International Trade committee  Thank you, Chair. I guess the first point to make is that the processes aren't mutually exclusive. As a work program, the NAFTA, of course, reinforces and takes into account activities. When I said, for example, that there's a maturity in the NAFTA relationship, that's why trade

International Trade committee  Good morning, my name is Paul Robertson. I'm the department's director general of North American trade policy. After 13 years of growing trilateral trade and investment, NAFTA continues to be the cornerstone of our trade investment relationship with the United States and Mexico.

International Trade committee  Perhaps it would be useful, Monsieur Cardin, if you would repeat the question so that everybody understands what we're replying to.

International Trade committee  I would ask my colleague, Ms. Negus, to respond.

International Trade committee  Mr. Chair, if I can add, the question of what is included and excluded for the purposes of calculating the export price is an important element. We have been receiving a lot of very specific questions relating to that and we are jointly undertaking a general notice of these types

International Trade committee  Thank you, Chair. We're certainly keeping as a yardstick U.S. practice in these areas to further our understanding and our approach with respect to the calculation of the export price.

International Trade committee  I don't really have anything more to add. We've had an extensive discussion. I guess the only point I would reiterate is that we have not received any concerns from provinces regarding the lack of that reference. I think that's primarily because we're already consulting. We're v

International Trade committee  I will defer to my colleagues, but I think there would have been a problem if the export charge had been applied on October 1. But as we discussed this morning, the export charge was only applied on October 12, so in effect there is not a—

International Trade committee  We are not talking about the export charge now. Are we back to the refund question?

International Trade committee  Yes, companies have started to pay the export charge as of October 12. Therefore it is not the October 1 timeframe that this draft legislation envisages. So in one respect, the actual application has been based on the coming into force of the agreement. Because this is a bonus fo

International Trade committee  It is a legitimate question on giving dates and when things are coming into force.

International Trade committee  Thank you very much for that question. It's clearly a very important question as it relates to the timing of the charge. I'll ask my colleague Mr. Seebach to reply.

International Trade committee  Might I ask the chair for some instruction? I don't think it is my role to speak of amendments to the committee right now. What I would flag is you will recall that the original coming-into-force date for the SLA was October 1. That of course was delayed until October 12. So I

International Trade committee  Thank you.

International Trade committee  Perhaps I'll just start on some general points, and then I'll turn to my colleagues from CRA, where this is. First of all, I apologize if I said “government money”. I don't disagree with that; it's taxpayers' money. With respect to the discussion and the reference to our last