Yes.
I would encourage the witnesses to put in their earpieces because I'm going to be asking my questions in French.
Thank you very much for joining us today.
My first question has to do with a presentation that Mr. Serge Godin, co-founder of CGI, made before the Montreal Board of Trade.
In his presentation, he said that the transfer of strategic jobs—likely to take place if we sign a free-trade agreement with India—will further reduce Canada's productivity, which is already below the productivity of many other countries. He added: “The jobs that are being transferred to emerging countries are the start of people's careers... By moving those jobs elsewhere, we are going to lose the next generation of IT designers and developers, which is so essential to our productivity. We are cutting off our nose to spite our face.”
In other words, he said that we should be cautious about signing a potential free-trade agreement with India, since the government made no announcement whatsoever about a strategy to keep jobs in Canada and to avoid moving them to India. That is what happened here. Montreal was greatly affected by thousands of jobs being outsourced.
Where is the government's strategy to prevent the outsourcing of jobs? What stage are the negotiations at? What will be the consequences if no such strategy is developed to keep jobs in Canada?