International Trade committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As the chair mentioned, my name is Don Stephenson, and I am the Chief Trade Negotiator for the Canada-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. It's my pleasure to be here today to speak on the topic of the Canada–India comprehensive ec

International Trade committee  My negotiating mandate is to continue Canada's now-traditional approach in its trade negotiations. In other words, my job is to try to negotiate a side cooperation agreement with India on work-related issues. That being said, I want to point out that India does not have a tradit

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  Yes, we will discuss all the standards imposed by the International Labour Organization. I want to point out that Canada and India are already working together to promote acceptable working conditions. I know that Canada funded two recent projects with India to that end.

International Trade committee  Canada's policy is to promote the responsibility of Canadian companies. However, it will mostly be up to the Indian government to impose working conditions on Indian and Canadian companies.

International Trade committee  No, not as part of the Canada-India comprehensive economic partnership agreement negotiations. You would probably have to ask an expert from the department responsible to find out more.

International Trade committee  Our international trade agreements mention corruption standards. Beyond that, I think we should just keep in mind the Indian government's efforts. We should maybe even invite someone who could talk about the issue on India's behalf. Having said that, we are aware of the efforts

International Trade committee  No, the issue has not yet been raised.

International Trade committee  The potential impact of the negotiations on asbestos trade would be to reduce the tariff that would apply to the import of asbestos in India. The current tariff I believe is 10% and there's a potential—not a certainty, but a potential—in the negotiations to reduce or eliminate th

International Trade committee  Yes, I think you have characterized our approach correctly. What we try to do to advance the application of international standards--essentially those established by the ILO, the International Labour Organization--is to provide for sanctions where countries do not adhere to their

International Trade committee  Different states have different approaches to the regulation of business. It's important to note that a lot of decisions that are critical to establishing in the Indian market are made at state level, but the obligations we are negotiating with India--the central government of In

International Trade committee  As I understand the constitutional arrangements in India, the central government can take binding obligations for their states. As for the exact mechanism, I guess we would have to invite somebody from our treaty law division or something. Perhaps Luc has some advice he can giv

International Trade committee  But that may be where your bag is.

International Trade committee  My apologies. With respect to investment, first of all, as I noted in my opening remarks, we are hopeful we will be able to conclude a foreign investment promotion and protection agreement very soon with India. That would provide for its own dispute settlement system that involv

International Trade committee  Yes. Within the FTA negotiations, it's certainly in the area of services. One of the four modes of providing service is to invest in the other country: to establish a corporate presence in the other country to deliver the service. We are certainly hopeful that these negotiations