Thank you very much to our witnesses for joining us today.
I have a couple of questions.
One is about the $1 billion versus $25 billion lopsided nature of this agreement in terms of $1 billion of new access for Canadian companies versus $25 billion of new access for U.S. companies. I would agree with you that there doesn't seem to have been a substantial and granular analysis of the access in terms of dollar value. Our questions, both to the minister and to the officials, bore that out; in fact, the government had not done that level of due diligence.
So I'm concerned about this deal and share your concerns. However, I want to explore a little more your proposition to have more Buy Canadian proposals. I would have felt--and I do feel--that reducing, not increasing, barriers between our two economies is actually disproportionately in the interests of Canada. If you consider the degree to which we depend on their market versus the degree to which they depend on our market, it stands to reason that reciprocal measures—protectionist measures—would disproportionately hurt Canadian companies, because of that disparity between our relative dependence on each other's markets.
I'd really appreciate your help in explaining why some sort of reciprocal Buy Canadian measure is in the interests of Canadian companies. I can understand in some ways why it might be in the interests of the U.S., because they have very substantial markets. I would argue against it, and I would feel that any artificial barriers to trade between our countries will cost jobs in both countries, but I really don't understand the benefit of protectionist measures from a Canadian perspective. I'd like to hear more justification for that.