Thank you.
You're correct, Chair. It was very efficient testimony, I thought.
Mr. Broad, I was reading your brief last week. I'm curious about the interaction between domestic regulations and the standards under international conventions, and how this bill would change that interface or undermine the efficient functioning of that interface. You did talk about it in your brief.
There's one thing that I didn't understand, though, and it's where you say in relation to this point about international conventions that Canada's internal standards tend to be higher than the international standards under conventions. Given that, how would that put Canada in a compromising situation if our standards are already higher than international standards? That's one question.
The second has to do with the situation with the State of New York at the moment in regard to ballast water. I wonder if you have any thoughts about that as a kind of case study of what could happen if this bill were adopted. As you know, the regulations are so stringent for docking in New York State in terms of treating a ship's ballast water that if the regulations aren't changed they're saying there would be no traffic into New York State.
If you could just start by answering those two questions, I'd really appreciate it.