International Trade committee  —just one moment—with the NAFTA negotiations, there are some promising proposals on the table on labour and other issues that I view as constructive, and I have said so publicly. However, as I said, our concerns mainly relate to the non-trade elements that have been “glommed onto

International Trade committee  I tried to make the point that Canada keeps reproducing the same template over and over again, and there hasn't been, as yet, a significant difference, even with the new government, the Liberal government, from the Conservative template although—

International Trade committee  I think that Canada clearly needs a long-term game plan to increase the competitiveness of our industries and to ensure that we have industrial policy supports, the labour policy, and labour adjustment supports to back that up. We have to ensure that we're selling products that t

International Trade committee  Canada has been the brunt of many attacks against our public policy through the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism. We are the most sued party under NAFTA. We have paid out over $200 million so far in awards and settlements. We have also incurred over $100 million in unr

International Trade committee  We're sitting down to negotiate with them. Argentina has had a very negative experience under investor-state dispute settlement. They are the most sued country in the world. There are outstanding claims of billions of dollars. Either in the context of this negotiation or simply i

International Trade committee  I think, as you heard from the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, Canada has been engaged in serial market access negotiations for some time. The previous Conservative government signed many agreements, but I think the focus should be more on supporting Canadian firms to be

International Trade committee  Yes. It's good to see you again. Thank you to the committee for the opportunity to be part of your study on a potential Canada-Mercosur free trade agreement. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is an independent, non-partisan research institute. In the testimony you ha

International Trade committee  Yes. I think it's a critical part of a modern trade agreement. I would like to see it much more strongly enforceable than it is in any of the existing agreements undertaken by Canada and the United States. There are many options. As you know, the NAFTA labour accord is basically

International Trade committee  I think there are aspects of CETA that will be very difficult to get into NAFTA. I've been at the committee before, talking about CETA's investment court system. It was put on the table in TTIP and was rejected by the United States for a number of different reasons. I think there

International Trade committee  In my opening remarks I tried to highlight some of those. I think that strong enforceable labour standards go somewhat with—

International Trade committee  I think, in a 21st-century trade agreement, it's absolutely crucial that those matters be in the main text of the agreement, and that they be fully enforceable. I think it's crucial, as everyone on this panel has said so far, to emphasize the commonalities, the co-operative spiri

International Trade committee  Thank you for the opportunity to be part of your study on North American trade relations. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is an independent, non-partisan research institute with over three decades of experience analyzing Canadian trade and investment treaties. The T

International Trade committee  As I mentioned before, there are some protections for public services, but these are limited. Probably the most important way in which they're limited is that there are no “reservations”, as they're called, country-specific exceptions, allowed against this fair and equitable trea

International Trade committee  I would. I'm quite astonished that there's been no contingency planning for the prospect of a European member state failing to ratify. Canada is making permanent changes to its patent law based on an agreement that may not be fully ratified. There is a lot of concern here about

International Trade committee  Thank you for the question. The investment court system, I think most experts who've looked at it would agree, is not actually a court. It is another form of investor-state dispute settlement. It does, as I mentioned earlier, make some procedural improvements around issues such