International Trade committee  With respect to—?

International Trade committee  Okay. Let me refer that to Pierre Bouchard.

International Trade committee  Mr. Chairman, thank you for the welcome. I would respond only by referring to the labour provisions in the FTA, and the labour side agreement in particular, which do introduce a number of checks and balances and obligations on the part of both parties. It would certainly be possible for my colleague from HRSDC to cite or highlight some of those, if that would be helpful.

International Trade committee  On the question about the competitiveness of our apparel industry vis-à-vis Jordan's, the other consideration is that Canada's apparel industry typically doesn't make the same kinds of things as the Jordanian apparel industry. They're making very low-cost, mass-produced T-shirts and other simple garments, whereas the Canadian industry, even though it has declined in size over the years, is focused on niche markets—high-end designer, more upscale products.

International Trade committee  I have couple of points. First, when projections are made, from whatever source, about future trade flows and increases stemming from free trade agreements, the benefits often go beyond what's measurable in tariff reductions. The increased awareness and the overall buzz in the trading community, together with the increased information about the market and other intangibles, are contributing factors that often end up creating a result larger than might have been anticipated.

International Trade committee  I would come back to the chapters on rules of origin, customs procedures, and trade facilitation in the agreement. What we're doing is modernizing the commercial relationship with this agreement and creating an environment that is as user-friendly, barrier-free, and transparent as possible.

International Trade committee  As mentioned, I think there's every prospect of that. The commercial environment has been opened up literally as wide open as it could. Perhaps my colleague from agriculture wants to comment specifically about that sector. But in terms of the commercial environment, there are two aspects, in my view.

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  No. There are only two: one on environment and one on labour.

International Trade committee  Okay. The chapter is relatively short on environment, but you asked about the side agreement so I'll mention the high points in terms of the contents of the environment side agreement. It commits the parties to high levels of environmental protection, to improving their domestic environmental governance, and to enforcing their environmental laws, and it prevents them from derogating from those laws.

International Trade committee  It's not dealt with at all. It reflects, as I said, a couple of things. One is that when we did the Gazette notice, and solicited comments and input from stakeholders before the negotiations began, there was no request from stakeholders that services be part of this deal, which we think reflects—

International Trade committee  Yes. I'll start with the environment and then ask Mr. Bouchard to talk about labour.

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  I'll start and ask my colleague from agriculture to finish. As I mentioned, there's a very small number of exclusions on the Jordanian side. They requested exclusion of tobacco and alcohol on the basis of health and morality reasons. All across the board, from A to Z products, the only one that they really had a very acute sensitivity to was chicken, for some particular domestic reason, which was something we ultimately agreed to.

International Trade committee  We are very optimistic about Canada's competitive position in Jordan vis-à-vis the two main competitors, the European Union and the United States. Despite the fact that Jordan negotiated and signed FTAs with both those parties quite some years before they did with Canada, those agreements, particularly with the U.S., involved long phase-out periods of Jordanian tariffs, which was roughly a decade in the U.S. case.