In terms of the membership of Canada I see it as highly political. Vis-à-vis the member states, it's not purely political. There are economic advantages for the current member states, I think.
Vis-à-vis your broader point, I am raising concerns about the limited availability of resources. I'm certainly in favour of extending ties with all of these nations, and all types of cultural, educational, social, and other types of relationships. We do have free trade agreements with them and I think it's important to get to know them better. I'm just saying that there are other countries in the hemisphere we don't yet have strong economic ties with, particularly Brazil, which is the biggest economy in South America.
I don't know, and I'm just raising this as a concern, but if it's possible that we're going to alienate Brazil and some of the other big economies of the region by being seen as being interested only in those four states, then that's a risk, in my view. We might better spend our time thinking about how we can deepen relations and perhaps enter into some of the other regional groupings.