Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This is something that I really think all members of this committee should be able to get behind. That is, what we'd like to see is that the government establish an annual trade mission to South Korea to monitor the operation of this agreement, and in particular to observe and monitor the progress that we will or not make on eliminating non-tariff barriers, and then report the results of that trade mission back to Parliament on an annual basis.
Mr. Chairman, we have been in close contact with our legislators in the United States, who have the benefit and experience of implementing the KORUS agreement since 2012. Of course, it takes a fair bit of time to implement a trade agreement. In the early days it's hard to draw too many conclusions, but we also know from the Americans that there are a number of challenges in accessing the Korean market. A fair number of the challenges in the Korean market relate to non-tariff barriers. It's our view that the Canadian exporters' and the Canadian business community's ability to make the most of this agreement will depend in large measure on our ability to encourage the Koreans to give access to their market, which in turn requires them to make progress on eliminating the non-tariff barriers.That's key to unlocking the benefits of this deal, so we would urge all members to help Canadian exporters and businesses by making sure that the government does its part in making sure that the implementation of this agreement goes as well as possible.