I call to order the fifth meeting this session of the Standing Committee on International Trade. We are connected today by video conference to Vancouver, where we have our witnesses appearing.
Before we get to that, I'm just going to have one moment on routine business. I think we generally had agreed at the last meeting that we would go until 5 p.m. today with the witnesses' testimony and the questioning, and that at 5 p.m. we would return to orders of the day and set our agenda for the next meeting.
If that's agreeable to everyone, I'd like to commence the meeting, and I'll do that by introducing our witnesses. We have a witness from Vancouver representing the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, Yuen Pau Woo, the president and co-chief executive officer.
In addition to Mr. Woo, we have from Korea Ms. Joan Baron, the president and CEO of GBD Canada and also the vice-chair of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Korea. I think she was also the past chair for some time, and we're delighted to have her here.
In addition, we have Scott Sinclair, a senior research fellow with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Those three witnesses are here today to give us some more background on our topic of discussion, a proposed Canada-South Korea free trade agreement.
With that, I think we will start with brief opening remarks. I will cap them at 10 minutes, so I would ask our witnesses to maybe give a brief opening background statement.
Mr. Woo, if you're prepared to begin, I'll ask you to start.