International Trade committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good morning to all the committee members. Perhaps I will begin by briefly introducing my colleagues at the table. Alessandro Longo is with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Brooke Davis is with Global Affairs Canada and is the deputy chief ne

International Trade committee  I can give you a little explanation of that, Mr. Chairman. The exact routing and logistics would not be known to me, but I can tell you a couple of things. One is that there is trade in coal both ways, and it is a significant flow of different types of coal in both directions.

International Trade committee  In terms of the...?

International Trade committee  The negotiations were concluded in July of 2015, and in the months that followed, the Canadian and Ukrainian officials completed a detailed legal review and translation of the agreement into—

International Trade committee  The substance of the agreement didn't change at all, not at all. It was merely the formatting and the commas and everything like that, but there were no substantive changes.

International Trade committee  There are a couple of things. One is that already certain things have happened in the year and more since the negotiations concluded. The Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce has been very active. There was a major event, as some of you will be aware, in Toronto in June of this y

International Trade committee  This agreement does not actually address the temporary entry of business professionals, nor of other categories of workers.

International Trade committee  It doesn't, actually. It does not include the whole area of services, which is normally where the temporary entry of professionals and business persons would be found.

International Trade committee  There's a provision in the agreement, the review clause, that obliges the parties to get together within two years following implementation of the agreement to discuss the possibility of expanding it into areas such as services, which would include temporary entry.

International Trade committee  We do.

International Trade committee  The inclusion of the whole services cluster, which includes cross-border financial services, temporary entry, and telecommunication services, is something that was very much of interest to Canada in these negotiations. In fact, it was part of negotiations for a good part of the p

International Trade committee  As it pertains to specific goods and merchandise trade, it's a question of what British Columbia's areas of focus and areas of interest are vis-à-vis Ukraine. The vast majority of tariffs will be eliminated under this agreement. There are very few exclusions from tariff concess

International Trade committee  Were there any concerns about that?

International Trade committee  No, I'm not aware of any.

International Trade committee  There is not a concern that it will negatively impact Canada. Our tariffs on steel are not inconsequential. Some products have lower tariffs than others, but as a practical matter we have no concern with the fair competition that will result from a lowering of our steel tariffs.