Some members of our industry and some members of the coalition had informal contacts a few weeks ago. The purpose was to see whether, in spite of the fact that the agreement was initialled on July 1, it was still possible to improve it and make it commercially viable. This would also be in the interest of the United States because, if the agreement is not commercially viable for Canadian businesses, it will not last very long.
My colleague, Mr. Wakelin, confirmed that an effort is made from sea to sea to get to a list of issues on which we would like some improvement. However, as I mentioned in my remarks, the U.S. coalition issued a very short but very clear press release twice over the last two weeks, stipulating that even if its members were not entirely satisfied with the agreement, it was out of question to reopen it, since they support their government and the Canadian government. It is interesting to see that the Canadian government is now serving the interests of our U.S. opponents by supporting the agreement in the way you described.
Will there really be an informal reopening of the negotiations? I don't know. However, it should be reminded that it would be very risky to reopen informally the negotiations in the absence of both governments, essentially because of competition laws which are in force both in the U.S. and in Canada. The U.S. law is very strict in this regard. Criminal charges could be laid against people who would take part in such discussions without the support of the governments. I was therefore a little surprised to hear Minister Emerson tell us this morning that he would encourage industries to talk to each other even if, for both governments, the deal was done.
On the other hand, your questions led the Minister to say that there was a possibility to amend the agreement if both governments agreed. Thus I imagine that there is a theoretical possibility, but it was rather clear that the Minister didn't want to do it.