Thank you for that question.
Our government has made it very clear time and time again that we oppose protectionism. We believe that increased protectionist measures around the world are toxic to the global economic recovery. It is one of the reasons why we are focused on eliminating trade barriers, rather than erecting new ones.
I'm not going to comment on President Sarkozy's comments. I will say that our negotiations for a free trade agreement with the European Union have a singular purpose. That is to eliminate trade barriers, both tariff barriers and non-tariff barriers.
We could eliminate all the tariff barriers in the world, but if there are still opportunities to establish non-tariff barriers, for example with standards that prevent our goods from entering those markets, we still haven't achieved a whole bunch. What we're looking for within the CETA negotiations is an ambitious agreement that addresses both tariff and non-tariff barriers.
Those negotiations are intended to avoid the very issues that Buy American raises. It's one of the reasons why we have challenged the Americans in terms of our fully integrated economies: why would you do this on your side; you're hurting yourself as much as you are Canada.