Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to address the committee. I'm pleased to be here to provide our comments on Bill C-9. Before I begin, please allow me to introduce our association and our industry. The Canadian Apparel Federation represents over 400 Canadian companie

International Trade committee  The China safeguard was put in at a very late date in China's WTO accession. It was a small measure. It has taken on great significance recently, but it was a really last-minute thing. But in the Canadian context, what made the China safeguard basically irrelevant was the least-

International Trade committee  The union has had a certain initiative in front of the CITT, but contrary to what you found in the United States where the industries came forward, made those cases, made the petitions, and did it, that has not happened in Canada.

International Trade committee  If I can answer that. As for what happened in the United States, I'll use as the first example. A number of industries tabled requests for safeguards according to processes that were laid out. Although it's not quite the same, we have the Canadian International Trade Tribunal h

Industry committee  I'm not going to say whether some companies want outward processing and some don't. Clearly, there would be differences of opinion in any industry. No single industry has one voice. None of us here would claim that. But I would say that we need to come to a conclusion about the k

Industry committee  U.S. Customs have a very clearly stated goal of policing intellectual property. CBSA does not. It's as simple as that. The reason they catch them is because they look, and they have a policy to look. They do not have the same policy in Canada to anywhere near the same extent. So

Industry committee  The clerk has literature for the U.S. It is only in English because it's primarily targeted at the U.S. market. If they weren't sent already, we have little “Wear? Canada!” pins as well. I hope people will be able to take advantage of that.

Industry committee  Actually, next week in Montreal we're holding a seminar with Ogilvy Renault and a U.S. law firm on intellectual property. In the past, people used to write it off as, “oh, we get knocked off”. But it's the speed at which goods can be knocked off and produced and in a store before

Industry committee  I did want to say that if there is one thing we need, everyone would agree it is decisions. The textile and apparel industries met at the beginning of 2003. We didn't agree on everything, but between the two of us we presented a pretty clear picture to government. In point of fac

Industry committee  Yes, I'll just mention a few things. The fact is, the world is changing totally in terms of the trade picture for textiles and apparel. Harvey has made a case for the rules of origin to be changed under the LDC. I'm not taking issue with the statement. I support them, and we sup

Industry committee  As you can see, the textile apparel industries don't always agree. That's maybe the understatement of the year. We view the two industries as having separate dynamics, and we tend to look at input tariffs, as Madam Grenier has mentioned, on the fabric. We import fabrics and pay d

Industry committee  Yes.