Thank you very much, Madame Chair.
I want to thank the witnesses for being here.
Mr. Vermeer, Mr. Hilgartner and Mr. Bose, when you say you're just farmers, well, I'll tell you, for all of us around the table here, without you we'd not be eating, and Canadians rely on the work you do. We want to make sure with this agreement.... The concern that we've been bringing forward is that this is going to affect families, businesses and sectors, some of them negatively. Earlier today the committee heard from the minister, and again, we've been asking for economic impact studies since December 12th—over two months—and we're still not getting them.
The minister's mandate letter says that she wants to maximize the implementation of...I could probably read it to you here. It's CETA and CPTPP, but it doesn't mention in there maximizing the benefits of the new NAFTA. The agreement was actually being discussed just as the mandate letters were being sent out.
So I believe it was you, Mr. Vermeer, who talked about CETA and how the Europeans are actually trying to change things there, and we're concerned. We just want to make sure that Canadians such as you have an opportunity to come to committee because we want to make sure that, if there are going to be negative consequences, we've got the proper support programs in there, even though you would ideally want to continue doing exactly what you're doing.
So my question to you is this. What does the government need to do to make this right? I've heard of challenges with the implementation dates that we need to have a look at. You mentioned the compensation package.
Could you comment on how they're doing with the CETA and CPTPP agreements as well, if you have that knowledge?
Mr. Vermeer, you brought that up and so maybe you could start off.