Thank you, Chair, and thanks to all the witnesses for being here this afternoon and this morning. It has been very interesting to talk and listen to you.
Ms. Brisebois, you were on television last night, and I actually did watch some of your Senate hearing last night on television. CBC had a report on some of the things you talked about with regard to the price differentials, especially in hockey equipment, from across the border. I have started playing hockey again, so I watched that very closely.
I think it's very important to note, when we look at our budget and we actually look at what's going on in this budget, that it's got a single focus, which is jobs. That's getting an economy that creates jobs. When you create jobs, you actually get the spinoffs that actually impact what Mrs. Rothman talks about, and that's dealing with poverty and issues with poverty and with kids in poverty and that spectrum. Once you have a job, you start to build yourself a family, you start to build a house, you start to actually take away from the social network, and you're paying taxes, so you're putting back into the social network at the same time.
But if nobody is working, you end up with a situation like they have in Greece, where it's just unsustainable.
This is where I go in my questioning with you—the importance of trade. Free trade agreements are trade agreements. I don't like the words “free trade agreements”; I call them “balanced trade agreements”, because there are a lot of things in there between governments that make these trade agreements work for each country. They're not situations where we're exploiting them or they are exploiting us. It is actually creating partnerships with other countries to be more efficient—and this is probably a better word—partners together, or trading partners.
If you look through our government, and if you look at what's in this budget, we've got a very active trade agenda. What do you think the impact of that trade agenda will be as far as the creation of jobs and growth is concerned, and how will it affect your sector?