Signing the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CP-TPP) in March will be a priority for the federal opposition.
Conservative Associate Agriculture Critic John Barlow says this is a critical trade agreement for Canadian agriculture.
"We want to be on that list of signatories on March 8. We want to ensure we are amongst those first signatories to ensure that we can take advantage of the tariff free opportunities, especially Japan since it's such a critical market."
Barlow says it's time to move ahead with the agreement.
"The consultation that we did when we were in government, the Liberals have done since then has been exhaustive. We've done numerous studies on it, dozen and dozens of consultation meetings. I think everything that could possibly be scrutinized has been scrutinized, we need to move ahead with this as quickly as possibly."
He says it would be devastating for Canada to be on the outside looking in on the CP-TPP.
"We'll lose out on opportunities to some of our main competitors, like Australia and New Zealand, who will have preferential access to key markets like Japan, and we want to make sure that we're there."
Source : Steinbachonline