Mr. Chair, thank you very much, and, Minister, thank you for your presentation.
I have to say that this committee for the most part has worked in a very collaborative way. We've had the opportunity to visit with many Canadians in our travels to the west and central Canada, and then we'll be doing Atlantic Canada, and as the chair always likes to say we are pioneering here with our open microphone and that's been quite an opportunity and eye opening. I know everywhere that I've gone in my riding and in travels I ask people about the TPP and many have really no clue about the TPP. They don't know much about it. What we've been doing here at this committee is really shining the light on 6,000 pages of this huge agreement that will touch really every Canadian if ratified or not.
Minister, I wanted to ask back to the beginnings of the TPP. I know we joined quite late, in October of 2012. It was four years after the start of those negotiations in 2008. Do you think that disadvantaged Canada in terms of our ability to negotiate?