International Trade committee  Well, our intention on both sides as negotiators is to complete as much of this agreement as we possibly can and to have some hope that we can do it all. As in any negotiation that includes some difficult issues, chances are that we may need some political direction on a handful

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  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  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  I would say what we're trying to do in CETA—and we've had some fairly open-ended discussions about this so far—is that we do want to ensure we're providing a lot of scope for the right for governments to regulate. We don't want any kind of provision we negotiate to interfere with

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  Well, I think if a municipality is trying to take any kind of outside activity back into the public sphere, back into the municipality's control, if they are expropriating rights or property of somebody who's already in there, whether it's a European Union company or anyone else,

International Trade committee  No. If the government in question is going to take it back—out of the private sphere and back into the public sphere—when there's no contracted issue and there are no losses at risk, then that's fair game.