Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you all for joining us today.
Ms. Irman, I had a chance to meet with the Ottawa liaison committee of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce yesterday. We were talking about what's going on in trade and competitiveness, and all that stuff. You also, from your day job, have this great vantage point for viewing capital markets, what's going on around the world. I don't think we differ a whole lot from our counterparts, the Libs, on trade deals. We all support these kinds of things. I need you to talk a bit about competitiveness at home here, and where we're at.
Some of the challenges that the Canadian Chamber of Commerce mentioned were excessive regulations, a whole bunch of additional taxes coming on carbon, all these things that affect our competitiveness at home, which makes it more difficult. Obviously, EDC has done very well, turning back a lot of money to the Canadian government because of Canadians doing well. Just talk a bit in the context of some of the challenges that we have.
Obviously, we need to continue to pursue trade deals. I think that makes tons of sense. We can agree on that. I think we may disagree with the party opposite about how competitive we actually are in terms of what's going on in the global market, specifically as it relates to the U.S., which has just gone through major tax reform. There seems to be this large sucking sound of money as it moves into the U.S. versus some of our markets. You have a 30,000-foot view, as you said. Talk to us a bit about some of the challenges we face here in Canada.