International Trade committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Good morning, everybody, honourable members. I am extremely pleased to be here. I want to thank you very much for making it possible for me to appear at this hearing. I started my nearly 30-year career with the European institution as a parliame

International Trade committee  Actually, I think all sectors will benefit from it. Although we already have quite a lot of trade, I would say, industrial goods will definitely benefit. The automobile sector, the manufacturing sector, the medical sector, and the service sector will profit, as will the agricultu

International Trade committee  To be honest, no. I'm quite frank about it. I think this is a win-win situation for everybody. I know that when the breakthrough agreement was announced, in the press it was mentioned that some of the sectors will be touched. I double-checked that with Brussels, and we did not

International Trade committee  That's very difficult to predict, because it's up to the companies to use the agreement and to increase trade, so it's very difficult to say. At the moment, we already have major countries that have considerable trade with Canada. They are very well known: Germany, France, Italy,

International Trade committee  No, because the approach is not to single out the countries. We want to see that it is the businesses that will make use of it; it would be more the sectors that will profit from it per country.

International Trade committee  Thank you for asking this question. On the final text, for the moment what is happening is that we have the finalizing of technical negotiations going on. I think it's a question of weeks and we'll finish. Then we have the legal scrubbing of the text, putting everything into a t

International Trade committee  I think the provisions we have offer a very high investment protection. That I can confirm. The balance is absolutely yes.... The answer is yes. I cannot comment on the TTIP. That's not my experience.

International Trade committee  I'll give the floor to my colleague.

International Trade committee  I'm sorry...how long will it take?

International Trade committee  Oh, that's very difficult to say. I know Commissioner De Gucht personally very well. This year, 2014, will be an important year for the European Union institutions because there will be elections of European parliaments, there will be a new commissioner, and a new president of

International Trade committee  First, on the geographical indicators, I think we also struck a good balance. We have a very high number of geographical indicators, products in the European Union, and some of them could not enter, like Parma and some—

International Trade committee  Yes. In any case, for some it was very difficult, or some entered or were here on the Canadian market with a name that was protected with the European Union. I think there we struck a very, very good deal. I can assure you that it's not only the European Union that has delicious

International Trade committee  I think we struck the right balance. As I said, for us intellectual property rights are extremely important. Here, in that sense, we wanted to have high protection. If you compare the situation of Canada with other developing, industrialized countries, they were not on the top of

International Trade committee  We are already very strong trade partners. The European Union is the second trade partner of Canada, the second investor of Canada. Canada is the twelfth trade partner of the European Union, the fourth in investor—

International Trade committee  Yes, please.