International Trade committee  It's a challenge, but it's also an opportunity for us, because oftentimes we're dissecting those agreements well in advance of their actual implementation and highlighting the grey areas, the areas on which we need additional information in order to provide the best advice forward for our clients.

International Trade committee  From my perspective, obviously when we talk about duty rates and the impact on companies, again, to make reference to Ms. Campbell's comment, the bottom line is that if it's not on their balance sheet and they didn't anticipate it, it's going to be a challenge in terms of how they do business and how they execute that.

International Trade committee  That's a great question. We often find that as new trade agreements are being negotiated, companies come to us for guidance on how they can leverage their business and how they can leverage the opportunity to be able to do trade with a particular country or a new country. They're always looking at those preferential duty rates and how they would qualify.

International Trade committee  Thank you for that question, but my understanding is no.

International Trade committee  Absolutely, we are seeing companies very concerned, especially small and medium-sized businesses that are often not very savvy with navigating trade environments. They're really looking to a service provider for that level of guidance for them to be able to effectively manage what is oftentimes a myriad of regulations prior to a new trade agreement coming into place and how do they qualify.

International Trade committee  It's an interesting time in our industry and really also in world growth and the economy in terms of predictability and stability in our environment, especially as we move through COVID. Some of the challenges will definitely be as we adapt to this new agreement. The devil is in the details and how we manage and implement that for the future.

International Trade committee  Thank you. Good morning, honourable Madam Chair and members of the committee. On behalf of my colleague Robert Closner and myself, we would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. To provide you with further context for our appearance, we'd like to state that our issues are related in a broad sense to Canada-U.K. trade, as they are related to any major cross-border trade relationship our country currently has.