International Trade committee  What I was really referring to are the negotiations that are under way between the European Union and the United States, particularly with respect to rules of origin, because it's going to be important to recognize a North American rule of origin rather than a Canadian rule. Also

International Trade committee  That's my understanding, but the area we're particularly focused on is the United States.

International Trade committee  That's exactly what we're trying to do. First of all is identifying opportunities. I mentioned our Enterprise Europe Network Canada; we're working with organizations in Europe to identify technology and business partnership opportunities. So first is recognition of the opportunit

International Trade committee  We were part of that study. If you look at the study and the analysis that was done, it was pretty much based on whether we can quantify what we know about tariff elimination, areas where we can quantify and take a look at that and work that through the economics. Then those woul

International Trade committee  I'll give you an example. VA TECH is one of the largest companies in the business of building electricity generating stations. VA TECH is a huge Austrian company. Their procurement arm is based in New York. We hosted an incoming procurement mission on the part of VA TECH. We put

International Trade committee  Let me start off. We have a very clear idea about what a good strategy for our membership is, and that's what we pursue. We've been known to be fairly critical of all parties, and we've been known to be fairly critical of this government—at times. As I say, we're supportive of th

International Trade committee  There's no sure thing in business, and it's going to be the ability of businesses themselves to really take full advantage of the opportunity that lies ahead. What I see is that new customers, new business opportunities are going to drive investment in product innovation, new tec

International Trade committee  It is. I mean, we're exporting cars to China. If we can export cars to China, surely we can export cars into the European Union. It's been difficult because of some of the inspections, the product standards. And the tariff sure doesn't help either. I'm confident that we will be a

International Trade committee  Probably about one and a half million.

International Trade committee  There are about one and a half million people employed in the companies that we represent.

International Trade committee  Well, to the extent that they have jobs, I guess we represent their economic opportunity.

International Trade committee  The opportunity for any Canadian company that is either exporting or doing business in Europe is set by the degree to which they are specialized, have an innovative product or innovative service. I think one of the problems that we've seen over the past decade—this didn't start w

International Trade committee  I think there are two very important reasons to explain why provincial and territorial governments have supported this. One is that they have been part of the negotiations throughout. The impetus behind the whole process was launched by provincial governments; I think Premier Cha

International Trade committee  I think it's benefits for the industries represented in their communities. Europe especially has created a win-win situation for many industry sectors right across the country. I think most provincial and territorial governments would talk about the economic benefits that they wo

International Trade committee  We have about 10,000 members.