Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me take the opportunity to welcome Ms. Harrison and my good friend David Hutton. I appreciated very much their comments. I appreciated Ms. Harrison's comments, with her having visited the region and gotten a better feel of it and for how we can benefit here as a country. And of course, Mr. Hutton has overall experience as a trade commissioner and former ambassador, especially in that region.
There's one thing I say about that region, colleagues: it's very long overdue in some ways. I thought we were making some positive steps in the past couple of years. We had appointed the first minister responsible for central Europe, eastern Europe, and the Middle East, and that was a quantum leap forward, I think, at that time. Unfortunately, there were no trade proposals formally put on the table. That's why, I must admit, Mr. Chairman, I was quite pleased when this Canada-Jordan free trade agreement was put before us.
I think it is a signal also, especially with the geopolitical issues that are unfolding daily, that this could be a kind of benchmark of some sort.
I'd like our witnesses to give us their perspective, because we are now faced with a sensitive situation involving Emirates Airline, and I think most of us understand how that region is intertwined—culture, language, etc.—on what kind of impact this might have. That's one question.
The other question I'd like to ask concerns the trade missions you said are needed. I was surprised when you talked about our needing more trade commissioners. Of course, establishing full embassies might be difficult, but would you see it as a possibility for a nation such as Canada to at least appoint a trade commissioner with some support staff in a country, whether we have a trade agreement or not? Or, especially with a country with which we are in the process of putting an FTA together, would a program such as PEMD, which used to be with us years ago supporting Canadian businesses wanting to do business abroad, be helpful as we move aggressively towards getting our share of the market internationally?
Thank you, Mr. Chair.