Good morning. I call the meeting to order.
My name is Mark Eyking and I am the chair of the Standing Committee on International Trade. My riding is in Cape Breton.
That's as far as I'm going in French. I'll go in English from now on, but everybody has translation.
I also welcome Mr. Lebel to our committee. It's good to see you with us.
Our committee is a very active committee. We have a lot on our plate in this parliamentary session. We're dealing with the finishing up of the CETA agreement with Europe, we have softwood lumber issues, and right now we're doing TPP.
As everybody knows, Canada is a trading nation, and the TPP is a really big issue. It's a trillion-dollar trade agreement. It will affect many businesses and organizations and every Canadian. That's why our committee has been meeting with stakeholders and going across the country.
We've already visited five western provinces a couple of weeks ago. This week we're going to do Quebec and Ontario, and in the fall we'll do the Atlantic provinces. We'll also touch base with the territories. Of course, what is most important is that we're going to be talking to Canadians.
Today is going to be our first meeting. We will have three or four panellists, but our last panel will be open to anybody in the audience who has comments.
We have a very busy year, and we'll be putting our report forward to Parliament.
We're also taking submissions right up until the end of June from Canadians who cannot visit us or cannot be with us. We have more than 10,000 submissions right now, and there are more to come. Anything MPs hear out on the ground will also be accepted in our report.
We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we're very happy to be here in Montreal, where my favourite hockey team is, the Montreal Canadiens. It's good to be here, and I wish I could see a game while I'm here.
Of course, I'm going to get into trouble for saying that when we go to Toronto later on in the week. There has always been a rivalry there.