I'm always interested to hear from the opposition, but much more interested to hear from our witnesses.
Welcome to the committee. It has been a very good discussion so far.
There were a couple of points raised both in your testimony, Mr. Shastri, and in the testimony of the witnesses before you. I just want to try to drill down a little deeper into that, if we can.
There was a comment you made, Mr. Shastri, about the financial wall that the world hit in 2008. Suddenly we woke up and realized—as we'd realized for some time—that the American marketplace wasn't going to be the be-all and end-all for Canada. We'd already lost market share—from 85% down to 72% prior to 2008—so we knew the direction it was going in. I think it is fair to say that governments were slow to pick up on the rising economies in Asia. We knew we had to do something about that. I very much feel that our government has done something about that in a very positive and progressive way.
One of the issues that has not been discussed is the nuclear cooperation agreement. I think that agreement alone has shown a lot of good faith on the part of Canada. I think it has also changed attitudes, quite frankly, from a former government that treated India, especially in nuclear energy, with a more colonial or even paternalistic attitude.... How much has an agreement like that, where Canada has finally recognized that India has nuclear power, and that we can participate in that resource.... India is going to need tremendous reserves of energy for a growing economy. Hopefully the FIPA will be signed and the final i's dotted and the t's crossed. It has been slow, but those agreements form the building blocks for a proper free trade agreement. Do you have any comment on that?