An election is no time to talk about serious issues I'm told, but surely after winning a majority government one should consider it.The Liberals deserve full-credit for skillfully avoiding taking a position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the historic 12-country trade pact, during an election campaign.  It was fraught with political risk from the start.  An auto industry that would be divided, an agriculture sector with a powerful dairy lobby willing to throw milk at anyone who considered more access into their protected market and the usual deep-pocketed unions who protest free trade agreements as predictably as the sun rises in the morning.  With all that risk behind us, now is the time for the Liberal government to show some fortitude and take a position on something fundamental to Canada's long-term prosperity.  If they don't, TPP will be defined in the public eye by its opponents and doomed to a slow, painful death.To be fair, Liberals have made some positive signals that they will support the pact.  Throughout the campaign they continued to remind Canadians that they were a pro-trade party, and made no signals of discontent with the deal. After the dust settled from the 78-day campaign, the TPP text was magically released. The Liberals had a chance to do what dozens of Canadian trade associations, chambers of commerce, labour unions, and corporations all did in short order; formulate a clear, and more importantly, passionate, position.The problem with the Liberal record on free trade is not that they're against it; it is that it lacks ambition.  One need look no further than 13 years of Liberal Governments from 1993-2006 to see the proof.  The Chretien/Martin era produced free trade agreements with three countries: Chile, Costa Rica and Israel.  Harper subsequently spent the next decade playing catch up.  It is one thing to say you're for free trade; it is quite another to actually be for free trade. Free trade is not gained by default, it takes political will.Newly-minted International Trade Minister, Chrystia Freeland quickly stated that before taking a position on the deal, the government would consult Canadians, as if that hadn't been done before, during or after negotiations of the deal.Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay must not have received the same memo from the transition team as Freeland, as he told Reuters; “I see nothing today that would make me not want to support the whole package,” referring to the $4.3B compensation package, and the Trans-Pacific deal.The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and others have all suggested that Trudeau wait to ratify the deal until the United States show positive signals that their own Congress will accept the terms.  That's fair. Ratification and implementation in Canada will certainly take time.The ratification process will allow for robust debate, as we've seen with past trade agreements.  Parliamentary Committees will likely hear from the deals opponents, as well as its supporters.  The “consultation process” launched by the government is nothing more than a delay tactic to avoid taking a principled view that Canada needs to be apart of an agreement of this magnitude.Odds are the government will wind up making the right decision and supporting the deal.  But in the meantime, the longer Trudeau's government sits in dark rooms avoiding the TPP debate, the more oxygen opponents of the deal breathe.Vancouver City Council is mulling an opposition to the deal, citing Investor State Rules.  Research in Motion co-founder Jim Balsillie and University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist have spared no breath taking issue with the intellectual property rules. The CEO of Ford Motor Company Canada has raised concerns of the impacts to the auto industry. You would think with all of this criticism, TPP had been negotiated by Canada's trade partners rather than Ottawa itself.In fact a former member of parliament has already floated this laughable notion when he said that Canada had “delegated their negotiating duties during the TPP talks to President Obama.”These comments demonstrate either a lack of understanding of how trade deals work, or a willful disregard for the realities of an agreement with 11 other nations and interests at stake. But until the government steps up to the microphone and makes a passionate case for TPP, these comments are left to stand largely unrefuted.Canadian businesses need assurances that an ambitious trade agenda is backing their ventures and risk-taking out in the global market place.  The alternative is that Canadian exports sit in the dock, falling behind our competitors.Canadians need to hear about the benefits of the TPP, and that our vital interests are being protected.  The alternative is that anti-trade activists and stakeholders with only their own special interests in mind will continue to define the contents of the deal and push public opinion towards the point of no return, where political damage may become a cause for concern for the government. Hopefully, by then, it's not too late.Rick Roth is the former Director of Communications to Canadian Foreign and International Trade MinistersFollow him on Twitter @Roth