The United States has been very supportive of the ATT. It sees, as well as anyone, the need for common international standards.
Really, the goal here is to try to promote greater transparency and confidence among major exporters—that we all try to achieve the same goals. One of the key components, then, is going to be on reporting and transparency so that we can all be confident that we are all fulfilling these obligations we undertake. Therefore, reporting is going to be very important.
However, reporting must also be realistic and practical. For example, under the chairman's text, the chairman seems to believe that we can report in incredible detail about each and every transaction. What we have said in the PrepCom, and others have agreed with us, is that to be realistic and practical, we cannot report in such great detail. Our trade with the U.S. is the classic example of that, where, by all means, we would want to be transparent and open, but the number of transactions between Canada and the U.S. is such that we won't be able to report on each and every transaction.
In any case, there are certain limitations that we and everyone else are going to have in how much and what we can report, including, for example, national security. We don't necessarily want to be able to report in intimate detail how much the Canadian or the American armed forces are buying or selling.
There's corporate confidentiality. We shouldn't ask companies to provide such intimate details about their business transactions. We have to be realistic.
Finally, in the case of Canada, we have the Privacy Act. There's some information that, for private citizens, we just cannot give out, and we don't want to give out.
All that being said, there's still a way of being open and transparent in giving the kind of information that will promote confidence and transparency among the partners of an ATT, and this we would support.