Government Operations committee  For the first part of your question, that's correct. It is at the sub-federal level, and that's why they can do that and exclude us from those procurements. Under the Canada-E.U. trade agreement, CETA, we did cover the sub-federal level. As long as it is a covered procurement—if

Government Operations committee  I would only add one thing. The GPA covers 47 countries, right? It's not just the United States; there are a number of others. It's an overall balance of concessions, so we got some access in the U.S., as mentioned by my colleague Pierre, but we also got access to a number of oth

Government Operations committee  There's no MFN on government procurement in FTAs in that sense.

Government Operations committee  That's right, so it wouldn't be “buy Canadian”; it would be “buy Canadian and European”. You could also have “buy Canadian” as long as it's not covered procurements, so again it would be in areas not covered or under thresholds.

Government Operations committee  Regional economic development is a little different. Does the trade agreement prevent it? The easy answer is it won't prevent it as long as it's not covered procurement. Other than that, it really.... I would have to ask my colleagues to answer.

International Trade committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. I am pleased to be here today to provide the members of the committee with an update on three trade initiatives: the Pacific Alliance, Mercosur, and the trade in services agreement. I'm joined by my colleague, Darren Smith, Canada's chief negotiator f

International Trade committee  I'll go back to the countries that it covers. It covers Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Chile. We're talking with some of the other associated countries, but we're not actually negotiating with them. I suppose we're participating in a negotiation with other associated state countries

International Trade committee  Absolutely. Mercosur is an opportunity for a number of reasons. We talked about its GDP, the size of the population alone. We already do a significant amount of trade. Beyond that, they are closed countries to the rest of the world. There are no G7 countries that have any FTAs w

International Trade committee  Thanks for that question. Yes, there's a lot of potential not only in investment, but we talk about goods trade and services as well. When it comes to goods, as I mentioned briefly in response to Mr. Allison's question about very high applied tariffs, we've been consulting with

International Trade committee  Of course. If you look at the first trade and gender chapter that was ever negotiated, it was negotiated between Uruguay, one of the four Mercosur countries, and Chile, which is a Pacific Alliance country. You have the beginning of the trade and gender chapter in an FTA starting

International Trade committee  I'll start off by saying Canada is a trading nation, right? One out of six jobs links to trade. It's the equivalent of about three million jobs that are linked to trade in Canada. That's two-thirds of our GDP, approximately, all linked to trade. It's an important part of our GDP,

International Trade committee  May I start with the latter question? Then Darren, do you want to do the first...?

International Trade committee  In terms of the risk in emerging markets, that's why we do FTAs. It's important to have strong rules so that we know what the terms of trade are going to be and have stability and predictability in our relationship. I think that's a pretty simple answer. I'll keep this one short

International Trade committee  It's important. You have to prepare for the market that you want to do business in, so it's very important that when we start talking about doing FTAs, we ensure that we're transparent and that businesses are in the loop on what it is we're trying to do so that they can build it

International Trade committee  I just want to make sure I get all parts of your question. First of all, when it comes to whether we can be competitive when it comes to areas in aerospace, we have excellent companies here in Canada. It's an excellent sector, world class. They can compete anywhere and everywher