We'll look at what one of the countries in Latin America has done in the past. We'll look at a country like Chile, which put down its trade barriers very early.
What basically happened was that because Chile is a relatively small country, with a population of 16 million and a GDP of $180 billion a year, they cannot manufacture many products effectively with such a small economy. They focus very much more on their strength: it's been in agriculture, in fisheries, and in the extraction of minerals, particularly copper. They've been able to very effectively enhance those areas of production and compete worldwide by focusing on where their strengths were, and not protecting industries that were ineffective in their production.
When we look at the countries in Latin America, we have to think first that Brazil has 50% of the GDP of the region. So it's very polarized, with 185 million people, the eighth largest economy in the world. No doubt the first impression one would have is that Brazil would be a country that would have a lot of interest for us. Now, the trade flows between Brazil and Canada are not enormous, not what one would expect they should be, because they are not complementary. So if a country like Brazil were to lower all its tariffs, it would help some aspects of Canadian exports, particularly in agricultural areas like grain and fertilizers, but not really the industrial base, because Brazil has a very large and quite developed industrial base.
If you look at other countries, maybe another economy would be Argentina, second in line in size and the benefits it would have. It's a competing economy. Their major exports are the same as Canada's.
So the reduction of tariffs by those countries would have an effect, but not a tremendous effect, on the flow of trade between Canada and them.
I'm not sure if you agree with me on this point, but I think it would be very conducive to expand other areas that may not have developed. This could be looking more into areas of the small and medium-sized enterprises, where they have developed products and technologies and services that could be very much looked after in countries like Brazil or Argentina--the non-Asian countries, not the Indian pact countries.