Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments on the importance of trade.
He talked about the new CPTPP. If it were that important, he would remember that two weeks after the Prime Minister was elected in 2015, his first international trip was to the APEC summit. Mr. Obama, who was the most progressive president in the history of the United States, brought his deal, the TPP, there to be ratified and signed. At that time, the Prime Minister decided it was not progressive enough so he did not sign the agreement. Our allies that were there, New Zealand, Australia and Japan, were extremely upset. Eventually the government came around and signed the TPP, so obviously it thought it was a good agreement, although it was a couple of years late and included two sidebars.
It has been five years now, and the original TPP was a renegotiation of NAFTA. Could my colleague comment on what benefit there has been for the Canadian economy to have this amount of uncertainty over four years when the agreement could have been signed exactly 14 months before Mr. Trump was even elected, two years before this became a big issue? It would have been a great template for this new North American free trade agreement. Why did the Liberals not sign it in the first place?