Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to each of you for your interventions today.
We've met with stakeholders representing a range of sectors. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, of course, represents a range of sectors. We've talked to, and I've had discussions with, the manufacturers. We've had the Canadian Federation of Agriculture before us, indicating that across the agricultural sectors this is a good agreement for Canada and represents opportunities.
During a period when Canada, as a small open economy that is dependent on external trade for our prosperity, has just had the first trade deficit in 30 years and has an excessive dependence on the U.S. market, it's clear we need to diversify our trade relationships. And historically we've learned that protectionism during a time of economic downturn can have a pernicious effect. We saw in the 1930s that it was protectionism, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in the U.S., that led to retaliatory trade actions and protectionism from around the world that turned a recession into a full-fledged depression.
Right-of-centre economists and left-of-centre economists, people like Joe Stiglitz at Columbia, who was an economic adviser to Clinton and a Nobel Prize winner, have expressed real fears of protectionism and the need to liberalize trade.
My question is to Mr. Yussuff. Take the following agreements: Canada-U.S. FTA; NAFTA; Canada-EFTA, the more recent one; and the current negotiations with Canada-EU. Do you support any of these trade agreements?