It is an area we're going to be spending a lot of time on, because I think the EU and Canada share a common objective in that area, for the most part. I don't think either of us has major concerns about investment protection in each other's markets, but we also want to set an example for other bilateral negotiations that each of us will pursue.
I think what we've seen in the last number of years is that all the bilateral investment treaties, or the foreign investment protection treaties we've negotiated and other countries have negotiated, include some type of investor protection mechanism. So virtually all countries are going down that track to some degree.
The EU, as I mentioned, is having to develop an EU-wide policy on investment protection, since they only recently gained competence on that issue over member states. They're in discussions to do that now. But clearly they have expressed the view that this is a good time to be negotiating with Canada because they can draw on our experience as well and try to come up with something that works for the two of us.
We are also looking at modifying the kinds of investment protection provisions we have had in the past to try to improve on those, to deal with frivolous cases that might come forward, that kind of thing. So we are looking at improving it as well.