International Trade committee  They will be done in advance of us, as it currently looks—

International Trade committee  I think we're probably looking at early spring, because we do have a different type of system. They don't have a process whereby they have legislation and then regulations that have to go through that long process. We're trying to see whether there are any time-saving approaches

International Trade committee  First of all, on the fish issue, there was a negotiation, as you will recall, between Newfoundland and Labrador and the federal government. There was a tentative agreement reached, which subsequently couldn't be put together in its entirety. There are still outstanding promises t

International Trade committee  There are two elements to the labour mobility package within CETA. One has to do with the temporary entry of independent professionals, contract service suppliers, and intercorporate transferees, who will have increased freedom to move between Canada and the EU in most cases. If,

International Trade committee  Do you mean from the very beginning?

International Trade committee  Well, I was appointed chief negotiator early in 2009. We had our first meetings around April of 2009. Our first official full round with the Europeans was in the early fall of 2009, and we've been at it ever since. We've never really had a break throughout that period. It's been

International Trade committee  Well, I think I would say that some of them get close to the edge of what was actually agreed. The text in itself is what represents the agreement between Canada and the EU, and that's what any dispute settlement panel will look at first and foremost. The fact that they've done

International Trade committee  We have not, at this stage, made any unilateral declarations, but we are working on a plan to make sure that if a dispute settlement panel ever gets beyond the text and ever gets beyond the joint interpretative instrument and starts to look at some of those unilateral declaration

International Trade committee  Right.

International Trade committee  Right. Given the investment dispute resolution process will not be in place until all member states approve, we will not be able to use that mechanism, and neither will the EU. At the same time, we do have the option of using the state-to-state dispute settlement process on parti

International Trade committee  Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. My name, as many of you know, is Steve Verheul. I am the chief negotiator for CETA. I am joined today by Caroline Charette, w

International Trade committee  I'll decline to name companies, but I can tell you that we've received a number of expressions of interest in the auto sector and for various industrial products as well. Certainly there's been a big emphasis on new technologies—information and communications technologies, enviro

International Trade committee  A lot that we've seen have been their own initiatives. They've heard about CETA and they've heard about the benefits that could accrue. However, we've also been doing some promotion, particularly with our missions in the EU member states. They have been out trying to inform compa

International Trade committee  Yes, and in fact I had discussions with provinces and territories as the latest steps of the legal review were being completed, as well as the investment changes. I consulted closely with them on that, and with industry as well. I kept those discussions going. I think we now ha

International Trade committee  I wasn't personally involved in the TPP negotiations. I think the approach that was taken in TPP drew from some of what we had established in CETA, because there had been a gap since NAFTA, which was over 20 years ago. That was our last big agreement, so when it came to CETA, we