What this trust relationship says, now that I've had a chance to look at it, is that there are mechanisms to make sure that countries enforce their environmental laws and have high levels of environmental protection. But the fact is, those mechanisms are much weaker than what's in the NAFTA deal, and those are already pretty weak.
What can you do if you're concerned about your country or another country not enforcing its environmental laws? At the CEC you can file a complaint and get an independent, objective report, a detailed factual investigation. What can you get under the Peru model, which I assume is the same as the one here? You can file a question with a bureaucrat, with the national coordinator. There is no independent review and no rigorous analysis. I've seen those kinds of answers. I'm sure you all have too. They're not very rigorous.
At the national level, what can you do? Under NAFTA, if Canada thinks Mexico is getting a trade advantage by having a pattern of not enforcing its laws, it can have a binding arbitration process initiated and monitor enforcement sanctions. What can happen under these agreements? You can have consultations, and everybody's supposed to get along.
Compare that to what an investor can do under these agreements. An investor, under NAFTA and under these agreements, can file a complaint against the Canadian government. If a Colombian investor comes and makes an investment in Canada, and they think they've been treated unfairly, they can sue the Canadian government for multi-million-dollar damages. Those have been awarded, by the way; Canadian taxpayers have paid those damages. They get to choose one of the judges in that case and they get to have a full evidentiary hearing. It makes this independent citizen submission process, which is already better than what you have approved, look pretty weak.
It's just not balanced, in my view.