Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you very much, gentlemen, for your very interesting comments which were not contradictory, but did sometimes present varying points of view on the highly important topic of farm production. I thank you for being so candid.
Mr. Shauf and Mr. McCreery, among others, and Mr. White, I believe, spoke of the importance of looking into the possibility of concluding agreements for bilateral trade with other countries. I think that my colleague, Mr. Maloney, also touched on this issue, as did the parliamentary secretary.
Perhaps I could just pick up on Mr. Maloney's question, where he asked you to talk about bilateral agreements. I agree with the parliamentary secretary: that since 2001 we have not successfully concluded agreements is something that should cause us some concern.
As all of you know, and this is a public discussion, the previous government and this government are working towards agreements, for example, with Korea, and with the Central American countries. I know that some companies in my part of Atlantic Canada—for example, McCain Foods, amongst others—are hoping that some of these markets will offer opportunities.
I think it was Mr. Shauf who mentioned China and India. They are obviously huge markets. Could you prioritize for me: if you were the Minister of International Trade, which agreements that we're working on now—maybe it's EFTA, maybe it's South Korea, maybe it's Central America, maybe it's Singapore—of the ones that are in the hopper, if you will, now or that are being looked at now, or which other ones do you think the government should pursue? If you would rank them, I'd be curious to know where you think the greatest opportunity for Canadian agricultural exports lies and what advice you might have for the government and this committee as to what we could do to try to move them forward.