Thank you, Minister, for appearing on such short notice.
I find it interesting that the opposition should raise the fact that we, as a committee, will do all of our work in order to ratify this as quickly as possible, when on Friday it was they who cancelled the meeting at which you were to appear. I'm very pleased to hear that the opposition is interested in moving quickly, and I'm sure that we can work together in order to achieve that.
Perhaps to that end, Madam Minister, you could speak to the importance of a speedy ratification, particularly since my understanding is that we do export a significant number of services to the United Kingdom. I think you mentioned that in your opening statement. Our exporters of services are not currently covered by the MOU, and I do believe that we all have an interest in supporting our service exports.
Are there any other reasons, to your mind—and certainly that one would be sufficient—that we should move quickly towards ratification, Minister?