We should be at Expo: Liberal MP

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Expo 2012 is opening on Saturday in Korea, but Canada won’t have a presence there.

Vancouver Quadra Liberal MP Joyce Murray finds that rather embarrassing.

“Every G20 country is there, except for Canada and Greece. I can understand why Greece isn’t there, because they’ve hit the wall financially.  Eighteen other countries have made the determination that this is an important thing to do,” she insists.

She says not only do we miss out on a chance to promote our tourism and industries, we’re actually snubbing the host.

“South Korea is a potential free trade partner. We’ve been negotiating a free trade deal with them for seven years. This is a real poke-in-the-eye to a potential trading partner to say ‘No, you’re not important enough for us.'”

She points out six million people visited the Canada pavilion two years ago at the Shanghai Expo.

She estimates it would have cost about $10 million to have a pavilion at the South Korea Expo until it winds up mid-August. She points out that’s one-fifth of what the government spent on hosting the three-day G-20/G-8 summit two years ago.

The federal government announced last August that it would pass on this expo, because of the cost.

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