Again, I was pretty clear that there is potential. There is huge potential, and I think businesses are discovering that. This is the reason we're trying to foster stronger relations.
Let me be clear. In both the communiqué I wrote and in my comments today, I fully support going forward with this. I think that we want to, that it's important, and that there is immense potential.
As we've heard in testimony today, there are tariff barriers and there is investment protection. I didn't ever say that those things weren't there. I guess one of the things I was a little bit skeptical or cautious about was our ability to get India to move on some of these things.
Perhaps the investment decision on Friday might actually help us in our Indian negotiations on other fronts. There's a potential for this, because they are very interested in that resource part of our economy, for various reasons. But as you've pointed out, and as we heard from Monsieur Pomerleau, India has a complex political system. It's very difficult, it's very bureaucratic, and there are also other issues. It's hard to get progress, so even though they talk about making things happen, maybe they don't happen very fast.
I am skeptical that we're going to get much done, especially since we're not high on their list, but definitely there's potential. Distance is just one of the factors. If you look at the evidence, language is important—these common things work to our benefit. The distance just works a little bit against it.
A lot of my point was that we're expanding trade with them without these investment and trade agreements, but I think that at this stage it's important to do them so that we can facilitate trade. I don't think we're going to drive it, but I think if we don't do it, we're going to continue to have other people with....
So market access is a problem, but again, India is not as interested in relinquishing that as we are in getting it.