International Trade committee  I wouldn't know a clear timeline. When I've had questions, I've reached out to the team working on it at Global Affairs and they've answered my questions, but I've never received a clear timeline of when discussions are taking place and at what level.

International Trade committee  From what I've understood, a lot of the negotiation actually took place before we...there's reference made to this before but it was around when Theresa May was Prime Minister and releasing their initial MFN tariff schedule. I think before that and before Canada disengaged, a lot of work was done in advance, and some of that work has been picked up over the fall.

International Trade committee  I haven't, but raising those two examples, I mean good partners for Canada...in the U.K., we're competitors. I would hope that Canada has an agreement in place before either of those two partners.

International Trade committee  I guess I could hop in first. Absolutely; Canada was one of the first countries, certainly of the advanced economies, to have a comprehensive trade deal with the European Union. You still have many jurisdictions where, for example, as I mentioned, countries like New Zealand and Australia are still trying to conclude their own bilateral agreements with the EU.

International Trade committee  I guess I can jump in first. Obviously, the trade commissioner service has a large role to play here, as with any of our trade agreements. They're a great resource available to Canadian businesses. I think that's the most obvious place where we'd want to see more focus. Actually, I think there has been a shift in focus in the last couple of years towards SMEs and helping them to understand and navigate our trade agreements.

International Trade committee  We've been discussing the transitional context, so I can't discuss a longer-term free trade agreement.

International Trade committee  I'm not a negotiator. I'm just looking at the way other countries have responded. I think we're in a very similar position to that of many of our peers, but I hope that we'll have an agreement in place—

International Trade committee  You can look at South Korea, for instance. It decided to have a continuity agreement in the fall of 2019.

International Trade committee  Its assessment was that this was the preferred approach. Japan recently rolled over the EU-Japan EPA with the U.K. Our perspective on this is that we would prefer to have a transitional approach rather than a final agreement. In both instances, they've negotiated a final free trade agreement.

International Trade committee  I think it goes back, now, two years or so ago. We were negotiating—

International Trade committee  Absolutely, and I know that CUSMA has been brought up in several instances. I think that's a great success story of working with labour, working with industry and working with other groups. I think we have been able to develop a really forward-thinking agreement in that context, and I would hope that with the Canada-U.K. agreement we can approach it from a similar standpoint.

International Trade committee  I guess on my end that has been the understanding, yes. Among larger enterprises, that's the focus. As we do move into negotiations around an actual free trade agreement, there will be differing views, but right now everybody is very much focused on how we can preserve our market access under CETA and then rethink the relationship from there.

International Trade committee  I would just maybe jump in to mention that I think our experience is very similar to that of many of our peers around the world. We know that, for example, Australia and New Zealand are trying to conclude agreements as well. Some countries have been able to conclude agreements, whether that's a permanent arrangement mimicking their existing EU agreement....

International Trade committee  Maybe I can start. I've only been in this position for about a half a year. I can only speak to that point onward. The department has been very accessible. If we've had any questions, we've been able to reach out and receive an answer. Obviously, we're not part of the negotiation but I do feel that we've been well informed throughout the process.

International Trade committee  To add to that, we share the objective that we need to see more SMEs take full advantage of our suite of free trade agreements. Canada has some of the best market access to the world. We know, in the G7 context, that we have a very competitive position, but we know our SMEs haven't taken full advantage of the opportunities yet.