International Trade committee  I guess as a general comment I would have to say that those Canadian companies active in the Indian market that the minister was able to meet with, including many in round table discussions, viewed the minister's interest and the Government of Canada's interest as extremely posit

International Trade committee  I'm going to let Michelle comment as well on the opportunities for Canada in services sectors. But there's a couple that leap to mind, on the basis of the meetings I attended with the minister. The first would be with respect to education. The minister responsible for educati

International Trade committee  What stage are the negotiations at? They have not started yet. We are still at the very beginning of the negotiation process. So, as Ms. Cooper said earlier, no service requests or offers have been exchanged yet. I have met with Mr. Godin on two occasions and I have also met wit

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  I am going to ask my colleague Luc Santerre to talk about that.

International Trade committee  Well, first of all, the basics: our largest exports to India are lentils and fertilizer--potash. So the tariff that either applies or could be applied to those exports in the future is relevant to us and a basic objective in the negotiations. With respect to those crops, India

International Trade committee  Very much so: I would say that one of the exports from Canada that is of interest to India is our governance in areas such as food safety, but also our research and our technology with respect to increasing the efficiency of agricultural production. Even if it is David and Goliat

International Trade committee  In any trade negotiation, you can carve things out. The likely response on the other side of the table is to carve something else out. The danger to the negotiation in the long run is that everything is carved out. With respect to our position on asbestos, there is no export res

International Trade committee  Yes, I haven't actually been given any specific directive in respect of the tariff on asbestos; I'm just saying that in the tariff negotiations, when they finally get going, the direction of the negotiations is to reduce and eliminate tariffs. With respect to.... Again, I don't w

International Trade committee  --and the uses of asbestos that is being exported from Canada. In any event, there is no restriction, so in respect of the trade dimension of this issue, I guess I've given you the answer.

International Trade committee  I guess the most helpful thing I could do would be to offer to prepare a written brief in respect of the details of the Japanese and South Korean deals with India, but there were provisions on automobiles. Certainly in the case of the EU-India negotiations, which are still ongoin

International Trade committee  I usually like to say it's not dead--it's resting.

International Trade committee  It's difficult in the current global environment to see sufficient leadership being shown to bring the round to an early conclusion. That's my assessment: I don't think it's for any time soon--

International Trade committee  I don't really see an alternative, as long as all your other trading partners are doing the same thing. You can only fall behind.

International Trade committee  For the same reason that the comment was made about the U.S. deal with Korea: we could provide our exporters with a tariff advantage over their competitors in other countries, including the United States, if we were successful in negotiations with India first.