International Trade committee  Well, it's more on the European side at the moment where most of the focus is. The commission only recently gained new competence in the area of investment protection; it was always left to member states in the past. The European Union needs to develop an approach to investor p

International Trade committee  Yes. The next stage of the negotiations is that we'll be exchanging offers with the European Union on all of the market access issues, including government procurement. In those offers we will put down on paper for the European Union where we expect to be able to put on the table

International Trade committee  I don't think there's anything we will negotiate or contemplate negotiating that would threaten Quebec's culture—or indeed the culture of the rest of the country as well. We are committed to pursuing the kinds of cultural exemptions we've had in the past. We haven't agreed to an

International Trade committee  Well, when we say parked, they're essentially completed; they're waiting for some developments in other areas to reach their end point and then it would be a matter of cleaning up the remainder of the chapter. The substance of the chapter is pretty much closed or completed when w

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  I would have to say there would be four.

International Trade committee  It was certainly quite a shift within the EU structure to move toward having a role for the European Parliament, because prior to the passing of the Lisbon treaty, they weren't that well informed on the negotiations. There is no requirement for them to be kept particularly well i

International Trade committee  There will certainly be some exemptions from government procurement on both the EU side and on our side. The EU has existing exemptions from government procurement that remain in place now, and they're unlikely to change those. As to whether they would be the same as the ones tha

International Trade committee  Sure. Essentially, that's what we're trying to negotiate. We're trying to negotiate a framework whereby we would get recognition of qualifications on both sides, so that an architect in Canada would be able to go to any EU member state and work as an architect and be recognized

International Trade committee  No, that's exactly what we see happening. By necessity, there are going to be a fair number of complicated negotiations, because when it comes down to it, it will have to be the associations that represent the professions who will have to do a lot of the actual negotiation of the

International Trade committee  The remaining 10% of our tariffs on which we haven't made offers yet include things like autos and auto parts, textiles and apparel, furniture, tires, and a few things like that. Agricultural products contribute a certain amount to that. Those are probably the main ones on our si

International Trade committee  I'd be happy to. Part of our challenge in negotiating labour mobility provisions is that this issue falls under the competence of member states, by and large, so we're going to need member state support in moving that issue forward. When it comes to that issue, the U.K. is par

International Trade committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for inviting me back to speak to you about your upcoming trip to Europe to study and promote the negotiations toward the Canada-European Union comprehensive economic and trade agreement, known as the CETA.

International Trade committee  I'm looking to whether Gilles is going to start that--or would you like me to go first?

International Trade committee  If I can respond to that, that's exactly the kind of approach we're trying to take. We need to find practical ways of achieving common approaches that are going to be able to allow the trade to move back and forth freely. The EU has experienced this very much in the same way with