Thank you.
I would urge against tinkering too much with the present situation. I think it works well, and it works on the basis of ad hoc solutions to specific problems.
We ought to bear in mind that in some areas Canada does not have a lot of discretion. Let me give you an example. Based on what I've read in the budget and in some speeches by Mr. Emerson, we are on the verge of entering into or proposing free trade negotiations with a number of countries, in addition to the list that we already have. Whether the government will proceed, I don't know.
Those are clearly voluntary decisions. Consultation is clearly indicated. And my experience as a trade negotiator tells me that you'd better make sure that the business community is really interested in those free trade agreements, or don't waste the resources doing them. If you do them, there won't be a business response and you'll have spent a lot of time.
Multilaterally, where 150 countries agree on the progress or not progress of multilateral trade negotiations, the option for Canada to hold up the process is about zero. The idea that, as a result of consultation with the provinces or with civil society, Canada at that point would say no, we will not participate in multilateral trade negotiations seems to me to be quite unthinkable.
One of the things we've learned over the years—and I sense we now embrace this quite vigorously—is that nothing is to be lost from transparency. Everything is to be gained from transparency. There's very little that's secret out there. The government has far more to gain by opening the doors and letting people come and talk and tell them what their interests are. Trying to do it in one big group with all of civil society, I think, is a mistake because people won't say what they think.
The more time that officials, ministers, and members of Parliament spend listening to people, the greater will be the rewards. But don't formalize it in the sense that the government has to have this consultation before it can do that, where if the consultation were against it, the government would not enter into a multilateral round of trade negotiations or not participate in a big regional agreement. I think that would unnecessarily restrict Canadian flexibility.
My last point is, as Mr. Grenier says, don't do any of this until we know what our interests are. My presentation has argued that our interests are changing and we need to get our minds around how we're going to address that.