Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's been a few years since I've been a permanent member of this committee, so it's good to be back.
I'm going to put my questions in the following context, partially because my job is to specialize in Canada-U.S. trade and Canada-U.S. issues. I was down in the Congress and talked to various congressmen there.
First of all, I think the Liberal government's consultations are about buying time to see what the U.S. is going to do if—hang on there, Sukh, I'm not scolding you guys—and they'll decide, one way or the other, based upon what's going on in the United States. Having talked with Republicans and Democrats, I personally would say that the U.S. probably has less than a 1% chance of ratifying the TPP.
In some respects, my questions are going to be looking forward, beyond the TPP, to what we would do if we would redo the TPP later on, if we would end up doing a bunch of bilaterals, let's say an independent bilateral with the United States, Japan, etc., and through the list.
I'm going to start with a friend from the natural resources committee in the past, Mr. Smillie, and then whoever else wants to jump in on this one can.
If we had to start this over again as far as looking for ways to increase labour mobility for Canadians going abroad goes, where would you start? I'm not asking about people coming in, but I'm saying let's figure out a way and figure out what we should negotiate, and how we should do it to get more Canadian welders to be able to work on projects in Mexico, Peru, Japan, Malaysia, etc. Where would you start?
I'm looking beyond the TPP. I'm talking about in the next round when we do this, since this has turned out to be a practice round, or I'm 99% sure of that. What would we do to enhance the ability of your members to go abroad and work on some really great projects?