Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you folks for coming.
I too want to start, Ms. Hillman, with the labour cooperation and environmental agreements. I think one of the concerns many Canadians have is that in a lot of the countries we enter into trade agreements with, our business costs are substantially higher. Whether it's in terms of the wages themselves, health and safety, pensions, or a whole range of things, we find ourselves competing against a low-wage economy. On the other hand, we have environmental regulations that are all put in place for the right reasons, but because we're competing with a country that has low environmental standards, we sometimes end up really exporting our jobs to that low environmental regulatory economy. So we lose the business here, but we don't do anything for the environment, because they pump the crap into the environment anyway.
So I'm wondering what authority there is under these labour cooperation and environmental agreements. Is there any authority the way there is under the trade agreement itself, or is it just nice wording?
Secondly, how do the labour and environmental agreements that we establish compare with the labour and environmental part of the agreements that the U.S. has? I understand theirs are not so much side agreements as parts within agreements. I could be wrong on that. Could you answer that?