Thank you.
It's interesting; when I began my career in trade policy, which is now almost forty years ago, only two departments of government counted: the Department of Finance, which controlled the tariff, and the Department of Trade and Commerce, which was the export department. They also controlled the Export and Import Permits Act. When agriculture issues were discussed, which was not frequently, the Department of Agriculture was clearly important. The Department of External Affairs had an overall coordinating role, but no authority to do anything.
The last time I looked, at least 24 federal departments and agencies were involved in the trade agenda, whether it's multilateral or bilateral. That's because the scope of trade agreements has grown. The scope of coordination, the task of coordination, has grown more complex. I dare say the task of members of Parliament in assessing these agreements has become more complex. Once you begin to add services and intellectual property and investment issues, it becomes more complex. This complexity is replicated at the level of the provinces because, as Mr. Grenier says, you have an increasing footprint of international trade agreements upon areas of jurisdiction that are either shared or exclusive.
In my experience, does the machinery cope with that? Yes, it does. We know how to do this. Departments of government know they need to talk to each other. They know that bad things will happen to them if they don't. They know that a properly functioning Privy council Office will ensure that this coordination occurs. It operates in an informal, ad hoc way. Most of the practitioners I think would hesitate to introduce formality into the process.
Remember that anything that happens, happens under the authority of the cabinet and in accordance with legislation adopted by Parliament.