International Trade committee  I'll turn to my colleagues for more specificity, but we have basically grandfathered all nonconforming measures and have taken a broad-based exception in a number of areas that allow us not only to maintain currently nonconforming measures but also to expand the degree to which t

International Trade committee  Yes. These are all areas that are—

International Trade committee  I certainly wouldn't characterize it as “covertly”. As the previous discussion makes clear, the investor-state process would be carried out in a fully transparent fashion in Canada.

International Trade committee  Yes, this is the first time China has accepted any language on transparency provisions in one of its investment treaties. As I indicated, the ratchet mechanism is very rare in China's investment agreements, so there are a number of areas where Canada made significant strides in t

International Trade committee  We've heard consistently from Canadian stakeholders in the business community that they value this agreement a great deal, and particularly the access to investor-state mechanisms, because it provides the kind of confidence and stability with respect to their investments that rem

International Trade committee  That's correct.

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  I believe that the government has said that, as a matter of policy—

International Trade committee  The short answer to that question is that China would not agree to be bound to a commitment along those lines, but Canada preserved its ability to meet its policy requirement to have transparent proceedings in the case of challenges taken against measures in Canada.

International Trade committee  To give a specific answer, we'd probably have to take note of the question and provide more specificity down the road, but basically investments are categorized in those three main categories in the Chinese inward investment law. There are those that are encouraged, those that ar

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  That's my understanding of how the parliamentary process works for treaties, yes.

International Trade committee  The FIPA has an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, so an investor in Canada who felt the obligations under the treaty were being violated would have recourse to investor-state arbitration, just like a Canadian investor in China would have access to investor-state arbitr

International Trade committee  I just want to clarify that point you made about MFN, because there's a distinction between national treatment and MFN. The MFN obligation in the FIPA also applies to the establishment of investments, not just to the treatment, whereas the national treatment obligation is limited