International Trade committee  Mr. Chair, it's a very interesting question. Certainly, the emergence of global value chains and the strengthening of them in the last few years is something that the Canadian government and other governments around the world are grappling with and trying to analyze, and the Cana

International Trade committee  My point really is that focusing on the trade surplus or deficit with individual trading partners, like Peru or Colombia, or with individual countries is not, frankly, that relevant. Our overall trade surplus or deficit with the world is driven not by individual free trade agreem

International Trade committee  Maybe just to build a little bit on that and on some of my comments earlier, they really are two very different initiatives. The TPP, frankly, is much larger and builds new trade rules, including those between partners that don't already have free trade agreements with each other

International Trade committee  I think we'll all be looking very carefully at the reaction of any private sector stakeholders you invite as witnesses, to see what their assessment is. There is a lot we don't know about the Pacific Alliance, and I think that's one reason why the members themselves haven't yet n

International Trade committee  I believe that's the case today.

International Trade committee  Well, I think the Canadian government's position is that the free trade agreements we have negotiated so far have made Canada better off, and that freer, liberalized, rules-based trade, be it through the WTO, through bilateral trade agreements, or through regional trade agreement

International Trade committee  I think that's one example. If you have economists come and speak to you, they'll tell you about global value chains and the equal importance of imports to the Canadian economy as exports, and where we're not just focused on exports. It's about efficiency in trade, tapping into g

International Trade committee  —so our focus is more on the broader trade balance, and we don't think that Canada's free trade agreements with these individual countries are the reasons for the issues you described earlier.

International Trade committee  They're very close. I believe Costa Rica has three of the four, and they've negotiated the fourth but it hasn't passed their congress yet—

International Trade committee  —and Panama is in a similar position.

International Trade committee  Just broadly speaking on Canada's trade balance with the world, I think the chief economist's office at DFAIT would argue that this is really driven, more than anything, by the state of commodity markets, exchange-rate fluctuations, productivity differences, etc. For example, sin

International Trade committee  Mr. Chair, perhaps I may just come back to some earlier points that were raised about Canada's FTAs and their impact on trade deficits and trade balances with individual countries. I know that the committee has asked about this before. Free trade agreements really aren't a tool

International Trade committee  I can't answer the question simply because the Pacific Alliance members are currently negotiating among themselves to determine what harmonization they will achieve, and how their own agreement will work. They haven't concluded those negotiations, and we haven't seen any of the d

International Trade committee  Ms. Buck mentioned some in her opening remarks.

International Trade committee  I think the countries you just listed are observer countries—