International Trade committee  I think there are two ways to answer the question. There is an answer that would be similar to the one that Susan gave with respect to China. It's a large and complicated market. Sometimes for Canadian businesses it can be somewhat opaque, somewhat unpredictable. It takes extra e

International Trade committee  Susan and I will answer this question together because there are the trade commissioners and trade officials, the promotion side and the trade negotiation side. On the trade negotiation side, again as you will know, Minister Freeland's mandate explicitly tasks her with deepening

International Trade committee  That is correct as far as I know, but I am not an expert on the topic.

International Trade committee  My understanding is that we indeed do not have that requirement, but it could be a possibility. Moreover, we also have to know that this kind of a policy contributes to increasing costs in a country like ours, which is much smaller. Our manufacturers have fewer resources. When w

International Trade committee  I would like to say a bit about the way we are addressing this issue from a trade policy perspective. We hold discussions with the United States as part of our overall relationship. We also try to talk about this in trade negotiations or policies, which come under our responsibi

International Trade committee  The 2006 softwood lumber agreement expired in October of last year, and we are now in a period of what's called “a litigation standstill”. The softwood lumber agreement is essentially an agreement that sets out managed trade between the two countries. With the expiry of the agree

International Trade committee  The only sure way to avoid litigation is to negotiate a new deal, to be very blunt with you. We have for a very long time gone through these cycles of litigation and negotiation, as you well know, being from B.C. in the softwood lumber area. Ideally, we would like to negotiate a

International Trade committee  I guess the first thing I should say is that in this process of managing this particular file, we work hand in hand with all provinces. It's true that Quebec and B.C. have the largest economic softwood lumber relationship with the United States, and their views are very important

International Trade committee  It's too early to say.

International Trade committee  It's hard to keep us straight. There are so many of us here. Minister Freeland's mandate letter specifically references the recently concluded free trade agreement with the Ukraine and the modernizations of those with Chile and Israel as priorities, so we are working quickly to

International Trade committee  Thanks. With respect to the softwood lumber industry and our relationship with the United States, the U.S. is by far Canada's largest export destination for softwood lumber, and B.C. is the largest supplier of softwood lumber to the United States. Sixty-six per cent of Canada's

International Trade committee  Thank you very much. Thank you, Susan. I am Kirsten Hillman, acting assistant deputy minister for trade negotiations. I'm also Canada's chief negotiator for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I'm here with my colleague, Steve Verheul, who is our chief negotiator for the Canada-Euro