Mr. Allen, I understand that. As the chair would know, we have a secretariat at the embassy in Washington. Is the Canadian government not monitoring potential policy implementation in the United States that is going to have an impact on Canadian jobs and our economy? You ought to be doing that. If you're not, this should have come as no surprise to anyone. On July 22, at the University of Maryland, President Obama made it clear that he was talking about made in America. I could go through the other dates. Is nobody monitoring what is happening, in all our embassies and consulates in the United States?
I think it's shameful, to be honest, that the Department of Foreign Affairs is not on top of these issues, given the number of embassies and consuls general we have in the U.S.
I want to come back to a previous recommendation that is pertinent to this issue. The second recommendation in this committee's report of May 2010 said:
That the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) set up a mechanism to collect economic data regarding the application of the Canada-U.S. Agreement on Government Procurement, and thus enable it to assess the agreement's impacts on enterprises and employees in Canada. DFAIT should submit a report on this issue to the committee.
Previously, an assistant minister for trade policy and negotiations said that the department hadn't done that. Well, we're at a crucial stage in procurement now.
Have you abided by the recommendation of this committee yet?