line. We appreciate that. It is important.
We realize that there is a huge challenge with respect to tariffs. I understand that the government is working to try to address these issues. Why we continued to look at other trade deals when we were in government, and why the Liberal government is doing that, was because we were trying to reduce our reliance on the U.S.
The number, 15 years ago, when I first arrived in this place, was probably close to 85% or 90%. We see that number now at 76%. We need to look for opportunities with other countries.
I go back to my colleague and friend who talked about the fact that while we look at trying to diversify, and why it is important to do, the underlying challenge we still have as a country is competitiveness. It is regulation, red tape, skills shortages and taxation. It is a combination of things.
We need to always be mindful, as we move forward on this, that no matter how many trade deals we have with other countries, we need to make sure that we can compete. We need to be able to compete with countries like China, the U.S. and Europe. As I look at some of the results from CETA, I see that there are more goods coming into Canada than are being sent to Europe. There is an opportunity here. The minister has talked about finding ways to help our SMEs do a better job exporting. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done to take advantage of these deals.