I agree, Madam Speaker, and I apologize. In my rhetoric and passion, I let these headlines get the better of me.
Let us look at foreign policy. Canada historically has leveraged its national and shared interests with another country in order to advance values that maybe the other country does not share, values like human rights and respect for the rule of law. We use trade, economic relations, aid and development to leverage a relationship to have an influence in other areas, such as peace, security and human rights. That is the Canadian tradition and it has been Liberal and Conservative throughout our history, until the current Prime Minister, who puts his own brand or, in the case of India, his own electoral prospects in Canada ahead of our national interests and those of our exporters.
Do we think India will be taking some of our excess canola? Do we think the UAE or Saudi Arabia will be taking our excess canola, as, I would add, it has in the past? No. Canada has fewer options because the Prime Minister has allowed our reputation to be diminished on the world stage. It is one of the biggest reasons Canada, our people and our country need a change of government in October.
We balance interests and values. Sometimes they are aligned, as I mentioned, such as with Australia and New Zealand, whose values and interests we share, and it is easy. Diplomacy is truly an art when we do not share the values and we leverage trade and economic interest to be able to have an impact elsewhere. The Prime Minister has done it the opposite way. He puts his brand and his own electoral prospects ahead of the national interest, and our exporters are paying.
Let us look at China, which has brought us to this opposition day motion. We know the Prime Minister's much-ridiculed pre-election 2015 statement about his admiration for the basic dictatorship, but that underlined the naïveté that former ambassador Mulroney highlighted. Right off the bat, the Prime Minister established two foreign policy goals. He wanted a UN Security Council seat, and that election is not going well when we look at the list of countries upset with us, and he wanted a free trade agreement with China. To do this, the Prime Minister green-lighted a number of takeovers, including a security company called Norsat, which had contracts with the Pentagon. There was not even a security review of that contract.
We need to get back to basics. We need an ambassador who is not a hand-picked Liberal insider like Mr. McCallum. That is why Conservatives brought this debate today.