Thank you for your very good question.
The fact is the WTO has not kept pace with the manner in which trade has actually been conducted over the last decade or so. We do not have disciplines on electronic commerce, for example, which is increasingly a modality by which a lot of international trade is conducted. While Canada and other WTO members have in many cases been negotiating commitments on e-commerce in our bilateral and free trade agreements for the better part of 20 years, the WTO, at this point, has no disciplines in this area.
Similarly, there are types of disciplines that exist on subsidies, whether in areas like agriculture, industrial subsidies, or fish subsidies. This is another area where the WTO is in urgent need of updating the rules.
I don't want my earlier comments on what we are doing in terms of WTO reform to suggest that we are looking at minor tweaks. In fact, we are looking at fairly substantive changes, both through the negotiations we are undertaking and in terms of some of the more procedural elements. One point I should make, which is very important, is that ultimately WTO reform is not something that will happen overnight. It is something that will take many years to accomplish, and it will have many moving pieces. We do this as a very comprehensive effort, but there are many different moving pieces that are part of it.