International Trade committee  Are you aware of the Tufts University study on potential job loss?

International Trade committee  I think that answers part of your question. It shows that, overall, all of the TPP-zone countries stand to lose employment. As a result, it causes co-ordinating things better and focusing on certain areas but, overall, they are predicting there will be a job loss. In Canada, just

International Trade committee  One of the things.... You have to look at all the so-called trade agreements we have now. You can see that the export-import balance is not right. We export less than we import. Somewhere along the line—to try to answer your question—we have to find those industries and those typ

International Trade committee  If I may respond to that, I'll give you a classic example. We're facing a major problem in Hamilton, which is my home town, in the steel industry. U.S. Steel basically wants to bankrupt the company down there, and people are being laid off. Retirees have had their pensions cut ba

International Trade committee  Approximately 500,000.

International Trade committee  Well, I can talk personally to the one I belong to and that's the Ontario pension plan. It's very sound. It goes up and down a little. Some of our members have had to pay increased premiums. Some have lost indexing, but we got it back, and that was through hard negotiations. They

International Trade committee  I smell a trap question in this.

International Trade committee  No, the question is, do we like to pick winners? Absolutely, but in our pension plan, we make sure they're ethical investments.

International Trade committee  From my position, I would say no, and if they disagree, maybe they're wrong.

International Trade committee  The minister's office has responded, and is not to the satisfaction of CURC. I have provided that material to the clerk so members of the committee can see it. In conclusion, CURC echoes the words of Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, who said, “Canada should reject

International Trade committee  Thank you very much. The Congress of Union Retirees of Canada is an organization representing over 500,000 active members, and CURC has major concerns with the TPP. The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement was negotiated over eight years behind closed doors, with hundreds of corp