Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate all four of you being witnesses here today. Yours are by far the strongest presentations that we've heard on the EFTA agreement. It's a matter of some concern, of course, because a year and a half ago in the same committee we were hearing testimony about job losses in the proposed softwood lumber agreement, and the government didn't listen to the comments that were made at the time. Subsequent to that, we've seen a hemorrhaging of jobs in the softwood industry.
Clearly there is real concern for the shipbuilding industry in Canada. So I'd like to start by asking those from the shipbuilding industry, the marine workers and those representing the owners, do you consider the way the government is approaching this as a broken promise? In a sense, they were pushing you to move away from carve-out to a phase-out, and the quid pro quo was to put in place some legitimate programs. Do you think that's a broken promise?