Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the trade committee.
This is a very active trade committee. We have lots on our plate. We're dealing with softwood lumber, finishing up the European agreement, but our main focus is on the TPP. Our committee has been travelling across the country. We have done the western provinces and Ontario and Quebec. We have Atlantic Canada and the territories left.
We have also been listening to Canadians. We had open mike at many of the sessions, and we've also had many stakeholders here. We also have submissions coming in from the general public until the end of June, and if MPs are doing town halls, we're going to take their submissions at the end of July.
It's good to see everybody here.
The way we're doing it is a little different. We usually have two sets. We used to split it up, but we're keeping all the witnesses together. It's just because it's June in Ottawa, and you never know what's going to happen here, but our main focus is hearing from you and starting the dialogue. It doesn't look like we have any votes this morning, so we should be able to run right through probably until 10:30 a.m.
We're going to start with witnesses.
We have quite a group here. We have Canada's Building Trades Unions. We have the Canadian Council on Food Sovereignty and Health. We have the Canadian Seed Trade Association. We have the Grain Growers of Canada. We have the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. We have Teamsters Canada.
Folks, each group will have five minutes, and try to keep it to five minutes. If it's shorter, that's fine, too. When you're coming to the end of five minutes, if you're going a little too long, I'm going to tell you to wrap it up. Then we'll have dialogue with the MPs.
Without further ado, we're going to start off with Christopher Smillie from Canada's Building Trades Unions.