International Trade committee  Right. I think it's all about incremental progress. We have the 12th WTO ministerial conference which is coming up in June. I think that will be an opportunity to achieve some key outcomes that would push the needle forward in terms of WTO reform. One of our goals for that min

International Trade committee  In answering that question, I would say that all of the WTO agreements have implications for SMEs. SMEs benefit from access to open markets, whether that is in terms of the elimination or reduction of tariffs, which can make their goods less costly in international markets, or wh

International Trade committee  Indeed. Our view though is that rather than getting into a lengthy and protracted debate on what criteria we should use in terms of identifying a developing country as such, it is better to identify through the various negotiations that are under way at the WTO, whether it is e-c

International Trade committee  There's no doubt that when we started out having agriculture discussions 20 years ago, the big subsidizers were not the same ones we see now. Countries such as China and India are certainly in that top tier of countries that have heavily subsidized their agricultural sectors. A r

International Trade committee  There are 164.

International Trade committee  Yes, I would say that is true. Certainly, when we started this discussion, maybe two years ago, I'm not sure that everyone would have been of the same view. However, I would say yes, there is wide consensus that WTO reform is required, but there are very different views in terms

International Trade committee  Yes, roughly. We put out a discussion paper in September 2018, which was not necessarily the beginning of discussions on WTO reform, but it was at that point really that the discussions began to have momentum.

International Trade committee  Chair, I'm going to make one small comment, just to be clear. The United States is actually very much in favour of WTO reform. They're not members of the Ottawa group, and we have not had a lot of engagement from them on reform of the appellate body, but there are actually a nu

International Trade committee  I would.

International Trade committee  Chair, unfortunately we don't have that information handy, but we would be happy to provide it to you over the coming days.

International Trade committee  I would love to be able to answer that question. In fact, another committee is discussing softwood lumber as we sit here now. Unfortunately, we don't have the appropriate expert to be able to answer questions around how we might handle softwood lumber, given the various scenarios

International Trade committee  I'll maybe build on an earlier discussion. I'm not sure what the chances are that the United States might withdraw from the government procurement agreement. That is ultimately a decision that will have to be taken by the U.S., presumably in consultation with its key stakeholders

International Trade committee  Non-tariff barriers can come in a lot of different forms. We have certainly had the opportunity through a number of our bilateral and regional FTAs to try to tackle non-tariff barriers in a lot of different ways. That can be through very comprehensive provisions in areas such as

International Trade committee  Canada takes a very pragmatic view on development at the WTO. The United States has rightly pointed out that there may be some countries that have long-claimed developing country status that—

International Trade committee  We're also very concerned by reports that the United States may be considering withdrawing from the WTO government procurement agreement. This is an agreement that means a lot to Canada and to Canadian business in terms of ensuring reciprocal rights for government procurement acc