International Trade committee  I'm not sure I said that, but that's fine. It might have been one of my colleagues.

International Trade committee  In any event--

International Trade committee  Exactly. When I say far-reaching, it's not necessarily “encroaching”, if I were to use that term; you just have to look at the change in the nature of trade. One of the reasons we have problems under NAFTA is that our agreement is out of date, and politically we can't reopen it

International Trade committee  We've been around since 1999, as you say. It's a response to a commercial necessity. Trade has increased and investment has increased, and we don't have a framework that governs it properly or that recognizes the realities of it. That's what our members want, ultimately. They wan

International Trade committee  I'll take this one. It's not entirely accurate to say that the EU doesn't use investor-state provisions. What the EU does is that they've negotiated bilateral investment treaties, or BITs, as they're referred to. In many cases, they are negotiations that occur between, say, G

International Trade committee  Directly, in terms of the venture capital and how the agreement will affect it, it's hard to say, but more broadly, the answer is yes. Venture capital is going to chase places where it can get good return. It's going to go to places where the investment climate is stable and pred

International Trade committee  But it doesn't.

International Trade committee  So do you now say that taxation policies could be—

International Trade committee  No, they haven't.

International Trade committee  Okay, I thank you for your lecture, and I'd be happy to take any further questions.

International Trade committee  On labour mobility and these things, they are always prioritized. The big driver behind labour mobility is the fact that companies operate globally. So Canadian companies operate in European member states and vice-versa. The number one interest that they're going to have is being

International Trade committee  Well, again, a study done recently by the Rotman School of Management basically said that we need to be pursuing these free trade agreements because it is this level of competition that stimulates innovation. That happened in countries like Sweden or Finland when they opened up

International Trade committee  I said that when you conduct any negotiations, sacrifices will have to be made. But I think everybody understands there's a greater good at play here.

International Trade committee  Well, it is to a degree, but we'll let it slide.

International Trade committee  Well, I would question your logic. You're basically stating that the reason we have income disparity is that we negotiate free trade agreements. That's quite a leap.