MP for Souris-Moose Mountain Dr. Robert Kitchen has more to say about how his riding could be affected by Prime Minister Trudeau’s cabinet shuffle last week.

He noted that the former Minister of Resources, the Liberal party’s James Gordon Carr, has been moved to the Department of International Trade Diversification.

“With NAFTA being in jeopardy, there’s a big concern,” said Kitchen. “The previous Harper government had worked on getting the transpacific partnership going and since then, that has been delayed by Liberals. They now have an agreement, which is basically the same one, the CPTPP.

He expressed that the Canadian Pacific Trade and Performance Partnership would greatly benefit Canadian export industries.

“Basically, it’s about diversifying our export markets, and in particular to the Pacific rim and along those lines, and that legislation has been put forward,” he said. “Before we recessed for the summer, the legislation was just put in a week before.”

He questions why it wasn’t passed prior to summer recess.

“The Liberals keep saying that they want to champion this, yet they delay putting that legislation forward, and we’re calling on them to step it up,” said Kitchen.

The Conservatives have petitioned the house to reconvene the House in order to discuss and ratify the CPTPP.

“This is an important thing for us in Canada as exporters, and in particular for Souris-Moose Mountain, because we export a lot of our agriculture products and our ranching products to that part of the world,” he explained. “Having that access when we know that NAFTA is in jeopardy with dealing with the U.S. is something that we would like to see ratified extremely quickly.”