International Trade committee  Just because a government passes an environmental protection measure doesn't mean that somebody should be able to make a claim.

International Trade committee  No, it has a provision, and as I say, it is better than the NAFTA provision. The language is in itself, on that point, not too bad. It says: Except in rare circumstances, such as when a measure or series of measures are so severe in the light of their purpose that they cannot b

International Trade committee  So it's better than the NAFTA, but it's.... We shouldn't even have the claims be possible.

International Trade committee  In terms of what we expect might happen, we've had many claims brought against Canada, for example, under NAFTA. The Dow is the most recent. It ended up being resolved. On the other hand, we have a good precedent in a case called Methanex, where the arbitral panel ruled against

International Trade committee  Yes, challenging the increased or more protective standards would be inconsistent. Those kinds of provisions, I think, are good. Even in the NAFTA we had the commission for environmental cooperation, which does some very good things. For example, it compares the national emission

International Trade committee  If we use NAFTA as the benchmark, we do see some improvement in language in some of the bilateral agreements negotiated since. That was, of course, some time ago. As I say, we'll see how far those go in terms of improving the conditions. What I like about the U.S.-Australia agre

International Trade committee  Yes, I will. The written notes that the committee will get from me this afternoon are lengthier on this very point. Our contention is not so much on the two states taking issue with each other if they think they've breached the agreement, and then taking that forward for resolut

International Trade committee  First of all, under NAFTA, the subnational governments are not bound by the restrictions on procurement. Second, their government procurement is protected. So we have an ongoing concern as subnational governments start to be bound by these agreements, and there is provision here

International Trade committee  Thank you very much. Thank you for this opportunity to attend and make a presentation to the committee today. The Canadian Environmental Law Association is an environmental law legal clinic, one of the specialty clinics in the Ontario legal aid system. We're 41 years old, and

International Trade committee  Yes, just fine. Thank you.

International Trade committee  Yes, I'm sorry, I'm looking for where that is. Be that as it may, in general, the debate between environmental interests and trade interests sometimes does become grounded on the debate between taking precautionary approaches to sustainable development and environmental protecti

International Trade committee  I'm sorry that I'm not going to be very helpful on that, because CELA has not been directly working on tar sands and oil sands issues. Some of our colleagues have been working on those issues, and I would have to ask them to make comment, which I could do.

International Trade committee  The analysis was prepared several weeks ago, but that was only in English, so my apologies for that.

International Trade committee  If I may, I don't think I said there wasn't public consultation. I said that the draft text has not been out in the public for comment, and that's where I think it would be extremely valuable, and I presume not just on environmental matters that we can comment on and many others

International Trade committee  I think it's one of the most significant issues in the free trade agreements. So I gave you the Australia-U.S. example to say that we don't even need that kind of a clause; we could just do away with it entirely and not have this problem. In the current draft that we saw, it was