I believe the U.K. is progressing in this respect, and Canada could follow suit with various states at a bilateral level in that respect to advance respective interests.
Our provinces also have interests internationally, and they pursue agreements as well as different types of partnership arrangements, in addition to having boots on the ground that complement federal boots on the ground in different international markets. When it comes to the economic partnership arrangements, I think what we're classically seeing is that free trade agreements are in vogue, and there's less attention on these economic arrangements or trade models.
What you need to look at is what the political, social and commercial objectives are, and then break down the type of partnership. Is it going to be an investment relationship, a trade relationship or strategic co-operation based on different sectors of the economy? You break that up and, from there, you look at the agreement type. You structure that based on the various interests. What are the key benefits to Canada versus something that another market will want from us? Where do we find common ground, but where do we also have leverage whereby we can seek concessions in different areas to advance Canadian commercial interests, but also to push levers on scientific co-operation, whether it's agriculture...? You name it.
From there, you can then look at the governance model. I think this is critical, because when you look at the governance structure and the roles and responsibilities.... I kept on hearing a frequent footprint in various markets or a back-and-forth in a given economy, so it's high-level visits and having frequent interactions. You're then forcing the relationship to advance in a way whereby you're having frequent and regular dialogue at the highest level. You have that political leverage and the political relationship that is there, but you also have roles and responsibilities whereby various officials at different levels are interacting with one another at a technical level and they're forced to the table, where there's even just that ability to have....
I have to stop.