Thank you, Chair.
I appreciate your comments about keeping things tight. I'll do the best I can, but five minutes, with such a big topic....
The first thing, Minister, is that I want to compliment you. You put together a good team, with Steve Verheul and Martin and Tim. Putting Kirsten Hillman in the U.S., I think, has been a wise move and shows that we're focused on the file. So I can compliment you on that.
The second thing I also want to talk about is how we've been working together to make sure that the U.S. understands how important this relationship is and how all that has gone. I think the Americans now—at the governor level for sure—definitely understand what's at stake. I think after Trump gave his second notice of cancelling NAFTA that all of a sudden the business community, both in Canada and in the U.S., woke up and said, “Wait a minute, there's something very serious going on here.” That's what makes this so different from any other trade deal. This is a renegotiation. I think you comprehend the fact that this is the type of situation in which, if we don't get it right, things will actually go backwards instead of moving forward. I think what's concerning the business community is how we move forward.
I think I'm going to get a little bit into the process of consultations, what we're doing to make sure that we've consulted properly and that we're properly prepared, and then look at what we are doing while the negotiations are ongoing to make sure that we keep people actively informed on what is happening and what things are playing.
Then, Minister, I'd like to have some idea of the outcomes. What do we expect to achieve at the very end for the business community, so that when they look forward they can say, “You know what, after this deal is done, Canada is now even more competitive in the global marketplace and Canada is even better positioned to do more exports around the world because we've put everything together in a good NAFTA agreement”?
Five minutes is tight, so it will have to be very quick, and then I have a few more questions I'll ask later. Let's start off with the process. How are you going to interact with this council? How are businesses and other groups going to be able to interact with the negotiators while the negotiations are ongoing?