We'll reconvene the meeting.
Welcome anybody who's just arrived, and especially our new panellists for our second panel.
My name is Mark Eyking, and I'm the chair of the House of Commons trade committee. We have most of our committee with us. We had to leave some in Ottawa to take care of things back there. Many of our MPs are from right across the country.
We are a very busy committee. We're dealing with trade, and Canada is a big trading country. We're dealing with CETA right now. We're dealing with softwood lumber, and we're dealing with agriculture issues with the United States. But our main focus is the TPP. As you are well aware, the TPP involves over 12 countries, 40% of the world's GDP, 800 million people, so it's a big deal. As many of you may know, it was brought up pretty strongly last night in the U.S. debate, so it's a hot topic.
We knew that it was very important. Our committee embarked on this study at the first of the year. We've gone through seven provinces now, and we're going to finish up with the Atlantic provinces this week. We've talked to the territories by video conference. We have had a lot of input. We've had over 125 briefs, 265 witnesses, and 20,000 emails, and they're still coming in.
We're planning on wrapping up our study at the end of October. Then we have to put a report together for the House of Commons. We hope to have that presented by the end of the year, or the beginning of next year.
There is a big interest and we see this as we go across the country. I think as Canadians know more and more about it, that's why they're providing their input.
We welcome the panellists here for our second hour. First of all, we have translation. I think it's channel one for your headphones, but I'm not sure. If you can, try to keep your presentation to about five minutes. Also, MPs try to keep it to around five minutes. If we do it that way, we can often get our input in here and it goes well within the hour.
Without further ado, I'm going to start off with Jordan MacPhee from the Environmental Coalition of Prince Edward Island. Go ahead, sir.