International Trade committee  I should preface this by saying that despite the fact that we have very large companies in our membership, we are an organization of modest means. There's only so much we can do, and conducting a study of that scale is beyond the ability of organizations of our size. Typically, y

International Trade committee  I will say that this is going to be a bit of a loaded question, because when FTA negotiations were conducted between Canada and Europe they said our wine sector would be decimated. Well, we saw that wasn't the case; in fact, the opposite happened. So to try to guess how certain

International Trade committee  I said that when you conduct any negotiations, sacrifices will have to be made. But I think everybody understands there's a greater good at play here.

International Trade committee  Well, it is to a degree, but we'll let it slide.

International Trade committee  Well, I would question your logic. You're basically stating that the reason we have income disparity is that we negotiate free trade agreements. That's quite a leap.

International Trade committee  Yes, but there's nothing in your argument to back up your point that a disparity in wealth has been a result of NAFTA. You could just as easily make the argument that the reason we have lost manufacturing jobs is because technological innovations have made it easier to off-shore

International Trade committee  But we had the opportunity to develop export markets, and now we're saying to them that they don't? I think if you looked at NAFTA, it's unprecedented in terms of the actual benefit it has brought. It quadrupled trade up until about 2000, with steady gains in trade and investmen

International Trade committee  But it doesn't.

International Trade committee  So do you now say that taxation policies could be—

International Trade committee  No, they haven't.

International Trade committee  Okay, I thank you for your lecture, and I'd be happy to take any further questions.

International Trade committee  On labour mobility and these things, they are always prioritized. The big driver behind labour mobility is the fact that companies operate globally. So Canadian companies operate in European member states and vice-versa. The number one interest that they're going to have is being

International Trade committee  Well, again, a study done recently by the Rotman School of Management basically said that we need to be pursuing these free trade agreements because it is this level of competition that stimulates innovation. That happened in countries like Sweden or Finland when they opened up

International Trade committee  Directly, in terms of the venture capital and how the agreement will affect it, it's hard to say, but more broadly, the answer is yes. Venture capital is going to chase places where it can get good return. It's going to go to places where the investment climate is stable and pred

International Trade committee  I'll take this one. It's not entirely accurate to say that the EU doesn't use investor-state provisions. What the EU does is that they've negotiated bilateral investment treaties, or BITs, as they're referred to. In many cases, they are negotiations that occur between, say, G