International Trade committee  Would you like to start, Mr. Tilk?

International Trade committee  Yes, I'd agree with everything that was said. Human rights is one that I'd bring up. Under these military dictatorships, they used to kill political opponents and outlaw organizations. They were tough military dictatorships. Those years are way behind us. I would agree with the

International Trade committee  I think we'd be a bit less competitive than other people, people who have signed agreements. As I say, that includes the U.S, the EU, Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru. I'm not sure who else, but—

International Trade committee  Yes, they're in that group of countries too, the Pacific Alliance.

International Trade committee  They are individuals. People sign up as individuals to become members. Our main sponsors are companies. The financial backbone of our organization is our sponsors, but our members are individuals, who generally are the Toronto business community. Others are academics, and some ar

International Trade committee  I'd say most of the people who come to our events are involved in business. Sometimes it's their own companies and sometimes they're working for another company. Most of our events have a business focus, although not all do. We do things on foreign policy and human rights. We do

International Trade committee  We have around 600; it comes and goes.

International Trade committee  I think engineering services, very much, because of all this infrastructure development, and banking services, not only because Panama is such an important banking hub in general but also because often our banking services are around these Canadian companies that are doing other

International Trade committee  I think it would help their opportunities.

International Trade committee  The funds generally go to places where the legal environment gives them the security they need and where there are growth opportunities. For instance, in Chile there's been a lot of investment, and in Brazil there's been a lot of investment. In the past places like Panama weren't

International Trade committee  Would there be negative impact from a free trade agreement with Panama? I don't think we have much exactly in the way of competition in products or sectors with Panama. It's not a manufacturing economy; it's mainly services. Off the top of my head, I wouldn't say so, but....

International Trade committee  To Panamanian companies that want to sell to Canada, replacing Canadian products, do you mean?

International Trade committee  I don't know if Panama is manufacturing so much for export. It's very much a service economy. You have the Panama Canal and the services around that. You have the banking sector, but I don't see them moving into Canada. I don't know of any products they export. They export banana

International Trade committee  In terms of a tax haven, there's that OECD process to determine how transparent they are, but I think Panama has made a lot of progress on that.

International Trade committee  Oh, for sure. Yes, there were.