We will come to order. This is the twenty-ninth meeting of the Standing Committee on International Trade.
We welcome today the Minister of International Trade, the Honourable Stockwell Day. Due to motions in the House, of course, we're beginning the meeting 35 minutes late. Unfortunately, that will restrict the minister's time before us. He had been scheduled from eleven to twelve, and he has a plane to catch shortly after twelve, so we're going to change our format in a small way to fit within the time available.
If I could ask the minister to maybe give some brief opening remarks, then we will go to questions from the committee, and I think we're going to have to keep it to one question each. We'll just do the first round, which is seven minutes for questions and answers. We'll go with the Liberals, then the Bloc, and then the NDP, so we'll have just the three question and answer sessions today, in each case within the seven-minute time limit.
With that, Mr. Minister, thank you for coming. I'm sorry for the change in the schedule, but we're grateful for your appearance, and I'd like to ask if you could open with brief comments.