International Trade committee  Yes, sorry, it wasn't clear. I think I stumbled over that passage when I read that. The first reference is an announcement that all Canadian beef from animals of all ages will be allowed, and then it was that cattle born after August 2007 would be allowed. Yes, it's live cattle,

International Trade committee  Yes, and this is very important. Both Minister Ritz and Minister Day worked very hard with the Colombians on this, along with our food inspection experts and with the Colombian food inspection experts and veterinarians. It was a complicated process because they had to go through

International Trade committee  Absolutely. The agricultural community is very supportive of this deal--pork producers, beef producers, and grain producers. What I heard in Bogota, from actual Colombian importers, was that if the U.S. deal were in place before the Canadian deal, we would lose those markets, p

International Trade committee  I understand what you're saying, and I guess there are two issues, by way of response. Through this free trade agreement, the Government of Colombia is trying to give Colombian workers new opportunities through the production of goods and new export opportunities, and to provide

International Trade committee  Thank you for your question. I want to be clear that Canadian investors are invested in Colombia, have been invested in Colombia, and are increasing their investment in Colombia. That will continue, regardless of the free trade agreement. What this free trade agreement does is

International Trade committee  I think I appeared before this committee in the very early stages of the free trade negotiation with Colombia. I spoke about some academic research that has been done, and I think I tabled it. It was out of Columbia University in the United States, by Professor Sala-i-Martin. W

International Trade committee  When you're talking about Canadian exports abroad, after the U.S. and Mexico, you get into very small numbers, since U.S. and Mexican exports make up about 85% of our total exports. The remaining 15% is spread around the rest of the world. In the case of Colombia, we're talking a

International Trade committee  Absolutely. I turn to Pierre. He's far more eloquent on this issue. Pierre is a negotiator on the labour side.

International Trade committee  Thank you for that question. With respect to the United States, the general difference between the United States and Canada in approaching labour and the environment relates directly to both our market size and the way we approach international diplomacy, and that is that we take

International Trade committee  Thank you, Chair, and thank you for this opportunity to return to the committee and speak to the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement and the environment and labour agreements. In light of the significant amount of work that's already been undertaken by this committee related t

International Trade committee  There's one other point I would like to make. One of the key benefits of a free trade agreement is predictability in market access. This may suggest to our bilateral trade partner that we're going to put this under constant assessment and perhaps propose amendments to it, which m

International Trade committee  I'd just make an observation that of course it's the right of this committee to request such reviews at any time. In terms of what's happening in the trade relationship, there may be an opportune time that is apparent to the committee. With respect to any amendments, this bill

International Trade committee  Just quickly, the U.S. agreement with Peru came into effect in February. We don't have the trade data yet.

International Trade committee  Thank you.

International Trade committee  Yes, in this agreement with Peru, we have both a chapter on labour, which is part of the FTA, and the labour side agreement. We went as far as we could regarding where we were with provincial understanding. Both labour and environment are under provincial jurisdiction, so the cha