Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, to all the witnesses who are here today, for your service and for all your work in preparing the BIA. I know it is a tremendous amount of work. Thank you also for your service to Canada on an ongoing basis. I express my gratitude to you for all of that work.
My first question is about part 4, division 5 of the bill, which would see the indefinite withdrawal of Russia and Belarus's most favoured nation status, which would result in a general tariff of 35% being applied to virtually all imports from those two countries.
In response to Russia's genocidal invasion of Ukraine, Canada was the first country to withdraw their most favoured nation status. Can you explain the rationale of making this withdrawal indefinite, and tell us when the current revocation of that status is set to expire?