Why did it happen to me? Anyway, Mr. Chair, thank you.
Thanks to the witnesses.
Mr. Surette, my first question will be for you. I was going through your October 25 statement about the Canada-EU agreement, and here I will quote you saying, “This is a big, big deal.” Then you went on to say, “We’ve managed to get a deal with the largest market of seafood eaters and that’s just tremendous.” Then you said, “It is a huge undertaking. It makes NAFTA look like a rental agreement.”
We all know that as of today each country has its own set of rules as far as tariffs are concerned and the existing tariffs, specifically on live lobster, run between 9% to 15%, depending upon the country that you deal with. From the agreement, we see that approximately 98% of all EU tariffs would be eliminated on the first day the agreement comes into force.
My question is in terms of CETA, levelling the playing field for your industry, allowing you to do the retailing instead of going through a middleman kind of thing. How is your industry preparing to deal with these new logistics? Have you laid any groundwork and spoken to your counterparts in the European market?