Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his intervention. He does such great work on the trade file. I know how knowledgeable he is about the relationship between Canada and the United States and some of our other trading partners.
He have talked about this relationship. He and I had the opportunity to go to Washington last year to discuss some of the negotiations that were going on for NAFTA. One of the things we heard, time and again, from business owners and stakeholders that have relationships on both sides of the border was their concern about the direction of the NAFTA negotiations. They were based on the five priorities the Liberal government put on the table to start off those negotiations. They included climate change, gender equality, cultural protections, right to work, and indigenous issues, issues they were very concerned did not belong in an economic trade agreement. They were concerned that the Liberal government was not taking these off the negotiating table. They were, in their words, hills they would die on.
That put us in a very precarious and weak negotiating position when it came to renegotiating NAFTA. I would like to hear my colleague's comments on where this went off the tracks early and on the impact it has had on our relationship.