Foreign Affairs committee  If you don't know your colleagues in ways and means, your colleagues in the House advisory committee on trade negotiations, and Senate finance, now's the time to really start focusing on the members of the committee—Lloyd Doggett and others. Get to know those guys one-on-one and build relations with them.

Foreign Affairs committee  Could I make one final suggestion?

Foreign Affairs committee  We spent a lot of time and effort on this with trade commissioners, the Alberta service, the Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership, and every province. We spend more resources on this, I think, than the Americans do, or at least we have more actors involved on this than the Americans do.

Foreign Affairs committee  I've done several call-in radio shows in western Canada recently, and when the softwood lumber issue comes up, the anger on the part of the people calling in—not just Danielle Smith's show, but also CBC—is real and visceral. People want to cut electricity. People want to cut oil shipping to the United States.

Foreign Affairs committee  You need my colleague Trevor McLeod from our natural resources centre. This is his area. I'll just throw Trevor a torch on this one. You'll see different responses from different states. We see states like California on emissions standards, New York on the climate pact, the greenhouse gas pact.

Foreign Affairs committee  This is going to seem to counter what I said earlier, but I don't know that there's much that we can do other than open the door for Canadian business by signing good trade agreements, by putting them on the same level playing field as their competitors. The issue we have is that we've been blessed and cursed by access to the fattest, richest, and easiest market on the planet.

Foreign Affairs committee  There are two trusted traveller programs in North America. One is a bilateral program between Canada and the United States. The other system is managed by the United States and applies to Mexico. Mexico has in fact declined the U.S. invitation to create a bilateral system south of the border.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you for bringing that up. This is an issue that's been troubling several of us. There has been one piece in the Canadian press on this, but I'm glad that it's coming to attention. You've read the recent piece we had on the Canada West Foundation blog about this. This really is troubling for the North American negotiations.

Foreign Affairs committee  Oh, yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  What exactly is the tax called? The actual term is something like “distance-adjusted tax”. This is a subject on which I'm going to admit to being completely confused. You've heard the old joke about how you'd like to meet a one-handed economist, because an economist will say “on the one hand” and then “on the other”.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, I can imagine.

Foreign Affairs committee  With trade infrastructure, so a border infrastructure bank.... I'm speaking only about trade infrastructure, not building sewage treatment plants or parks, but with trade infrastructure, the private sector is the majority funder of trade infrastructure. They are the owners of trade infrastructure.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, but again, there are banks that focus on trade infrastructure, and there are banks that focus on domestic infrastructure. We have to be really careful with defining the terms of the conversation.

Foreign Affairs committee  This is the importance of the trade agenda for Canada and our prosperity, our future growth. We currently have only one trade agreement on the other side of the Pacific. We are in second to last place on this side of the Pacific in terms of trade agreements with Asia. I think Ecuador and Nicaragua might be behind us, but that's about it.

Foreign Affairs committee  Congress is varied. The difference between the administration and Congress is that you have several interests. It's not one person changing their mind every five minutes; it's a committee like this with different sections of the country, different interests, coming to a conclusion.