Welcome back.
We are returning to the committee agenda and, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), a study of Canada-South America trade relations, specifically Canada-Colombia.
It won't be a surprise to the committee that we had thought we might be considering a trade bill with Colombia at this time; however, the bill is still in the House and has not yet been referred to the committee. Some are hopeful that it will soon be referred to the committee, but in the meantime the bill continues to be debated in the House.
We wanted to get an update on the status of the trade arrangement and other agreements between Canada and Colombia, and we have asked witnesses from the department to appear to give us that update and answer any questions the committee has.
We only have about 45 minutes, so I'm going to ask our witnesses to give us a brief introduction of 10 or 15 minutes, just to give us a broad update, and then we'll probably have time for one round of questioning.
Visiting us again from the Department of Finance is the director of international trade, policy division, Carol Nelder-Corvari. Thank you again for appearing. With Ms. Nelder-Corvari we have Maxime Lavoie, the senior economist for tariffs and market access from from the Department of Finance.
Visiting us again from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade we have Matthew Kronby; and also from the department we have--this may be her first visit here--Alexandra Bugailiskis.
From the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development, we have Pierre Bouchard, who has been with us before. Monsieur Bouchard is the director of bilateral and regional labour affairs.
With those brief introductions I would like to call upon Ms. Nelder-Corvari to begin, maybe with an opening statement, and if you'd like to ask others to participate, we'll hear you and get on with the questions. Please carry on.