Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome to our witnesses. It's good to have you back here again.
I have a couple of questions and a couple of rhetorical points, actually.
We already have free trade agreements with the four founding members of the Pacific Alliance. In your own words, this is a new, evolving agreement, and I think we understand that. I'm surprised that the opposition members didn't do their homework a little better. It is a very opportune time to study the Pacific Alliance and for Canada to be in at the ground floor of these evolving negotiations.
We spent a lot of time at this committee with the official opposition and the opposition parties studying Brazil and Mercosur, which is a closed agreement; it is very, very difficult to get into. We've managed to sign a science and technology agreement and some side agreements with Brazil, but are really going nowhere, and we have these four countries, with which we already have FTAs, and their net growth is 46% greater than the value of Mercosur. On that basis alone, why wouldn't we examine this?
I'm not saying that Mercosur is going nowhere. I'm saying it certainly appears to have stalled, and there are some challenges with it, so why wouldn't we as a country look at other emerging agreements evolving in Central America and South America?