Thank you.
I have three questions for Mr. Garver.
Thank you for your presentation.
I was reading the press release. In there the government claims that this agreement will ensure that progress on environmental protection goes hand in hand with economic progress. I'm going to take that as a statement of principle the government has with respect to this Colombia free trade agreement, that we actually make more progress on environmental protection.
We heard from you, very clearly, that the NAFTA mechanisms are not working very well, and that there has been a reduction in government commitment, funding, timeliness, and public involvement under the NAFTA agreement. We also heard that the Peru situation has even less effectiveness, with no independent mechanism whatsoever. Clearly it's an unlevel playing field.
I would like you to tell me a bit about the environment assessment process. We know that Canadian investors are involved in mines and pipelines, which can be great from the perspective of jobs. But having been an environment minister, I know that if you don't have a very effective EA process to make sure you understand and mitigate environmental impacts, those very activities can be quite damaging.
That's my first question. Tell us a bit about the EA process under NAFTA and how you think it might be improved or worsened under something parallel to the Peru FTA.