As I said in my introductory comments, NAFTA has been in near unanimous agreement among analytical people, which has been a very big benefit to Canada. Over the last few years, I think NAFTA has become a bit of a negative for Canadians, through the media and because of the prominence of issues like softwood lumber. It's been seen by most people as characterized by significant problems. So it's getting a bit of a tarnished image.
As I also said in my introduction, that same attitude is prevalent in the United States and Mexico. NAFTA creates an agreement and a basis—a framework—for free trade, but a framework built on domestic laws. If you have ill will in any or all of the countries, then domestic laws can evolve and be changed in ways that hurt NAFTA and undermine it. Therefore it is very important that we maintain and nurture goodwill among NAFTA participants, in order to avoid the undermining of NAFTA through regulations: through legislation that can be quite compliant with NAFTA, but destructive of it.
The meeting in Acapulco was the first time the NAFTA commission actually met and talked about the future of NAFTA, and how we could work more collaboratively to ensure that it is a healthier, more vibrant instrument. We recognized that North America has an opportunity to create integrated supply chains, which, if they are running smoothly without impediments and disruptions at borders, can make North American industry more competitive against the outside world.
It's my view that if we do not take advantage of NAFTA as a way of making sure our auto industry or our technology industries are participants in efficient supply chains, then we are going to pay the price internationally. Because what you'll find, in terms of the world economy today, is that competitiveness derives much more from clusters of companies and the movement of goods, inputs and people—from capital, ideas, information between a multiple.... Literally thousands of companies in a supply chain are in a cluster.
That's where competition comes from, much more so than just the efficiency of an individual plant, like an auto plant or a lumber mill. Efficiency of factories is important. But in terms of overall competitiveness in the global economy, you're seeing much more efficiency come from the supply chain itself and from the way the supply chain integrates suppliers and integrates down to the marketplace, in terms of logistics, transportation, and so on.