It would appear that today is my opportunity to actually explain the organizational structure of the Privy Council Office, and I'm really pleased to have the chance to do that.
There are a number of parts of the Privy Council Office that support the government's international agenda. Let me take you through them.
I'm going to begin with the national security adviser to the Prime Minister, who oversees a branch that includes the foreign and defence adviser to the Prime Minister, which is an ADM-level post, and another ADM, who work closely with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and also with CIDA to ensure that at the highest level those perspectives are integrated into the overall PCO advice, through to the Prime Minister. Those are done bilaterally in briefings from the NSA and also from the foreign and defence adviser to the Prime Minister.
They're also done in an integrated way through the clerk, because the clerk, as part of his management team, also has deputy secretaries who are deputy-minister-level officials in charge of operations, which include the subcommittees to cabinet—the operations committee, the economic committee, and the social committee. A number of trade issues come up often through the economic subcommittee, so that deputy minister uses his staff to pull together those perspectives as well.
Another important piece of the work that PCO is doing, in terms of informing the international agenda, is of course the work with our American counterparts. We spoke earlier about the border team. There is, of course, the work of the other piece of the action plan, which was the regulatory cooperation council, to create efficiencies and eliminate irritants in relationships with Americans vis-à-vis trade.