I think for a moment we should concentrate outside of Canada and look at other jurisdictions particularly with respect to the ISDS private arbitration mechanism.
There was an article in The Guardian a year ago, so it may need updating. It was on June 10, 2015. It catalogues the experiences of several other jurisdictions, in particular, Bolivia, South Africa, Australia, Germany, and India. All of these jurisdictions have come away sadder and wiser men in connection with the ISDS mechanism. India and Bolivia in particular and South Africa have said that they will not enter into future agreements like this that have ISDS provisions.
By the way, in terms of whether you have to be in these agreements or not, The Guardian points out that Brazil has never signed up for this system. It has not entered into a single treaty with these investor-state dispute provisions, and yet it has no trouble attracting foreign investment. In fact, it is booming.
The last point I urge, in terms of the government's priority for environmental protections, is that you should at least look seriously at a carve-out for the environmental protections, because the foreign investors are going to have a field day. I refer the committee to the article by Osgoode Hall Law School professor Gus Van Harten, who called for an ISDS carve-out to support action on climate change. I can provide the committee with copies of that, and I think you should look at it very carefully.