Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, both, for appearing before the committee in an open session.
Steve, as you did in your former capacity on GATT, we know you do the best you can for the country given the mandate you receive from the government. I do want to say in the beginning that I think all of us who were in Brussels really appreciated the opportunity to meet with you and the European negotiator.
I don't believe you've had any sessions yet since the Prime Minister gave his little lecture to Europe. We're wondering if that will have an impact on the discussions in that the Europeans certainly know that since this Prime Minister came into place, the accumulated debt of the country has gone up by $140 billion. They do their research.
Do you think there will be any impact from this kind of attack on Europe, and from not being there to support them, in terms of our ability to get an end result on the CETA. It seems to me that last week we saw that the trade minister had basically been replaced by the Prime Minister's chief of staff to try to get a TPP concession, and the Prime Minister's priority seems to have moved to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. So we're wondering if the government's real priority is still CETA and whether there will be any impact from the Prime Minister's lecture to Europe.