International Trade committee  Yes, we've determined that we do have the resources. Of course, you resource a free trade agreement of this scale efficiently, not to the scale of, say, renegotiating the NAFTA, and we are intending to proceed on a largely virtual basis. We share a time zone, which is a big benef

International Trade committee  An initial economic analysis has been undertaken. I believe we intend to share a summary. If one has not been shared already with the committee, we will endeavour to do so.

International Trade committee  With regard to the first question, through the course of the exploratory discussions and public consultations, what we've determined is that it is worthwhile to proceed with this negotiation and essentially to add it to a longer-term regional strategy that has been going for 25 y

International Trade committee  I would say the exploratory discussions really played out until the summer and the start of the fall, and the particular debate around carbon pricing co-operation provisions hadn't really come up yet in terms of the Ukraine process. What I can say is that Ecuador is very keen to

International Trade committee  I guess I would start by saying that Canada will not, and has not, imposed a carbon tax through any trade agreement. We have included, in one instance, co-operation-based provisions with the words “carbon pricing”, but about climate change more generally, that commit parties to g

International Trade committee  I'll take that one. Ecuador's trade agreements vary quite a bit. There's the more limited scope—the goods-only focus with China, for example—and the far more comprehensive sets of agreements with Korea and Costa Rica, most recently.

International Trade committee  I'll speak about the Canadian process and let the ambassador speak about the process on the ground in Ecuador. For us, it was a Canada Gazette-based public consultation, whereby we heard from interested stakeholders, some of whom we followed up with at subsequent meetings and al

International Trade committee  Well, internally we're looking at all of our chapters, including that one, but no decision has been taken yet on a final text, including what its contents would be on that issue.

International Trade committee  That would be following both the 90-day notification of intent period that we're in right now in Parliament and the 30-day period of publication of high-level negotiating objectives.

International Trade committee  The carbon pricing co-operation provision contained in one of our agreements is one of many agreements that are used to consider what options are brought to the table. No decision has been taken.

International Trade committee  Not directly.

International Trade committee  I would say it's one of the many issues under consideration, but there's no formalized proposal text yet on any issue, including this—

International Trade committee  Discussions are ongoing about what would be included. I will err towards the side of yes, it has been discussed and considered, and we're looking forward to hearing feedback from this committee as a part of final decision-making purposes.

International Trade committee  No.

International Trade committee  I guess this gets at the life cycle of a trade negotiation. We usually begin—just about always—with what we call “exploratory” discussions, which in this case were undertaken over the last year, more or less. Those were launched by Minister Ng and her previous Ecuadorean counter