To our witnesses, thank you for your excellent comments and food for thought.
I want to share this with the witnesses. The committee had the opportunity recently to hear from the EU ambassador, who shared her feelings and enthusiasm about this market of 500 million people that she's opening up to Canada and the billions of opportunities that are offered bilaterally from both procurement and expansion of opportunities for both parties. I wanted to also mention that she held up our technical summary, which she said was a very open and transparent process and which she felt was very well done. Minister Fast had been working hard, as mentioned in the opening comments, for about four and a half years in this process.
I think Mr. Vidler alluded to the fact that it's still a few years from coming into effect. I know that the final details of the agreement will be translated into 23 different languages, and the EU Parliament and the House of Commons will debate it. Our government introduced legislation that trade agreements have to be introduced for 21 days, so it will be debated in the House of Commons. Then it will come back to the committee and then it will go to the Senate. There's still much more opportunity before the implementation of the final agreement, so that we can say it's not being expedited. It has already been about five years, to date, and it will be going on for a couple of more years down the road.
My question is for Mr. Vidler.
You mentioned that Canadian businesses need to take full advantage of CETA. While we're moving through that process, how can the government work with your organization and others across Canada to help prepare Canadian businesses to take full advantage of this opportunity?