International Trade committee  Yes, although I'm not sure exactly when we're anticipating that it will be delivered. I know I've signed off on most of the briefings now, so it shouldn't be that far away. I can assure you that it will be a very comprehensive briefing package, so hopefully it will meet all of the demands you have with respect to the information.

International Trade committee  From a general perspective, in this negotiation with the EU we will be going far beyond what was negotiated with the U.S. in relation to the Buy American act. We'll be covering a lot more ground in the range of areas that will be subject to government procurement obligations, and there won't be as many exemptions as there were in that agreement.

International Trade committee  That's my understanding.

International Trade committee  The international trade committee is the committee the European negotiators are providing updates to on a regular basis. So they'll be the ones most familiar with what's in the eventual agreement and with what's happening in the negotiations. They would take a first look at it and offer their views.

International Trade committee  My understanding is that it's not a necessary step.

International Trade committee  No. This issue first came up around the same time as the launching of the negotiations in May of 2009. Both sides reached an explicit agreement that we would not allow that issue to distract from the negotiations. So we have not discussed it. We have not tried to do anything on that issue.

International Trade committee  Well, we're not aiming specifically to complete it all by April, although hopefully we will be well advanced towards that. There will probably be a need for further negotiations after April, but they may not necessarily take the form of a full negotiating round. There will be a smaller set of issues to deal with, so there will be a need for a smaller group of negotiators to get together.

International Trade committee  We spent quite a bit of time on fish, as you might expect, over the course of the negotiations. We made it clear from the beginning that it was one of our primary offensive objectives. It's certainly the number one objective for most of the eastern provinces, and an important objective for B.C. as well.

International Trade committee  It is an area we're going to be spending a lot of time on, because I think the EU and Canada share a common objective in that area, for the most part. I don't think either of us has major concerns about investment protection in each other's markets, but we also want to set an example for other bilateral negotiations that each of us will pursue.

International Trade committee  Sure. This was an area we wanted to concentrate on right from the beginning, because certainly the business community was telling us that a lot of the barriers in the EU market didn't relate to tariffs necessarily but more to regulatory standards and various other kinds of non-tariff barriers.

International Trade committee  Well, no. Of the eight that are either--

International Trade committee  I would say two of those are completed.

International Trade committee  There has been some analysis done, certainly, on both of those issues. On the issues of geographical indications, we're a long ways from knowing exactly what we might end up negotiating. We're at the early stages yet, and we haven't discussed specific products. I think that clearly we don't have an interest in providing any concessions on products that are common names in the Canadian market.

International Trade committee  We haven't done any analysis on that internally within our department.

International Trade committee  Well, when we started the negotiations we agreed officially that everything was on the table. That was an explicit agreement at the beginning. As to whether everything will be on the table at the end of the negotiations, that's a different question.