Thank you, Chair and committee members, for inviting me here today. In addition to my role as senior fellow with the Canadian International Council, I'm also associate professor and chair of the department of political science at King's University College at Western University. What I'd like to do for you today is to set the proposed Canada-Pacific Alliance free trade agreement in the broader context of global trade and to offer four arguments to which I'll return in our discussion.
First, multilateralism in global trade is dead, at least for the foreseeable future.
Second, the time is now for Canada to take leadership in gendering global trade. The political will is strong. This is very key. Many seem to be looking to Canada for our leadership on this agenda.
Third, while we have the chance to set the gold standard in gendering global trade, we need to take a holistic approach with concrete commitments, and this FTA is the right opportunity.
Finally, we need to walk the walk all the way down the runway. That means that we bring all the pillars of our trade policy, including our foreign investment practices, into line with our socially progressive, gender-sensitive trade agenda.
The present challenges for multilateralism are too many to list here, but I think a few are worth considering.
One is the effective abandonment of the Doha development agenda at the World Trade Organization. We have the Trump administration's hawkish stance on trade. We have the gutting of the WTO's dispute settlement system. We have the U.K.'s withdrawal from the EU. As well, we have very strained relations between the U.S., the EU, and China over a whole host of issues.
All of that, and more, served as the backdrop for WTO's recent ministerial conference in Buenos Aires in December, in which I had the opportunity to partake. This was the place where members agreed to almost nothing. Instead what we got was a series of best-endeavour promises among a series of like-minded countries to do deals in the future with or without the U.S. and India, and quite possibly outside the context of the WTO. This sets the backdrop against which we'll negotiate an FTA with the Pacific Alliance.
Equally significant for our discussion is the declaration on trade and women's economic empowerment that was signed by 119 WTO observers and members. The declaration is premised on the idea that one billion women are excluded from the global economy. It sets a bunch of promises together to generate gender-disaggregated data on the impacts of proposed and existing trade deals. It's purely aspirational and non-binding, as are the gender chapters in the existing FTAs, such as the Chile-Canada FTA, but many are very hopeful that this signals a willingness to link human rights and broader social agendas to the regulation of global trade. It's important to note that Canada, as well as its partners, was an architect of this declaration. We are front and centre on every stage where gender and trade is a topic and we are the gender champions on the global stage right now, so this is a prime political moment for us.
The gender chapter in the Chile-Canada FTA was an important first step in mainstreaming the idea that gender equality could be addressed through progressive trade policies, but it's my view that voluntary best-endeavour commitments are not enough to bring about meaningful social change and to close gaps in gender equality.
A socially progressive, gender-sensitive FTA with the Pacific Alliance should do several key things. It has to ensure marginalized groups participate in a meaningful way in the negotiations. It must not be viewed as a “gender clip-on” by civil society.
It needs to improve economic opportunities for women entrepreneurs, particularly women-owned MSMEs and e-commerce.
We have to identify and provide support for those negatively impacted by trade policies. Economic empowerment is only part of a socially progressive trade agenda. We must also work to minimize the negative and differential impacts of trade liberalization on those who are most vulnerable. That means women who are adversely incorporated into jobs that are precarious and low pay. It means women who are working in export processing zones, sweatshops, and forced labour. It means women who are working in the informal sector, in agriculture and inside the home.
We have to set specific milestones and goals, and commit to mobilizing knowledge and technical and capacity-building resources. These are things we can talk about in the discussion period.
Equally, we need to ensure that we have gender-sensitive coherence across the entire FTA, applying a gender lens to the entire agreement rather than to a stand-alone chapter. If we're serious about advancing a gender-sensitive agenda, we must bring all of the pillars of the FTA into line with those objectives. Part of that might include a strong labour chapter, but that's only one option.
We also need to ensure that investor protections do not curtail government's duty to protect women's rights and promote gender equality, or work at cross-purposes with gender-sensitive trade policy outlined in other areas of the FTA.
Arguably, the way the Canadian government has been negotiating investor protections contradicts the spirit of a socially progressive trade agenda. In particular, inclusion of an ISDS in the Canada-Pacific FTA could be viewed as socially regressive because of the dangers associated with regulatory chill.