Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Ambassador, for being here today.
I just want to clarify something, because I know our good friends over at the NDP may lead you to believe that we're worse off in Canada now as a result of some of our trade agreements. I want to give you a benchmark, which has been produced by Statistics Canada, that says when NAFTA came into effect in 1994, the average family had a total income of $64,000, and by 2003 that income had risen to $72,000. So we are doing better as a result of some of our free trade agreements and we'll just agree to disagree on that particular fact.
In terms of your free trade agreements, it looks like you guys have some of the most extensive free trade agreements in the world. You've got agreements with China, the U.S., a very extensive range of free trade agreements. You guys are arranging free trade agreements with Australia, India, Thailand, and Vietnam right now in 2007. Is that correct?
Then my question is how do you decide who you're going to deal with in terms of free trade agreements? It's amazing--and I know it's been mentioned before by some of the colleagues--that we haven't completed any since 2001, but you have free trade agreements with countries like the U.S. and China. You also have some that aren't so impressive or that don't have that type of clout.
So why do you look at free trade agreements with various countries? Just from all the numbers, and by what you indicated to us on the board, it's looks like it's been very successful. What is the determining factor when you go looking at free trade agreements with other countries, and is there something in there that Canada could maybe learn from?