Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our guests for being here today and for providing testimony. I think this is valuable input for the upcoming North American leaders' summit.
Your points are well taken, that we often take our relationships with the United States and Mexico for granted just because they're so present and so near and maybe less exotic than some of our other relationships. I'd describe our relationships with both countries as strong and very mature. I know we often focus on the irritants, but we do need to recognize that we have some tremendous strengths in terms of our relationships with these countries.
I'd like to comment on the Canada-Mexico relationship, for one. I happen to be chair of our Canada-Mexico Parliamentary Friendship Group. I've had recommendations similar to Mr. Wilson's, that a North American parliamentary group might be useful. Mexico is our third-largest trading partner—I think a lot of Canadians are unaware of that—and it doesn't happen by accident. It's because of that maturity, that relationship, things that Mexicans buy from us, things that we buy from Mexicans, and strong person-to-person ties between the two countries.
On the visas in particular, though, I've had frequent discussions with the Mexicans about that. In 2009 there were 10,000 refugee claims in Canada, which resulted in a tremendous cost to Canada. Some estimates put each claim at about $50,000 in terms of social services, health care, consular services, and ultimately some deportation costs. It ended up costing Canada about half a billion dollars in one year alone. In terms of the offset for tourism, it's hard to see where there would be much of an offset. We just need to understand the Canadian point of view. I know a lot of the Canadian media took the Mexican side in those discussions, and I think the Canadian side needs to be understood.
I do appreciate the recommendations about moving forward, accelerating the progress on the electronic travel authorization and the trilateral trusted traveller program, because that's really critical. Right now our embassies in Mexico can process a visa in less than a week, and it's $100. People, especially higher-end tourists who really want to come to Canada to ski at Whistler, let's say, will pay the $100 and continue to come. Ultimately, I think our goal is for the visa relationship to be similar to that of Chile, where we've removed the visa, but it's based on some very fundamental changes in Mexico around crime rates and socio-economic factors. That doesn't happen overnight.
I do have a question. I think NAFTA is stronger because it's a three-way relationship as opposed to two-way. I think a good example of that is country-of-origin labelling. I think Canada and Mexico had a very common cause, and we made our case very forcefully at the World Trade Organization. Even though that wasn't a NAFTA tribunal—it was the World Trade Organization—I think with our common cause we were able to have a certain influence over U.S. policy-making.
To all of our panellists, is NAFTA stronger because it's a three-way relationship rather than a two-way relationship? In other words, is it less asymmetrical? Can we get more things done in a three-way relationship than we could in the previous two-way relationship we had with the United States?
Perhaps I would start with you, Mr. Wilson. I know you were very involved in Canada-U.S. free trade. Can you talk about how things are perhaps stronger now that it's a three-way relationship?