International Trade committee  There has never been a successful labour complaint under a free trade agreement that has resulted in the other country having to do anything. It has never been the case that the free trade agreement labour chapter has resulted in concrete change for workers in that other country.

Finance committee  Sure. When the Government of Canada did consultations around the parental leave changes, there was a wide group, including the CFIB, the Chamber of Commerce, and the health groups, who all told them that this was not a change that would help families or that would make it easier

Finance committee  Thank you very much. I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to appear before you today. The Canadian Labour Congress is Canada's largest labour central, bringing together Canada's national and international unions, along with provincial and territorial federations

International Trade committee  In the past, labour unions have suggested that right-to-work legislation is actually a subsidy to corporations and that it's an unfair subsidy. Under NAFTA or under the WTO, we could possibly launch a complaint regarding how the United States unfairly subsidizes companies by allo

International Trade committee  If the committee wants help setting up meetings with labour and civil society wherever you go, we can work with the AFL-CIO and help make those connections because unions like LiUNA, steel, and other unions are doing a really good job, I think, of making that case.

International Trade committee  There was a recent study by the IMF. It was in the news. The headline was that it wasn't trade, it was automation, but if you read the study, you'll see that the researchers found it's actually really difficult to disentangle the effects of automation and trade, because where inv

International Trade committee  Exactly, if you had one without the other, you wouldn't know what the counterfactual is.

International Trade committee  Right. The research shows that people, communities, or countries that respond successfully to both kinds of shocks have similar programs. They have a social safety net. They have bridging to retirement. They have active labour market policies. They have unemployment insurance tha

International Trade committee  You don't have the active labour market policies. If you look at what Canada spends on active labour market, it's nothing compared with what—

International Trade committee  We spend less than the U.S. on active labour market.

International Trade committee  We have health care and that has helped us to respond better to those shocks.

International Trade committee  We do have international unions that are mostly cross-border between Canada and the United States, and they co-operate a fair amount. They've been working together again to spread this message about how integrated the labour markets are. One of the important things that we could

International Trade committee  No. If you're talking to an economist, the reason free trade works and the idea with NAFTA is that it was supposed to raise wages in Mexico. Then it would increase internal demand in Mexico, and that would bring Mexico up to our standards. That hasn't happened because of a failu

International Trade committee  First of all, I think we need to improve the labour chapter. NAFTA was one of the first times that we had that kind of labour agreement alongside an agreement, and the labour unions in the United States pushed for this. Since then, they've kept pushing to improve agreements, and

International Trade committee  Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me to be here on behalf of the Canadian Labour Congress. We represent 3.3 million members across Canada. We bring together Canada's national and international unions, along with provincial and territorial federations of labour, and 130