Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Jayson and Glen and Michael have all talked about why trade is important for Canada and why we should be involved in these international negotiations. A lot of what I want to say has already been said, so I'll keep it brief. I wanted to start by outlining what I think are the five policy options we have in pursuing trade negotiations. They are not mutually exclusive. I think this can help structure some of the rest of the discussions; I'll just outline them and leave it at that.
Obviously our first option, as Michael was saying, would be continuing to push for a deal in the WTO, and that would mean focusing our efforts on the multilateral effort. This is obviously the best for Canada from an economic standpoint, but as we know right now, it has run into some problems, and it doesn't look like there's going to be much headway made on it.
Our second option is to pursue bilateral deals. There are two ways in which we can do those. The first is to follow in the footsteps of the U.S. The U.S. obviously has an agenda right now of finding foreign market hegemony by developing a U.S.-style trade agreement and making bilateral deals with countries for reasons that aren't so much economic as they are strategic.
We have two options if we follow in the footsteps of the U.S. One is to try to get involved in future bilateral negotiations with the U.S.--to try to make them trilateral in this sense. This is good, in that it would limit some of the hub-and-spoke effects that can happen when the U.S. is signing outside deals and Canada is not involved in them. This is one option.
Another option is to go out on our own and sign bilateral deals with countries the U.S. is negotiating with and already has deals with. This can be framed within creating a Canadian style or Canadian brand of trade agreement.
Another way in which we can pursue bilateral deals is not following the footsteps of the U.S. We can either go after countries that are of economic importance to us, ones that we actually want to open up trade with, or we can have a system similar to the U.S. system--go after countries and offer them a Canadian-style or Canadian-brand trade agreement. This can be strategic in the sense that spreading bilateral deals can actually work towards opening up the WTO negotiations. If we offer a trade deal that's in line with the WTO negotiations, it can actually work towards opening up the WTO.
The fourth option is the economist's favourite; I don't think it's going to be too popular here. This would be unilateral liberalization. I think it would be great to see a headline in the newspaper saying that Canada really believes in trade--so much so that we're willing to unilaterally liberalize. Obviously if we want to do something like this, some deep sectoral analysis would need to be done, but I think it is a good option for Canada.
I don't know if the final option is really an option. It is to do nothing, to continue on and not look for bilateral deals--just give it time, see how things go with the U.S. negotiations, and see what happens at the WTO.
I'll leave it at that. That can be a framework for your discussion.