Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you both for appearing. Mr. Curtis, welcome back. Mr. Schwanen, I'm sure you've been here before, but maybe not during my tenure.
I have some comments and questions for both of you, and I'll start with Mr. Schwanen.
You gave a good overview of how, from a practical basis, it makes sense to prioritize, not only from a budgetary standpoint in terms of resources to be deployed for trade missions and that sort of stuff, but on a diplomatic basis as well, to prioritize the use of our diplomatic tools in developing relationships with countries. The C.D. Howe study, from a month and a half ago I believe, did talk extensively about how important those government-to-government relations were in establishing sustained market access for our exporters.
One interesting part of your study sort of juxtaposed our Conservative government approach of economic diplomacy—as we coin it—through the global markets action plan with the old Team Canada Liberal approach that had a number of political leaders piling on a plane for one visit, with some pre-arranged agreements or memorandums that were negotiated in advance, and almost signed. But studies have demonstrated that it did not lead to sustained market impact, and it was an ongoing full-court press by all parts of our foreign service to really sustain the growth of those markets. Would you care to comment a bit more on that aspect of your study?