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Government Operations committee Yes. That's exactly right. To the extent that we're getting complaints from Canadian stakeholders in terms of accessing foreign government procurement markets, it's mostly in the United States, and that's because the United States has—
November 2nd, 2017Committee meeting
Pierre Marier
Government Operations committee It's mostly construction-related, and around infrastructure developments in particular, so that's construction services. Often associated with that is the procurement of construction materials, particularly steel. Also, in the public transit sector, the United States does maintai
November 2nd, 2017Committee meeting
Pierre Marier
Government Operations committee As Ana mentioned earlier, our trade agreements allow for provisions for the conservation of natural resources and the protection of the environments to be built into the tendering process. These would be in the form of technical specifications whereby whoever is carrying out the
November 2nd, 2017Committee meeting
Pierre Marier
Government Operations committee Yes. I was going to say nothing in our trade agreements would prevent that. Whether we have domestic regulations or policies that would conflict with that approach is not for us to say, but there's nothing in our trade agreements.
November 2nd, 2017Committee meeting
Pierre Marier
Government Operations committee It sounds like that would provide some preferential treatment to Canadian suppliers, and that is what the agreements do not allow.
November 2nd, 2017Committee meeting
Pierre Marier
Government Operations committee Those situations would have to be considered by those who are carrying out the procurements. If there are technical specifications that are configured around the good or service being procured that are done in a way that is consistent with our trade obligations, then we have a lo
November 2nd, 2017Committee meeting
Pierre Marier
Government Operations committee If I understand the question correctly, you are asking what types of discussions are happening at the WTO in terms of small and medium-sized enterprises. I can tell you that in terms of Canada's participation as a member to the WTO GPA, we have an exclusion for small and minority
November 2nd, 2017Committee meeting
Pierre Marier
Government Operations committee I'll take a stab at this. I'm not familiar with the specifics of the bill, so I can't comment on whether or not it would be consistent with our trade obligations. I would just say that when you speak of community benefits as you've described them, it's not clear to me what exactl
November 2nd, 2017Committee meeting
Pierre Marier
Government Operations committee The United States has covered some of their states in the WTO GPA, 37 states; however, there are a lot of exclusions that apply to those states. They are able to administer the Buy American program, which is a federally instituted policy that applies to transfer payments from the
November 2nd, 2017Committee meeting
Pierre Marier
Government Operations committee We did include our provinces and territories in a bilateral agreement with the United States. That dates back to 2012, I believe.
November 2nd, 2017Committee meeting
Pierre Marier
Government Operations committee Yes, as part of that, we also included provinces and territories under the revised GPA that entered into force in 2014.
November 2nd, 2017Committee meeting
Pierre Marier
Government Operations committee Well, I won't weigh in on whether it was a mistake or not, but in the United States we got access to those 37 states.
November 2nd, 2017Committee meeting
Pierre Marier
Government Operations committee No, we have access to them today, and that's very important access, given the number of measures that are being introduced at the state level in the United States currently.
November 2nd, 2017Committee meeting
Pierre Marier
Government Operations committee Yes, and as Matthew pointed out, we included our provinces and territories in the GPA, so we're bound. The U.S. is a party to the GPA—as are 46 other countries—so we would have to respect those obligations. You're talking about conditions associated with transfers of federal fu
November 2nd, 2017Committee meeting
Pierre Marier