Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to thank our witnesses for coming today and shining light on how the opportunity and some challenges with CETA will impact our economy and our employment.
Mr. Keon, I want to pause for a second on the $2.8 billion number you quoted, because certainly you did recognize that was an estimate based on the early negotiation stages of CETA. We now have an agreement in principle, which those professors did not have. We talked a little bit about the mitigating aspects of our negotiation, which you did highlight in fairness, but I'd like to pull them all together.
These are: the commitment to try to end dual litigation, which causes business uncertainty for both branded and generics; the export exception specifically for the generic industry; the fact that the European Union did not achieve their negotiated hopes with respect to data protection, patent extension, and retroactivity. So there's no retroactivity and no retroactive application. Those various mitigating factors alongside with the provincial move in recent years to bulk purchase in terms of pharmaceuticals together, all of those things considered, how accurate do you think that $2.8 billion number truly is?