Thank you, Steve and Gilles, for coming up. Your task is no doubt daunting.
Mr. Lemieux spoke about all of the benefits that are available to Canadians through a free trade agreement. No doubt there are, but I guess the question is, at what cost? We know that sometimes we will go and buy something at any cost because we want it so badly and we forget what we're really giving up.
I have two questions. One surrounds procurement--you've mentioned it several times, Steve, in your document--and rights of access particularly to our natural resources like water, oil, and other minerals, and also actually the right to bid on local projects, such as water systems and things like that.
You know, we very quickly label people “protectionist” because they want to support local industry. I think that's very unfair. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't; I think you need to have options.
I'm concerned at the $8.5 million threshold that you're talking about. For some municipalities, $8.5 million might be high, never reached, and for some--Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal--very low.
So I want your opinion on this. You need to appease the concerns of Canadians about those particular issues, and I'd like you to address that.
Secondly, Gilles, you talked about GMOs. In our discussions on Bill C-474, one of the solutions that was suggested was that we negotiate low-level presence with other countries so it would appease their concerns and give us access to markets we don't otherwise have. Can you talk more about that?
I'll start with Steve.