Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me welcome all our witnesses today. We appreciate your comments, your views, your input, and your willingness to allow an open line of communication when we have many questions.
We've heard from witnesses. I think you were in the audience when we had previous witnesses, SNC-Lavalin, for example. You heard some of the comments they made on the importance of these free trade agreements. I was impressed with the comments. Mr. Casey was before us earlier. It was the first time I'd met Mr. Blackburn from SNC-Lavalin.
I read between the lines the positive impact it makes on the Canadian household when we go out and attempt to get our fair share of the pie in the right way, and I know corporate and social responsibility was brought into the exchange. Personally, I've never hidden my colours. I always believed we should go out to get our fair share of the pie. If we don't, we're going to miss the boat. And when we miss the boat, as elected representatives, we're also depriving each and every Canadian of trying to improve their lives.
At the same time--I've said it in the past and I'll say it again before I ask my question--if we don't go there, we won't be giving the opportunity to those people, wherever the country may be, to change. I used an example. I said the China of today is different from what it was 40 years ago. Had we not gone there, we would not have made the positive changes that I believe have been made.
People will say, “Why aren't you doing it now?” We are debating legislation in the House today to address pensions for people who are incarcerated. One might say, “Why didn't we do it five or ten years ago?” Well, maybe we just didn't think about it. But now this thought has come forward. I'm not trying to condemn the current Conservative government. They've been in government for four years. One might ask why they didn't think of it four years ago. Why didn't we think about it when we were in government? The fact remains, we are thinking about it now, and we're taking a positive step to address it.
You talked about tax treaties, Mr. Ranger. I appreciate that, because we just saw in June, before we rose, that we concluded tax treaties with Colombia, Turkey, and Greece, specifically to address tax evasion and tax avoidance. As Canadians, we're trying to address those concerns.
Do you agree that this is the right direction to take in addressing the problem? It is now is being discussed by various organizations, the Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, for example, which is harping on this issue, the tax situation, the avoidance, etc. Are these tax treaties a parallel of addressing this issue? Is this the right way to go, so that we can promote economic trade, which Mr. Lavoie talked about, and what it's going to do to your industry, in a positive way specifically? Or do we just sit back and say we're not going to go there? We'll allow every other country to go, but we want to be Boy Scouts and we're going to stay home.
Can you add to that, if you will, on tax treaties?