Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you, gentlemen, for coming before the committee.
As you know, this is a very important issue. We travelled abroad to Colombia, as well, to try to better experience firsthand the complexity of that country. Mr. d'Aquino, I think you alluded to it in your remarks. It's not a matter of black and white. The country is full of extreme contradictions. You've alluded to some of them, but I want to illustrate some of the points we saw.
There is extreme growth, at 7% or 8%, but extreme poverty. You have Uribe at 80%, so he's very popular, but you have a Congress with 30 in jail and 30 being investigated. You have a country that is very democratic, but they're dealing with a lot of internal conflicts. So it's not so rosy. There are extreme challenges that I think need to be addressed. That prompted this study on human rights and the environment, specifically.
You mentioned that free trade shouldn't be examined in isolation. You said that there needs to be a concrete effort made to examine these other issues. How far do you think the free trade agreement should go in addressing human rights issues, labour issues, and environmental issues? That's one set of questions.
Second, you mentioned Colombia being a priority. How would you prioritize Colombia in light of some of the other potential free trade agreements we could pursue or other markets we should pursue in terms of our strategic interests? Where would Colombia be in terms of priority?
If you could answer those questions, it would be greatly appreciated.