International Trade committee  No, but we've made a lot of investment in Brazil in the last little while. We have 2,000 people in Brazil now.

International Trade committee  Of the two investments we've made in Brazil in the last four years, one was for their main mining engineering company in Belo Horizonte and the other is a power company in São Paulo. But our construction group has just made a joint venture with a major Brazilian construction company.

International Trade committee  Of course, if it is doable.

International Trade committee  Like the forest products industry, we were in most of these markets already—not in Israel, actually. A deal like this warms up relationships between governments and provides agreed frameworks for doing business, so it's helpful in a generic kind of way. I can't trace specific advantages.

International Trade committee  Thanks, Chairman. Thank you for inviting us to this committee. I think Andrew has made the case for why free trade agreements like this are important to Canadian business. I would say they're particularly important at a time like this, when we're seeing the vulnerability of our uni-market south of the border.

International Trade committee  Honestly, I do not have any opinion on the timing of the deal.

International Trade committee  It is not up to me to approve or reject the deal. Parliament and the Government of Canada will do as they wish but...

International Trade committee  We are there and we will be there. So, the more help we get from both governments to support our business there, the better it will be. By the way, I do not believe that this process is very hurried since this debate started three years ago.

International Trade committee  Let me ask you this: do you really believe that such a study would close debate?

International Trade committee  I guess what it would do would be to facilitate our growth in Colombia. As I say, we've been growing quite quickly, not through purchase of a company but just by growth of our own people we've hired on the ground there, and we'll hire more to the extent that's facilitated. It's in a bilaterally supported trade system.

International Trade committee  As you might guess, I think that free trade agreements do help countries and workers and economies. Records show that. There are adjustment problems, as we have had in the Canadian economy. I remember at the time of the free trade agreement our indigenous wine industry and textile industry were dead for sure.

International Trade committee  No, I don't. I guess it's always difficult to deal with a broad-brush accusation of bad behaviour. I think that by and large Canadian companies are appreciated and are among the best-performing internationally. I'm not inside all these companies, but if there are particular cases....

International Trade committee  Of course, what you say is true. Companies operate in various ways. Some of them don't have, perhaps, standards that you and I would like them to have. It doesn't seem to me that's a reason for a company like SNC-Lavalin or other companies not to go and use their good socially responsible ways of proceeding, proper consultation processes, extensive use of local people.

International Trade committee  Well, reputationally for Canada, if somebody misbehaves, I don't think people blame the whole country for it; I think they look at the company involved. I don't know—

International Trade committee  When you say “some Canadian companies”, I don't know who they are or what they are. I guess our view is that more trade and more engagement of Canadian companies and Canadian values—good Canadian values—are more likely to ameliorate the situation than deteriorate it. That's all—