International Trade committee  Thank you for your question, but I would like to clarify that my field is workers' rights, not the labour market. That aspect is not covered in the chapter.

International Trade committee  Your question relates to this Guatemala case, which means that all obligations have to be demonstrated to be done in a manner affecting trade between the parties. This particular language was in a U.S. mandate, what we called the May 10th agreement of 2007. They had no flexibilit

International Trade committee  No, there was no specific discussion.

International Trade committee  Thank you, Marvin. We have the standard comprehensive and enforceable labour provision in the agreement, in the chapter. These include the four fundamental rights of the ILO on collective bargaining: the right to associate, no child labour, no forced labour, non-discrimination.

International Trade committee  No. I'll just confirm it. That's exactly the case for the wages in the auto sector.

International Trade committee  These are figures from the ILO department of statistics, June 2012. For Honduras, the unemployment rate was listed as 2.9%, but there is still a large sector of the population that is employed in informal sectors—nearly 73.9%. Overall, the labour force participation rate is still

International Trade committee  On your first question, there are several free trade zones within Panama—the one that was mentioned by my colleague, and the Peru free trade zones. There are 2,790 employees in those EPZs, as they are called, and 8,830 employees in call centres as well are covered by the EPZ law,

International Trade committee  Obviously it's a different system.

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  Obviously the level of benefits is different in Panama from what it is in Canada.

International Trade committee  The unionization rate would be around 15% of the private sector.

International Trade committee  I'll double-check. It's within that range.

International Trade committee  That contribution would be a general social security contribution. It is normally taken from employees' paycheques and it goes into a government fund, and then they get some kind of a pension from that.

International Trade committee  Mr. Chair, the goal of our agreement is to establish some basic principles that the government has to respect in terms of labour laws and enforcement of its labour laws. As long as they're above those standards or labour laws—we don't address benefits—it's a matter of the governm

International Trade committee  The minimum wage would be just under $200 per month, and it can go up to $400. It depends on the sector. There are various minimum wages, but that's broadly the range—between $200 and $400 a month.