International Trade committee  I'm not going to talk to any of the specifics of that case. It's difficult to evaluate this on the basis of one case like that. But I would say you will see that we will have a number of protections in our investor-state approach that will be a bit different from what has been ne

International Trade committee  Yes, I think we're trying to negotiate the best outcome we can when it comes to things like investor-state dispute settlement. This is not anything unique to Canada, the U.S., and Mexico under NAFTA. It's contained in most countries' free trade agreements, or bilateral investment

International Trade committee  Well, I think the rationalization is that this has become a feature of most of these types of agreements, because you do want to assure investors that they do have an avenue to pursue claims—

International Trade committee  Well, certainly domestic courts are always an option, but this is more tailored to particular circumstances where investors might feel that their investments have been put at threat for particular reasons related to the negotiation of the agreement.

International Trade committee  Well, water comes up in a number of respects. We are talking about specific language on water with the Europeans. It would have a very clear exemption for not having any rights to water in its natural state. We clearly won't be allowing any privatization of water. We won't be i

International Trade committee  No, I haven't had instructions on those issues to date. The European Union has made some very clear demands in those areas for what they're looking for with respect to patents on pharmaceutical. We have not responded to those demands, and clearly we've been indicating to the Euro

International Trade committee  As far as we know, yes—certainly of all the completed free trade deals that have been finished, and as far as we can tell, any in negotiation as well.

International Trade committee  Yes, there is. We're starting late on that issue because the EU only recently acquired the competence to negotiate that for member states. We're only at the stage now of exploring what kind of text we can put together in that area.

International Trade committee  It will be similar in some respects, but NAFTA was quite a long time ago at this point. We've learned some lessons, and the EU is also coming from a different place than we are when it comes to these issues. It will bear some resemblance to the chapter 11, but it will contain a n

International Trade committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today about the status of the negotiation of a comprehensive economic and trade agreement, otherwise known as a CETA, with the European Union. I plan to provide you with a brief

International Trade committee  It's always difficult to predict the very end of the negotiations, because those are the hardest decisions, and most frequently the most politically sensitive as well, but we do anticipate that by the time we go as far as we can go as negotiators, there will be a handful of issue

International Trade committee  We have certainly seen all of the analysis provided by both sides of the issue, and we have been assessing that. We have certainly been doing some internal analysis on different potential avenues that the negotiations could follow. But given that at this point we have not made an

International Trade committee  First I'll make the comment that both sides agreed very early on in the negotiations that we wouldn't prevent discussions on any issue in the negotiations, so we have had discussions on issues that are sensitive on both sides. But when it comes to dairy in particular--and it also

International Trade committee  The European Parliament will indeed have to ratify the agreement.

International Trade committee  I wasn't quite sure what the question was.