International Trade committee  Certainly, I think we would be best served by the most broad and liberal definition that we could give to “public purpose”. If there was an agreed upon definition it would have to be that, anything that has a public element tied to it. For example, for ancillary health services l

International Trade committee  Yes. That's just it. If Canada Post didn't exist today, we wouldn't be allowed to create it tomorrow if we entered into the TPP. I think the concern is twofold. One is about unanticipated services that I mentioned, things that don't exist today that might exist in the future. Tw

International Trade committee  Of course.

International Trade committee  I believe there is some case law from arbitration boards and other trade agreements, jurisprudence that uses either “public purpose” or similar phrasing. Again, it's about control. We'd be ceding the growth of the meaning of the term “public purpose”; we'd be giving that up.

International Trade committee  No, it's not the other countries' interpretations that we'd be concerned about.

International Trade committee  No, not in that sense.

International Trade committee  Thank you. The New Brunswick union, headquartered in Fredericton, has about 8,500 members, about 7,000 of whom work in the public sector here in New Brunswick. We are the New Brunswick component of the National Union of Public and General Employees, the 360,000 member NUPGE. We

International Trade committee  I can. In fact, that was essentially it, the concern around the future autonomy in those areas.