Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for inviting us. I think this is very relevant. We thank you for your openness and willingness to listen. We know the agreement has been signed but not ratified yet, and that it has to be looked at from a global perspective for the moment.
As Amélie said, CISO's objective is to protect working men and women, unionized or not, in the official economy or the parallel one. I am myself a member of the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec, as well as the Canada Labour Congress, which has already presented its positions. I am going to emphasize, rather, cooperation and impacts. The CSN and the Réseau québécois sur l'intégration continentale will also be making representations.
From the point of view of workers, we think that the TPP will be very detrimental to Canada. That statement is derived from some studies done on the basis of snippets of information about the agreement which were passed around on social networks. We think that this partnership will also have repercussions on adjacent countries. Mr. Jobin talked about the cost of not joining the agreement. However, neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh that are not members of the accord may see jobs displaced in very volatile sectors such as textile. Thousands of workers could be affected.
We recently heard Ms. Kalpona Akter, a speaker who represents workers' groups in Bangladesh. She came to Canada to talk about the situation of those people. An asymmetrical regional agreement will affect the balance of forces between multinational or transnational enterprises and the countries concerned, which may certainly see repercussions on decent work. Canada has committed to respecting the principles of the Decent Work Country Programmes of the International Labour Organization, the ILO. Several official ILO conventions have already been invoked because of violations by businesses, especially as concerns subcontracts.
As for decent work, we feel it is important to target supply chains. There is a debate at the ILO this year. They are discussing measures to protect and to monitor international labour standards, and having an adequate network of social protection measures and social dialogue mechanisms. My colleague Mr. Jobin will agree that that is an essential element, since we are soon going to be hosting the National Dialogue Quartet, who received the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize for having maintained prosperity and security in a country like Tunisia.
This agreement may also weaken the sovereignty of the United States.
I will now give the floor back to Ms. Nguyen.