Mr. Speaker, the type of trade agreement that we will support is a good one, one that works for Canadians, one that is balanced, one that does not throw one sector under the bus in favour of another—balanced trade.
Our country and North America have been gripped by this issue over the summer, with the uncertainty with the United States. Certainly my region, being on the border, feels this very keenly.
I would invite the member to come to my riding at any time to speak to people about what Canadians think about responsible trade deals. I understand the need to diversify and we support that strongly, but it must be responsible. The CPTPP is not.
I will just point really quickly to the labour aspect. I heard the minister talk about labour earlier, and about how he felt that the labour section was an improvement. I am not sure that the Liberals are aware that in the original TPP, the U.S. had negotiated a 12-page labour reform to allow Vietnamese workers to have free and independent collective bargaining. That has disappeared. The U.S., under President Obama, struck a labour consistency plan with Malaysia and Brunei in an effort to ensure that both countries lived up to fundamental labour standards. Canada was not able to maintain those.
It seems as though when we went back to the table for the CPTPP, we made zero effort to improve this deal for Canadians. That was a missed opportunity, because essentially what the Liberals picked up was a Conservative negotiation.