Madam Speaker, I know the Deputy Prime Minister has made a lot about the amount of consultation that went on. However, there is a big difference between consulting sector-specific people under the cloak of NDAs, or non-disclosure agreements, where they are not allowed to talk about anything, versus bringing it to Parliament where there are things we can discuss. There is a difference between sharing objectives at the negotiating table with people who are not allowed to talk about those with anybody else and sharing them in Parliament, where the country can have a conversation about what should be on the list and what should be taken off the list, and supply management is a great example.
Dairy farmers are hit hard by this agreement. I hope there will be another context. It has been done somewhat at committee, where we have talked about ways government can mitigate some of the ill effects that are part of this agreement. That debate should have taken place with more information on the table. Up until two weeks before this version of the deal was signed, dairy farmers were told they would be okay, that there were not significant concessions beyond what was in the original NAFTA.
People were caught off guard. Public debate has a way of bringing those things out. It does not always, it is not perfect, it is a blunt instrument, but it can really bring things to the surface. That is why it was such a priority for us to take the first meaningful step on a road toward a better, more transparent process. In the long term, that will help us get better deals that are fairer for workers and the environment.