Mr. Redlin, I'm going to talk about the investor state. I have the press release from the EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht from January 21, and I will quote from this:
Governments must always be free to regulate so they can protect people and the environment.
He continues:
But some existing arrangements have caused problems in practice, allowing companies to exploit loopholes where the legal text has been vague. I know some people in Europe have genuine concerns about this part of the EU-US deal. Now I want them to have their say. I have been tasked by the EU Member States to fix the problems that exist in current investment arrangements and I'm determined to make the investment protection system more transparent and impartial, and to close these legal loopholes once and for all. TTIP will firmly uphold EU member states' right to regulate in the public interest.
The press release then goes on to say that, “The Commission wants to use the opportunity to improve investment provisions already in place.... In practice this would mean referring explicitly in the deal to states' right to regulate in the public's interest.”
Is there anything that you've seen in the leaked documents that satisfies you that CETA has a clear statement that protects Canada's ability to regulate the public's interest?