International Trade committee  That's a very, very good question. The short answer is no. The joint scoping exercise that was done prior to the launch of negotiations was looking at the potential benefits for an agreement and the economic impact of liberalizing I think most if not all trade and investment betw

International Trade committee  Exactly. It's really hard for me to say who's going to win. Many industries have a lot at stake in these negotiations, and I think we'll be hearing from some of them. The automotive sector, the steel industry and all of their customers, a lot of companies making fabricated meta

International Trade committee  We represent all the companies in every sector of manufacturing and export-related or trade-related activities, and I think everybody has a lot at stake in these negotiations. You're right to say that some have more of an offensive interest, while some have more of a defensive in

International Trade committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for inviting me to appear before the committee today on behalf of Canadian manufacturers and exporters. We're glad to take part in your consultations on the trade negotiations with the European Union

International Trade committee  Like Michael, I'm not necessarily familiar with domestic legislation. It's not a concern that's been raised to us by our members yet, but we haven't consulted them on the specific issue either. Obviously, as I mentioned earlier, we want a rules-based regime, but as for difference

International Trade committee  Obviously there are different countries and different jurisdictions that have different regimes when it comes to granting access to natural resources and managing that access to natural resources that they're providing to companies. My point on the specific case that happened in

International Trade committee  There was an agreement in place that governed the way that AbitibiBowater was operating in the province, and different provinces have different regimes. The point is that if you make changes to the way this regime is operating, you need to do it in a way that's consistent and tre

International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to appear again before the committee this morning on behalf of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters and to take part in your discussions. Before I begin, I'd like to say a few words about Canadian Manuf

International Trade committee  The $500 billion is manufacturing sales, where GDP calculates value-added. That's the distinction.

International Trade committee  Well, $1.6 trillion is actually the total value of sales. Basically, every dollar of manufacturing production generates $3.25 in total economic activity in Canada. We're looking at sales here, not value added; the GDP numbers account only for the value added. Our numbers account

International Trade committee  But this is StatsCan data actually. I can give you the source if you want it. It's the manufacturing sales published every month by StatsCan.

International Trade committee  Especially for food processors, I know that many of them already see Panama as an important market. I think it's key that we get our agreement in place before or at the same time as the United States. But for other sectors already in that market, it's very important that we get

International Trade committee  That's a good question. I'll start by answering it, and then refer to the comments you made at the beginning of your short presentation. I think we need to pursue both. We'd like to see multilateral—

International Trade committee  I believe that Canada should be pursuing discussions at the multilateral level and try to play a leading role. But with negotiations being stalled right now, we can't just sit on the sidelines and say, “We shouldn't be doing anything bilaterally because we need to put all our egg

International Trade committee  This isn't something that I heard our members talk about when we consulted them on this topic. For most small and mid-sized Canadian manufacturing enterprises, Panama is not on their radar. But I know that businesses have contracts or clients there. I know, for example, that yo