Mr. Speaker, I really feel honoured to catch your eye. It is a privilege for me to be here on a Thursday afternoon and know that the Speaker has my back.
I think everybody agrees that Bill C-13 should go through. It is common sense. It should be almost like a routine item. I am going to talk about some of the frustrations that we have with the U.K. wanting to join the TPP. I think it is good that it is joining the TPP. I look forward to it joining. I look forward to Costa Rica joining, hopefully, at the end of the month. I think whenever we can expand the TPP to include other countries, we make it a better multilateral agreement. It gives our Canadian manufacturers, producers, farmers and industries a chance to have access not only to another market but to other partners, to compete globally in a lower-tariff environment. Those are all good things.
However, I am disappointed at this lost opportunity. As this agreement was being discussed, as we were talking about the fact that the U.K. wanted to join, we had the opportunity then and there to say that some things in our continuity agreement were not resolved, and they could have been resolved as the U.K. entered the TPP. We could have dealt with the additives in food products. We could have dealt with the carcass wash. We could have dealt with the pension issues. We could have said that these things were stumbling blocks that were really a barrier to the U.K. coming into this agreement and that we needed to come to some sort of agreement on all those issues, not only so the U.K. has fair access to Canada but also so we have fair access to the marketplace in the U.K.
We could also have made the ethical argument about the U.K. treating its own civil servants with respect and dignity no matter where they live, especially if they decided to live here in Canada. I can understand why they would want to live here in Canada. I think we would all agree Canada is a wonderful country. Why would someone not want to live here? It is awesome. Unfortunately, that opportunity was lost and squandered. After 10 years of the Liberal government, there are so many examples of squandered and lost opportunities that have come back to roost at this point in time.
Let us look at a current example. We have the world knocking on our door again looking for natural gas or oil and gas. We could have been developing our pipe and our oil and gas infrastructure, liquefied natural gas, over the last 10 years, and we could have built in and solved some of those problems globally. Now we are trying to do it. I guess it is better late than never, but if we would have done it then, just think of how much wealthier this country would be, how much more leverage this country would have globally and how much better everybody in the world would feel knowing they are getting an ethical supply of oil and gas. That is a lost opportunity that could have been done quite simply and quite effectively over the last 10 years.
When we talk about things that are important to Canada, we have the Prime Minister right now going around the globe talking to different countries, and I actually think that is a good thing. I really do. After 10 years of Trudeau, there is a lot of rebuilding that has to happen. In fact, I can remember sitting in a coffee shop back in Prince Albert. A farmer sat down next to me and asked what we could do about Trudeau and if we could take his passport away or something. Every time that prime minister left the country, there was a disaster that followed, whether it was the India event or the open mic in the U.K. There is example after example of when the former prime minister went and burned goodwill, burned our image abroad and impacted our reputation negatively. Now we have the Prime Minister going around and trying to rebuild that reputation. I think it is good that he is doing that because it has to happen.
With a Conservative government, that would have been the priority of our prime minister, Prime Minister Poilievre. In that scenario, he would have been able to—