Thank you, Madam Chair.
Deputy Prime Minister, thank you so much for the work you and your team have done. On behalf of the people of Nepean, and indeed on behalf of all Canadians, I would like to thank you and your team.
This is a good agreement. A lot of members of Parliament from all sides of the House have worked hard for a long time to protect the interests of the automotive sector, the steel sector and the aluminum sector. They have worked very hard on these things.
However, the economy is changing worldwide. We are going to a global knowledge-based economy. Here in Canada the economy is changing so much. To give an example, a non-trade one, international students were contributing very minimally 10 years back. Today we have 500,000 international students contributing $21 billion to the Canadian economy. I'm told that is bigger than the automotive sector here.
The steel industry and the aluminum industry have not seen any new greenfield projects, new capacity added, in 10 to 15 years—I may be wrong. Ten or 15 years back, we were second or third in the world in our aluminum capacity; however, during the last 10 to 15 years, I have not seen one new smelter set up in Canada.
I don't know whether this agreement is going to solve the problem, but the point is that the economy is changing and trade is changing, and 10 or 15 years down the road, will this agreement be good enough for the changing trade requirements in the new knowledge-based economy? I would like to know your views on that.