International Trade committee  I think free trade agreements do offer an opportunity to make sure there are improved environmental protections that go hand in hand with more liberalized trade. In terms of making progress, unfortunately, I see this trade agreement--if it's like the Peru one, given what I've s

International Trade committee  What I haven't seen in any of the debates surrounding recent free trade agreements, whether they're in Canada or the United States, is a rigorous look at the experience under NAFTA and the environmental side agreement. What's working? What's not working? Has there been progress t

International Trade committee  I agree that environmental impact assessments, which have become more and more a hallmark of environmental laws in many countries of the world in the last 30 years, are extremely important. They are important for informing decision-makers early on as to what the environmental sta

International Trade committee  My view on that is that as a global community, and this includes the North American community, we have fallen far short of what's needed to look at environmental impacts in the aggregate. I mentioned this made-in-Canada tool--ecological footprinting--that's grown up in the last

International Trade committee  What this trust relationship says, now that I've had a chance to look at it, is that there are mechanisms to make sure that countries enforce their environmental laws and have high levels of environmental protection. But the fact is, those mechanisms are much weaker than what's i

International Trade committee  I'm afraid I haven't seen the press release on the environment. I assume it was based on the Peru environmental cooperation agreement, which I did look at. My view in general is that this is a step back from the ambitious mechanisms that were included in the NAFTA package to pr

International Trade committee  Good afternoon, members of the committee and Mr. Chair. It is a pleasure and an honour to have the opportunity to appear before the committee today. I'm here principally to make some brief remarks, focusing on my experience as a senior official at the NAFTA Commission for Envir