International Trade committee  Yes, I meant CUSMA.

International Trade committee  I'm sorry. Could you please repeat the last part? Are you saying that in some of the new language we have...?

International Trade committee  Okay. I think I understand. Thank you for the question. To me, the question is that the language is still not restrictive enough. It leaves way too much room for arbitrators to continue to decide on cases based on their own standards with respect to what have become the customar

International Trade committee  I can answer that. I think it's possibly because Ecuador asked them to. This may be a bit on the pull side for them. There may be political or ideological reasons in Ecuador for that, within the current government. I think you're right when you say there is not a lot in this fo

International Trade committee  Yes. I think the language you are referring to is maybe some of the right to regulate clauses that Canada has started to put into agreements like the CETA and its model investment treaty from 2021. Those, I would say, are completely untested. We haven't seen cases under those agr

International Trade committee  I don't know why we can't get it right. I mean, I think we did get it right in the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement. We simply agreed to get rid of ISDS in that new agreement. We made a big deal out of it when the deal was announced, because ISDS undermines our ability to pass enviro

International Trade committee  Thanks very much to the committee on behalf of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. I appreciate the chance to comment on a possible free trade deal with Equador. While I will focus my comments on the possibility that a future deal includes an investor-state dispute settl

International Trade committee  On that point, I'd say maybe or maybe not. Certainly the main point I wanted to make was that you don't need the ISDS to do that. As it is now, ISDS will get in the way of a Ukraine-focused beneficial recovery for that country. It simply hamstrings the future government on how

International Trade committee  I'm not sure exactly. Probably a number of sectors could benefit. It would be nice to see co-operation on renewable energy, for example, and laying out a more renewable energy grid in Ukraine when the time is right. That could be done through government co-operation with the pri

International Trade committee  As I understand the treaty through looking at the government materials and the treaty itself, Canada did have a free trade agreement with Ukraine before this modernized treaty was proposed. As I understand it, the big change would be in the area of services, which were not covere

International Trade committee  I'm not sure how I'd answer that. Canada's relations with Ukraine are good, as I understand it. There's a lot of co-operation going in a number of areas, like anti-corruption and climate change. There are all kinds of co-operation happening at different levels. Will this agreem

International Trade committee  If I can answer briefly, usually munitions, armaments and defence matters are excluded from coverage in these agreements. Nothing would discourage the sale of munitions, but they would generally be policy-related. Then they'd be excluded, yes.

International Trade committee  Just briefly, countries can do whatever they want. There's nobody above Ukraine and Canada saying when the final moment is. Once it has been ratified and royal assent has been achieved, then, yes, the treaty law would say that's when it comes into force, but until that moment, we

International Trade committee  Thank you again. My thoughts are that there's nothing stopping the government from doing that, from putting any kind of chapter it wants in there—maybe through a committee as we've done in recent agreements on critical minerals and other aspects. There are a lot of things that c

International Trade committee  I'll answer the second part first, with respect to what it does to the FIPA. That would depend on how the government reviews that section. Currently in the treaty, as I understand it, even if this comes into force, the FIPA protections for existing investors remain in place for