Thank you very much for the question, Peter, and thank you again to everyone for inviting me to join you today.
We have some large cross-country studies that look at the impact of trade liberalization over time in different sectors. We can look at the impact of trade liberalization in the field of goods, and we have some pretty reliable data that tells us that there is a tendency to widen wage inequality between men and women. We can look at the impacts of trade liberalization on trade in services, particularly where liberalization of services leads to a contraction in the provision of public services, and the ways in which those changes are most felt by women operating or working in the household.
We also know that in some trade agreements we have pretty solid carve-outs for public services. The free trade agreements negotiated by the European Union are pretty distinctive in this respect, but the ways in which trade in services agreements have been negotiated—for example, in TISA, to which Canada is a partner—threaten to eliminate those carve-outs, which some would say would put some public services at risk. Again, the burdens would be felt most heavily by women. With any inclusion of things like standstill or ratchet clauses in trade in services agreements, again, the burdens would fall most heavily on women.
In terms of investment protection, I mentioned that we have to be aware of things like regulatory chill. We have to acknowledge arguments that say, for example, that the way Canada is negotiating in ISDS clauses in some of its trade agreements will have a downward regulatory effect. What this means is that government's hands may be tied in terms of regulating in areas ranging from public health and consumer law to environmental and social protection. Even the United Nations has been talking about this. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has acknowledged the chilling effect that investor protections might have.
These are just a few examples of the ways in which trade agreements can adversely impact women.