Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks, Mr. Grenier and Mr. Dymond. It's good to see you again. Thank you for sharing some of your wisdom and experiences on the machinery of government.
I know that this committee has been discussing this issue over the last several months and we've been told by several witnesses that our country is falling behind in forging new trade relationships around the world. We continue to examine the different ways government functions, how we're organized and looking at the mechanisms, as we're discussing today, and how effective we are in facilitating Canada's ability to reach trade agreements.
I'd be happy to hear from you in a minute about how you see this fault, whether it lies with the machinery of government, or is it an uphill battle? One of the things we talked about earlier in the meeting was convincing the media and the public, Canadians, about the importance of forging relationships with other countries, that it is critical to trade in the global economy.
The machinery of government does seem to come to a grinding halt because of the negativity and the partisanship that's played out whenever we talk about concern. Even in the House earlier this week, the Prime Minister alluded to some of the great initiatives within our budget, that we have the strongest economy for over...unemployment close to record low levels in four decades, and the initiatives we've put into the manufacturing sector to try to expand our trade.
But specifically, from the committee's perspective, I'd like to hear from you, Mr. Dymond, on my point that government officials need to do more travelling, get more feet on the ground, and tying that in to the mechanisms of the different departments and how politicians can play a role to effectively enhance our trade, and whether this is hampering our progress in trade, or is it really a fault of the machinery of government? Or is an extremely negative and partisan climate hampering our ability to move forward?