Mr. Chair, the member speaks as if all these clauses are a done deal. They are still under negotiations and the negotiations will continue to the end of 2011 and possibly longer.
The municipalities and the provinces have been consulted and briefed regularly by the negotiators and are fully aware of all these items that the member has spoken to. Of course the municipalities have indicated their support for where the government is going in this area.
Government procurement, including at the sub-federal level, is one of the areas of negotiation as described in the Canada-EU joint report released in 2009. The obligations would only apply to agreed upon types of procurements. For example, international procurement obligations would not apply to non-contractual agreements such as grants or loans or items purchased for commercial sale or resale of contracts below specified dollar value thresholds.