Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, Minister.
I see that all the questions so far have been on the estimates, so I might as well follow suit.
You said in your opening remarks that free and open trade is important, and that people's jobs depend on trade. To a certain extent, that's true, but only if the net benefit of a trade agreement is to Canada's benefit.
I want to just touch on what Brian said, because there is a concern in Canada that we are losing our middle class. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Six years ago the manufacturing labour force was 16%, and today it's 10%. That's where a lot of our middle class, so to speak, comes from.
You mentioned the nine agreements. There is no question that you are moving full speed ahead on nine agreements. But as I've raised with you in the House, I do think you're not watching closely enough the agreements that we already have. For instance, in South Korea we're at risk of losing $1 billion worth of trade because the Americans have a deal and we do not. In the United States, the Buy American provisions, the country-of-origin labelling—which we have done nothing on—and the sea and air entry fee into the United States that we lost as a result of the U.S.-Colombia trade agreement are all problems.
How do you respond to that? A number of us were in the U.S. last week, and we talked about the sea and air fee, and I will have to admit that quite a number of senators and Congress folks didn't know it was in the agreement. Why was either your department or foreign affairs—somebody—asleep at the switch? We didn't see that coming. Based on our discussions in the U.S., I think if we had talked to a few people, we wouldn't have lost that exemption. So what's the problem? Is somebody not paying attention to our existing markets, or what?