Adrian Wyld/CP Files Conservative MP Erin O'Toole talks to media outside the House of Commons on Parliament Hill, as Tory MP Pierre Paul-Hus looks on, in Ottawa on June 20, 2017.

OTTAWA — Attack mode, says the Conservative Party's new foreign affairs critic, will not be the opposition's first instinct when dealing with the Liberal government's renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Conservative MP Erin O'Toole says his party is willing to offer non-partisan support to the Liberal government during the continuing NAFTA renegotiation, which entered its second round this weekend in Mexico City. But only as long as the Liberals keep the focus on job creation, securing market access and levelling a playing field that he says has given Mexican labour an unfair advantage. O'Toole said the Tories have no time for the "virtue signalling" on gender, Indigenous and environmental issues that the government has also raised as bargaining priorities.

Bloomberg via Getty Images Chrystia Freeland, Canada's minister of foreign affairs, left, speaks as Rex Tillerson, U.S. secretary of State, listens during a meeting at the State Department in Washington, D.C.

If the government takes those priorities too far, O'Toole said he will lead the Conservatives back into political battle. "For me, I don't always lead with the attack if I don't need to. I'm very capable and very effective at the attack if it comes to that," O'Toole said in an interview. It's a position that's been crafted in discussions O'Toole said he has had with his new leader, Andrew Scheer. And it comes one month after the Liberals and Conservatives traded some partisan barbs over NAFTA. It was a summer skirmish that dulled the glow from the rare detente the two parties arrived at earlier in the year, when interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose threw her party's support behind Trudeau as he embarked on finding common ground with NAFTA-bashing U.S. President Donald Trump. Former Progressive Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney — who presided over Canada's initial free trade pact with the U.S. — also briefed the Trudeau cabinet on Trump, his long-time Florida neighbour. Then the old battle lines were redrawn after the government's $10.5 million payout to Omar Khadr, the Canadian citizen who was imprisoned and tortured at the notorious U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Bloomberg via Getty Images Files Former prime minister Brian Mulroney briefed Trudeau on Trump prior to NAFTA negotiations.