Thanks.
In regard to the point that Mr. Cannis has made, I'm not saying that we should bury our heads in the sand and not have trading relationships with other countries. As a matter of fact, the congress clearly recognizes the importance of trade to Canadian jobs. There's no denying that. That's not our point.
Our point is in regard to the many aspects of this agreement that have been highlighted. I think we're simply saying, why doesn't the government—or, for that matter, this committee—call for studies that will show examples of the benefits in terms of job creation? Certainly our largest export market remains the United States; to date, some 80% of our exports go to the United States. We're obviously trying as a country....
But in regard to specific language in the agreement that speaks to the labour side of the agreement, I want to be very specific so that we can get into the details of those, if the committee so chooses.
We saw the first model of these types of agreements in the NAFTA agreement, where we were promised that we would have a great deal of protection for workers. Twenty-eight complaints under the NAFTA agreement have been filed. Despite the fact that we have a mechanism for dealing with them, not a single one of them has been resolved with any satisfaction—and this despite the very comprehensive process we have for doing so.
Canada then moved to sign what was said to be a better type of labour protection agreement with Costa Rica. Despite the fact that I have travelled with ministers to Costa Rica to talk about the labour situation and what we can do about it, this model was again promoted as a new and different approach. To date, there's been little done by both countries in implementing the provisions of that agreement—and, of course...an adequate enforcement mechanism.
There's no question in regard to the Peru agreement that the language in it suggests it's an improvement from previous agreements. But again, the larger challenge we face is whether Peru is any more committed to enforcing the provisions of the agreement than other countries we have signed trade agreements with.
More importantly, I think the last point I made in our presentation was that these side agreements are dealt with separately, as opposed to being a core part of the agreement, with the same kind of penalties we would have if they were to deny investor rights, and where you can impose sanctions and, of course, deny special provisions for access of goods to their country.
So despite all the rhetoric, the reality in our experience with regard to the promotion of the labour side agreement to deal with the concerns of labour is that we have yet to see any degree of commitment to a mechanism that's going to give real or true meaning to this. We spend a lot of time in the Americas working with our colleagues to promote labour rights in absence of trade agreements, and while this agreement is being promoted as one that's going to do something to that effect, given our experience, we're very skeptical that will be the reality.
For my last point, I want to respond to Mr. Cannis that we're not coming here to assist you to bury your heads in the sand. That's not the issue. We recognize, obviously, that if we had clear rules that protect workers, that allow countries to develop, and that do not take away the levers of government for dealing with the issues that may be created from time to time, we could have a better model in which Canada would benefit, but also the Peruvian government and the Peruvian people at the same time.