International Trade committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, honourable members. Thank you for the invitation to appear before the Standing Committee on International Trade to provide an update on the Canada-U.K. transitional trade agreement and Canada's discussions with the U.K. towards an agreemen

International Trade committee  I think one of our constraints—one of the biggest constraints during this—as we launched the negotiations was the fact that at the beginning, in September 2017 and then moving forward into 2018, the United Kingdom was a member of the European Union so they were not able to engage

International Trade committee  I think that was a decision that we took as a negotiating team when it became evident that it would not provide a good outcome for Canadian producers and exporters. By providing all countries with basically duty-free access, there was no preferential agreement for Canadian produc

International Trade committee  Well, we do have the mandate to negotiate free trade agreements in the best interests of Canada. Of course, we would inform the minister of any decisions that we take along the way, which we did. However, at the negotiating table, there was no reason to continue if it was not i

International Trade committee  They were mostly in the agriculture sector. We published a Canada Gazette notice to seek views from people, from companies and associated stakeholders. The sectors that had the most interests were on the exporting side, of beef, pork and grains, and on the importing side, becau

International Trade committee  We briefed the minister and the minister's office, as we would during the normal course of business. As I said, there was clear recognition from the negotiating team and our recommendation was that we not continue the negotiations at that time. It would not have been in the inte

International Trade committee  The minister was in agreement with our recommendation, yes.

International Trade committee  I think other countries are going to make decisions that are in their interests. At the time that the United Kingdom chose to offer duty-free treatment to all WTO members, certainly other countries looked at what we did, and they also paused. They didn't do it officially, but th

International Trade committee  I can start and then I probably will look to other colleagues to respond as well. I think we have had a very successful run of great negotiations and/or renegotiations in the recent past, starting with CETA. We launched those negotiations about 10 years ago. It took about seven

International Trade committee  They had their referendum in June 2016. At that time there was some question as to how it would turn out. Then the United Kingdom needed to decide what they wanted to do after they got the result they ended up with. Like any negotiation, it takes two willing partners. They had n

International Trade committee  Okay, that's fair enough. They have a couple of different streams of negotiations. They do have the continuity agreements, like what we're doing with Canada, where they are trying to replicate their agreements that they have with the European Union as they leave it. They have a

International Trade committee  Thank you for the question, Madam Chair. We definitely see the transitional trade agreement as an interim agreement, a first step. We indicated early on that replicating the CETA is what we have available to us at this time. In order to ensure that continuity for businesses—Ca

International Trade committee  Yes, Madam Chair. It would be in effect until we sign another agreement. That would absolutely be the case. It is transitional, but there would not be an expiry date with it.

International Trade committee  The transitional agreement is based on the CETA, absolutely. As I mentioned, replicating the CETA was the goal. It was what the U.K. was allowed to do, as they were an EU member at the time when we launched the negotiations. It was very much the case that we would bilateralize

International Trade committee  If we did not get an agreement with the United Kingdom by January 1 of next year, then, yes, all MFN tariffs would apply for Canadian exports into the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom exports into Canada would also have to pay the MFN tariff. Our analysis indicates that about