Industry committee  We are not negotiating in conjunction. We are negotiating separate, stand-alone, bilateral FTAs. That said, we are in communication with our American counterparts, and we have a pretty good sense of what's going on in each other's negotiations. Obviously, given the nature of our industries, including the auto sector, we'll take a keen interest in what's going on at their table and vice versa.

Industry committee  That is $2.8 billion.

Industry committee  No. On the contrary, our exports were up significantly more last year, and Korean imports to Canada were either flat or down.

Industry committee  There are several ways to answer that. One is that all the stakeholders who wrote to us were positive, except for those from the two sectors we discussed. So we have supportive messages from stakeholders in all of those sectors—aerospace and chemicals and—

Industry committee  No, they're covered by privacy considerations. When people are responding to a government appeal for input, they do it under cover of privacy. If you look at the tariff structure, you'll see that Korean tariffs average 13%. Canada's average is less than 4%. If you eliminate those, it stands to reason that there's going to be more benefit to our side than theirs.

Industry committee  That's exactly the dialogue we're having with the auto industry. We're looking for them to identify the specific problems they have. If there's a problem with a measure that exists now, we'll try to write an obligation directly into the FTA itself. Perhaps more important, we're also trying to come up with some procedures for solving the regulatory problem.

Industry committee  Imports from Korea into Canada at the moment are around $5 billion.

Industry committee  To respond with respect to trade remedy law, that is the responsibility of the Minister of Finance in Canada, so if follow-up is required in terms of how trade remedy laws are applied in Canada, I would suggest that the lead contact be with the Department of Finance. With respect to the impact of the Korean FTA on the fisheries sector, this is an area of great opportunity for Canada, and there is absolutely no downside.

Industry committee  It's important to keep in mind that we are midway through a negotiation. It's hypothetical at this stage to speculate about what the outcome will be. When a negotiation is concluded, the government will have to make a decision about whether it's in the interests of the country to proceed.

Industry committee  The other aspect, though, of free trade is that through the reduced tariffs, you actually cause greater competition and lower prices in the market, leading to an increase in demand, so there's also a positive income effect that results in greater purchases of vehicles overall. Dealers who are selling more than one brand may actually see a lot of benefit from it.

Industry committee  The subject of our briefing today is the Canada-Korea FTA negotiations, so I didn't come prepared to address the issue of safeguard actions and how the government deals with safeguard actions involving imports from China. But as I understand the process, it would essentially be up to the applicants who are seeking the measures to make a case for whether or not the safeguard measures should be imposed, as they did to the CITT.

Industry committee  I'm not sure that the direct impact of an FTA would be necessarily to encourage the investment, other than perhaps through the investment chapter, which would provide for greater investment protections in both directions. So to the extent that that provides a higher comfort level to companies seeking to invest either way, it could have an effect in terms of encouraging investment.

Industry committee  I certainly can say that one of our objectives in having an FTA is to encourage two-way investment.

Industry committee  That is absolutely one of our objectives. I'm just not in the minds of the corporate players who make decisions about where they invest.

Industry committee  I think yes, on balance.