Thank you, witnesses, for being here on a nice July day here in Ontario.
I'm going to start with you, Mr. Burney. I know you're in Colorado, but you should be in Ontario. It's a lot nicer here than Colorado today, I would swear.
In one of your articles you talked about the “economic prosperity network” that was being created. That was the U.S. basically working with Japan, Australia and like-minded countries to develop a system to have each other's back in times of need, for example, like now on personal protective equipment or ventilators and things like that.
In discussions with other people around the world, the members of the Conservative caucus trade members have been talking to groups, associations, and other trade ministers. We're starting to see countries form these groups or cartels where they're not only talking about having each other's back, but actually setting regs. They have the regs set, and if you're going to trade with that bloc, that's the reg, that's the safety standard, that's the item you're going to trade in, which will set the global regs.
What's your comment on that and why do you think Canada should be involved with that?