I believe there is a possibility that it can work.
My function is usually to try to stir up discussion and try to point to problems. The problem I see with the United States is that they've sold a big package, and Congress really hasn't had a look at it yet. When they go to get trade promotion authority, I think Congress could make it a bit of a Christmas tree—they have a habit of doing that—and it could make it somewhat harder to do.
My view of the TPP is that it's something we need to do to start our bridge across the Pacific, because the Pacific partners that we have in the TPP are not the ones we want. We want Thailand. We want Indonesia. We want the Philippines. We want those bigger countries that have the capacity to take a lot of our agricultural goods and to take our manufactured goods, especially in the high-tech area.
I look at trade agreements that we're getting involved in now in two ways. One way is that they're defensive, because if you're not in there you're going to lose markets you have. The other way you really have to look at it is as a bridge, and the bigger part of the bridge across the Pacific is the Pacific Alliance, and that's something that you should....
I know the Prime Minister said that we're not ready to jump on board full-time, but when I was in Chile last year they were quite happy that Canada had observer status and that Canada was showing interest.