Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to our witnesses for being here on very short notice. We certainly appreciate your input and your testimony here.
All of you touched on it, and this is my biggest concern with the signing of the new NAFTA. I can't think of another trade agreement, ever, whereby one country would sign off its sovereignty to another in a specific commodity. We have a cap on those products, whereas the United States does not have a similar cap. It is free to grow its market in milk powder, protein powder and infant formula, whereas now Canada is not. My worry is that we have allowed a foot in the door for other commodities. We've had other stakeholder groups here with us today. My question would be, what's next? If we have allowed this to happen on these products—and Ms. Robinson brought up a good point—now we've set a very dangerous precedent that other products could be up for negotiations in the future.
We had the TPP on the table, ready to be signed after the 2015 election. For all intents and purposes, that was the renegotiation of NAFTA with the United States as part of that agreement. We would not have been giving up this aspect of this or as much access on dairy had the Prime Minister just signed the TPP and not bungled that up so that we are where we are now.
I would just like each of you to comment. How unprecedented is this, to be giving this up in a trade agreement? Were you consulted through this process? Did you know this was going to be part of the new CUSMA, giving up on the milk solids, the protein powder and the infant formula? Were you consulted as part of the process, and did you know this was coming?
Go ahead, Michael.