Minister, thank you to you and your staff for being here this morning. It's always great to have the minister here.
On the TPP, Minister, I just want to maybe get the record straight. The reality is that there was a prestudy done in the last session, and that prestudy you did not attend. Your colleague Mr. Pacetti attended on your behalf.
I also want to get the record straight that Don Davies—Mr. Merrifield was the chair at the time—held receptions after every meeting. To those receptions Mr. Davies invited organized labour, the Chamber of Commerce, and other groups. Not only did they have the formal presentations, where they actually had witnesses like we do in a normal hearing, they actually had the informal consultations. I think if you had been there, you would have realized there were extensive consultations.
The concern I have now is that we're doing another prestudy. They call it consultations. You can call it what you want. You have a majority; I can count. But the reality is that we're going to do a prestudy, and then I'm assuming you're going to bring legislation somewhere in the future. Are we going to do the study over again? This will be the third time. I'm not even talking about the number of studies the Senate has done on this, or the agriculture committee, or any other committee on this file.
How many times do you want committees and Parliament to be wrapped up in the TPP? Isn't it the reality that you just don't want to do anything until the U.S. does something? And do you want Donald Trump to dictate Canada's foreign trade policy?