Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much, Mr. Woo, and happy year of the dragon.
I have the honour of being the co-chair of the Canada-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Group, and we have another new year's party tonight. They just keep going on and on. They celebrate in great style and it's exciting, the opportunities that we have in Canada with our Asian partners.
As a member of Parliament for Kelowna—Lake Country, I think I had the chance to meet you once at one of the minister's regional events, and Minister Fast, as the Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway, is also the Minister of International Trade, as you're well aware. On his recent trip to China he was very cautiously optimistic about moving forward with trade with China. But maybe you could expand a little bit more about the Asia-Pacific partnership and the reason it's so important for Canada to expand our trading opportunities.
As you know, one in five jobs is based on trade, and maybe you could share with the committee the economic opportunities for Canada out of the Asia-Pacific Gateway.