International Trade committee  We have a wide-ranging membership. We focus a lot on auto. It's a very important sector of the economy. We talked a little about B.C. and softwood lumber. This is going to be a big issue. Seeing this dispute hopefully through to a satisfactory resolution would be a huge benefit.

International Trade committee  On the whole, there's a lot of support for the various terms of this agreement that relate to our membership. Again, as I said, there are a lot of pieces here that have to be sorted out. We still pay very close attention to how these things are developing. That includes, as I men

International Trade committee  The steel and aluminum piece was quite concerning. We're also quite relieved that this was resolved. We do represent a number of steelworkers, but largely, workers in the aluminum sector. That 10% tariff was not having an immediate effect on our members, but certainly having a gr

International Trade committee  Right. I get the question. I'm taking a roundabout way to get to the answer. There are two separate ways of approaching it, and I think they merit different approaches. We want that softwood lumber trade dispute to end. The good thing about the new CUSMA is that where we were un

International Trade committee  I think that what we've done in this agreement has transformed the expectation of how more strict supply chain regulations ought to work that aim to benefit workers, and I think all in the spirit of levelling the playing field. What needs to be seen is how this works in practice

International Trade committee  Thanks for the questions. I'll take the first one, which I think is a shorter one. The last time I read through the text there was no provision that said we will not see one job lost or any more outsourcing allowed in any of our.... There's always going to be precariousness in a

International Trade committee  Yes. That was supremely disappointing. It sounded like it was driven by some U.S. political considerations. What were firm commitments to ensure protections against gender discrimination in the workplace effectively were watered down with new language in the eleventh hour that re

International Trade committee  Yes, I think the lack of consultation for many years has been a real problem. I don't want to speak for the entire union movement and NGO community, but that's been a long-standing grievance.

International Trade committee  The lack of engagement throughout these processes left us on the side—

International Trade committee  That's right, and I'd say that up until this moment I think there's been a pretty consistent keeping us out of the loop—CETA, TPP, the Korea deal and right down the line. This was a welcome change, this fact that unions and NGO stakeholders were brought into the fold and had stak

International Trade committee  Sure. How much time do we have left?

International Trade committee  I'll try to keep it short. As I said, it's a very unique proposal. It's a proposal that's very much understood as an enhancement of labour rights but that has to be understood within a package of changes that were made. We view this very much as a fail-safe to try to set a bench

International Trade committee  I have my notes down to the second

International Trade committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair, honourable members of the committee and staff. Thanks for the invitation to appear before you today. My name is Angelo DiCaro, and I work as a national representative and trade policy analyst in the research department at Unifor. I do apologize if folks