Thank you for joining us to answer our questions.
I agree with my colleague in saying that it would have been good to receive these studies a bit earlier. We could have asked our questions based on more than a reading we just did. We understand that you have constraints when it comes to that. You could not have given yourself that mandate; it should have been given to you.
As you probably know, my political party, the Bloc Québécois, has raised a lot of concerns about the aluminum sector. Our initial concern was that this carbon-neutral aluminum, which is on the verge of making us proud and is at the centre of our innovation, would be threatened by Chinese dumping, through Mexico, of pollutant aluminum that is produced using coal most of the time, thereby threatening the expansion of several aluminum plants. Studies have also been done on this issue.
Unions shared our concerns. The industry did not share them as much, but it recognized that protection was not the same for aluminum as for steel. The government swore to us that there was no reason for concern.
However, this morning, an agreement was reached between the Bloc Québécois and the Government of Canada. I assume your study did not take that into account, as you conducted it before this morning's announcement. It was agreed that, without needing to reopen the agreement, monitoring of aluminum imports from Asia must be increased and that, if it was concluded that dumping was being done, the same protection given to steel would be given to the aluminum sector, with the same time frames the steel sector is benefiting from—seven years.
That solution was welcomed by unions. The fact that the government brought attention to our proposal indicates that our concerns were not completely crazy. Moreover, the fact that Mexico is now so angry indicates that there was probably an issue there.
I know that you have not had an in-depth look at that, but given this change, how do you view the impacts?