Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to our witnesses.
It's an interesting discussion. I think there is a little bit of what everyone is saying that we all agree with, and probably we may disagree with a little bit of what everybody is saying. Having a long-term strategy is one of the points I think I hear all of our witnesses agreeing on. A long-term strategy to allow sub-national procurement on both sides of the border would benefit Canadian industries and American industries.
Mr. Grenier, I have to say I'm a little frightened. You call yourself a free-trader, but the message I'm hearing is that we would retaliate. I don't know how you would intend to do that, and I don't know where the benefit would be. I can tell you in a very modest way I ran a small business that did business in the U.S. Ninety-nine percent of our business was south of the border. We worked in every state in New England and most of the eastern seaboard states and half a dozen islands in the Caribbean. The Americans are tough trading partners. They don't play by the rules, and they're not fair. My belief is anything we can do that edges them closer to the mark is to our advantage.
I'd like you to flesh that out a little more.