Okay, thank you.
I'd like to move on to Mr. Laurin.
You had an excellent report from the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, February 2008, Renewing Canada's Infrastructure: An Opportunity to Invest in our Future. It's an excellent report. I'll reference it particularly for my Conservative colleagues. On federal funding and Canadian content, the CME recommends that the Government of Canada make its funding for projects realized by provinces, municipalities, and agencies under their responsibility conditional to the application of rules and regulations favouring Canadian content--a “buy Canada” program.
You went on in recommendation three to say that this must be a common strategy as well for provinces. It's a very strong series of recommendations and is very much in keeping with what the NDP has been saying all along.
Would you not agree, then, that having the “buy Canada” provisions that you support and putting those into place would allow us to negotiate managed trade sectoral agreements on things like iron and steel with the United States? In other words, use our “buy Canada” to offset and leverage the “buy America” provisions and essentially allow, because of the integration of those industries, the mutual use of Canadian and American materials in government procurement.