Discussion · Government Orders
Garnett Genuis Conservative
“The previous Conservative government signed trade deals with countries making up most of the world economy. This helped Canada depend less on the United States. But the Liberals blocked the building projects we needed to actually use those deals. We have lost 11 years of progress.”
“Mr. Speaker, the member raises a great point in terms of debates that Conservatives have won, which I was talking about in my speech. When Stephen Harper took office, we were very limited in our free trade agreements. We had free trade in North America and were very limited beyond that. Stephen Harper subsequently negotiated trade deals with countries representing over 60% of the world’s GDP with a massive expansion of our trading relations with like-minded democracies in Europe and in the Asia-Pacific. That was a huge step forward in terms of diversification and reducing our dependence on the United States. However, in 11 years of Liberal government, we did not seize on that opportunity because roadblocks were put in the way of infrastructure projects and of other kinds of developments that would have allowed us to seize the opportunities presented by these new trade deals. Diversification in terms of strengthening partnerships with like-minded democracies is a great concept. It is not new. It is just that we have lost 11 years of what could have been progress.”
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Mr. Speaker, the member raises a great point in terms of debates that Conservatives have won, which I was talking about in my speech. When Stephen Harper took office, we were very limited in our free trade agreements. We had free trade in North America and were very limited beyond that. Stephen Harper subsequently negotiated trade deals with countries representing over 60% of the world’s GDP with a massive expansion of our trading relations with like-minded democracies in Europe and in the Asia-Pacific. That was a huge step forward in terms of diversification and reducing our dependence on the United States. However, in 11 years of Liberal government, we did not seize on that opportunity because roadblocks were put in the way of infrastructure projects and of other kinds of developments that would have allowed us to seize the opportunities presented by these new trade deals. Diversification in terms of strengthening partnerships with like-minded democracies is a great concept. It is not new. It is just that we have lost 11 years of what could have been progress.