International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the opportunity to present to the international trade committee. Just briefly, the Canada Europe Roundtable was founded in 1999. It had a lot of government support at the time. The reason it exists is that the transatlantic business dialogu

International Trade committee  I'll just add two key points. The first is that regulatory cooperation is an integral part of this negotiation. If you look at professional skills, minerals, forest products, agricultural products, and even procurement, all those sectors face barriers going into the European Unio

International Trade committee  Thank you for your question. It's very difficult to predict whether there will be balance. I don't know that it's important that there be balance, considering they probably have 14 times our population. I think economic studies show that European exports would increase by about

International Trade committee  It's hard to say, but it's the underlying assumption. Canada is a market of 30 million people. We can't produce everything. You need a certain scale to produce certain goods. What we need to do is focus on the areas where we're strong and on whether we are going to be able to mak

International Trade committee  Actually, I'd like to answer two questions. The first is that I would be curious to know where your statistics showing that free trade agreements lead to a national trade decrease have come from. The second is that it seems the focus is entirely on trade. If you look at a lot of

International Trade committee  I'd add that the other thing is that we both have sensitivities. The Europeans and Canada both have sensitivities. We're not saying to dismantle everything and start again. We understand there are political realities, including a minority Parliament in Canada, but there's enough

International Trade committee  May I just add a quick final point? We tried to do just regulatory issues during the TIEA, the trade and investment enhancement agreement. The reason it wasn't successful was not that we were negotiating the wrong things; it was just that the package wasn't broad enough to facil

International Trade committee  Yes. I'll just go quickly through the three points. Dispute resolution will likely either be what's called an investor-state provision--which is what is in the NAFTA agreement, meaning that companies have the legal right to directly challenge governments if they feel their righ

International Trade committee  Just to add to that, the geographical indicator system is legitimate, but it should not be used as a catch-all for every single thing. If it serves a legitimate business purpose, much as our trademarking system in Canada does, then I think it should be reasonably negotiated withi

International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just as a brief overview, the Canada Europe Roundtable for Business was founded about ten years ago. The reason we were created, with the blessing of the President of the European Commission and the Prime Minister of Canada at the time, was mainly because

International Trade committee  They are more or less from most sectors. We have manufacturing. We have commercial services, legal services--

International Trade committee  Yes. We have capital markets, agriculture, engineering, infrastructure provision, resources, oil and gas, mining, and pharmaceuticals, both research-based and generic.

International Trade committee  Well, yes. They're excited; otherwise, I don't think they would consider being members in our organization. There's a difference. They're excited, but they also have their wish lists, the things they'd like to see come out of these negotiations. I think there's a broad recognit

International Trade committee  Touching on the NAFTA experience, I would argue that it's been overwhelmingly positive. When you negotiate trade agreements, it's not always going to work out perfectly in every single sector. Also, times will change. Economic circumstances will change. When we negotiated NAFTA

International Trade committee  I don't think so. I think they've recognized the differences in our economies. Certain European countries have made no secret of their displeasure at how Canada has conducted itself at times. I haven't seen it creep into this negotiation. They understand we have a vibrant resourc