Thank you, Chair.
I think it's great that we have a better relationship with Europe. It's our original trade partner from way back. Sometimes it's very difficult when you are negotiating. They have ten times our population, similar to the U.S., and going into these meetings, you're wondering who is the dog and who is the tail here.
I notice you stressed this high degree of like-mindedness that we have with Europe. I've been to Europe many times. I've been to Brussels. There is definitely quite a bit of difference in philosophy, especially between the Conservative government and the European Union. The Prime Minister even stated, on that case, that we have to make sure Canada fights against becoming a European-style state and things like that. When we deal with foreign affairs issues, even an Israel-Palestine issue, we're totally different from the Europeans. Then, when you come down to agriculture, I don't know how we're going to bridge the protectionism and the subsidies that they have in Europe. Then we come to fisheries issues. Even a simple thing like selling shrimp to Europe has all these tariffs on it.
I know I'm throwing a bunch of things at you. I'm optimistic that we could have some sort of mutual agreement. Wouldn't it be nice if we had the trade that we have with the United States?
The present government is not philosophically the same as Europe. I want you to comment on that. How do we get by all these other things I've mentioned? How do we get past that when we are sitting around a table doing negotiations?