International Trade committee  In my view, we have a very robust labour chapter already. It's the first time that the chapter is enforceable through a dispute settlement mechanism, and it gives parties the ability to impose trade sanctions. The only change we made vis-à-vis labour was relevant to Vietnam, and we gave them some time to bring their labour legislation up to par with the agreement.

International Trade committee  It's a good question. Right now, upwards of 96% of the Canadian vehicles produced in this country are exported to the United States. It's a choice that our Canadian auto producers make. Our job is to open up the Japanese market, and other markets, for them to benefit from. What we're trying to do is clear those barriers away.

International Trade committee  In the original agreement, the United States and Japan negotiated a bilateral annex to the agreement that addressed some of these non-tariff barriers faced by North American auto producers. After that negotiation, Canada negotiated a parallel agreement with Japan. Essentially after the United States left, the agreement was no longer in effect, and that was the purpose of the side letter.

International Trade committee  As I mentioned a few minutes ago, we had come to the decision that we were not able to reopen the market access provisions of the agreement. The side letters that you referred to with Australia and Malaysia were just intended to level the playing field. With regard to Japan, yes, the Japanese vehicle producers export a lot more cars to Canada than we export to their market.

International Trade committee  Yes, absolutely. We would like to export more cars from Canadian vehicle manufacturers to the Japanese market. The purpose of our side letter was because through our consultations, Canadian vehicle manufacturers explained to us that, since there is no automobile tariff to export into Japan, they're facing non-tariff barriers.

International Trade committee  As I said, we negotiated and signed those three binding side letters with Malaysia, Australia—

International Trade committee  The CPTPP rules and provisions apply to the 11 parties. The United States is not a party to the agreement.

International Trade committee  No, that's not the case. We often have overlapping trade agreements. Countries have an option to abide by the rules—by one or the other. In the case of NAFTA, for example, the rules of auto trade, the rules of origin on autos, would be governed by the NAFTA agreement, not by the TPP agreement.

International Trade committee  We will treat the United States, if it indicates a serious interest to accede to the CPTPP, as we would any other potentially acceding country. There's no special fast track for the United States' accession. We would meet as a group to explain to any potential acceding party that it has to meet all of the terms and conditions of the agreement in order to accede, without exception.

International Trade committee  We made a conscious decision at the outset to not reopen the text of the agreement, and specifically to not reopen market access. Our collective belief was that if we started to open up the texts and the market access provisions, the whole process would unravel. Similarly, we had a very ambitious, robust environment chapter already negotiated.

International Trade committee  Malaysia.

International Trade committee  In the original agreement, we would have been able to meet the 45% rule of origin for the value of an automobile, given that a significant number of parts sourced from the United States would be counted in a Canadian-made vehicle. Without the United States in the agreement, we could not meet that 45% threshold in all cases.

International Trade committee  The obligations under the agreement on investor-state dispute settlement have not changed. Any citizen of a country can take a dispute through the investor-state dispute settlement process. The only difference in the new agreement is that, as driven by the United States, the original TPP allowed for the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, or the ISDS provisions, to extend beyond the trade agreement itself into other investment authorizations and investment agreements that were signed—investment contracts, authorizations, as well, that were subject to the Investment Canada Act.

International Trade committee  It's a good question. When we originally were discussing this provision and the proposed suspension, there were clearly a few members around the table whose primary interest was to see the United States return to the CPTPP, or to the TPP. They felt that we needed to set up an environment to facilitate the U.S. to come back.

International Trade committee  All parties have to agree, not just parties that have ratified the agreement, but all parties to the agreement.