Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador, for staying for a few minutes longer. I appreciate that.
I'd like to come back to the issue of dispute settlement that a number of my colleagues have raised as well, because, if I recall, back in 1992 you were one of the champions of the issue of having a binding dispute settlement mechanism. I can quote from the Commons debates, but some of the comments you made in 1992 were that the maintenance of binding dispute settlement is absolutely critical to North American free trade negotiation and that the binding dispute settlement mechanism is a centrepiece in Canada's approach on the free trade agreement with the United States.
You did mention earlier that you don't think the dispute settlement is affected, though I don't believe any serious observer actually agrees with you on that. In fact, what has come out consistently is that dispute settlement is effectively dead. We have a mechanism--chapter 19--that could have been invoked by the Liberals back in August as non-respect for NAFTA's binding dispute settlement mechanism. I'm wondering, once you assumed your position, whether or not you advised the government that they should be invoking chapter 19, that in fact using the dispute settlement mechanism, which was open and available to us, those rights, was an option. Did you advise them of that?