International Trade committee  When the NAFTA was negotiated and signed, Canadians were basically told--if they were told anything--that investor state arbitration in chapter 11 of the NAFTA was needed because of structural problems of corruption in the Mexican court system, and it wasn't really an issue that

International Trade committee  Thank you for the question. The CETA would be the first of Canada's international trade treaties to include binding commitments on municipal governments. Until the recent Buy American deal, which included some provincial procurement under the WTO agreement on government procurem

International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the committee. It's a pleasure to be here today. As its name suggests, the comprehensive economic and trade agreement, CETA, is intended to be an ambitious agreement that will affect matters beyond international trade. Traditional trade ba

International Trade committee  Where the investor doesn't own the resources, there can't be an expropriation. Expropriation is the taking of property. If there is no proprietary right, there is no expropriation.

International Trade committee  The legislation expropriated certain assets, and it returned rights—the rights I'm now talking about—to timber and water to the crown.

International Trade committee  Well, I don't represent The Council of Canadians.

International Trade committee  My statements are on the record. You can check them against your memory.

International Trade committee  You raise some interesting points. This is a complex issue, and I would agree with that.

International Trade committee  I wouldn't agree with that characterization of my comments, because I was talking specifically about access to publicly owned resources.

International Trade committee  Again, I want to insist on the point that we're addressing today, which is compensation for access to publicly owned resources.

International Trade committee  I'll just address one point very briefly. I think it is extremely exaggerated to say that this principle of public ownership of resources with no automatic right of compensation would be an immense blow to the Canadian economy, when for public reasons--including both pro-developm

International Trade committee  They're rolling the dice and trying to get a payoff under NAFTA.

International Trade committee  I think the key thing about AbitibiBowater's claim is that it was appropriate for them to expect compensation. I think the Newfoundland government accepted this for their real assets. Contrary to what Mr. McMahon has said, the full range of resource rights are not considered pro

International Trade committee  First, the Newfoundland legislation did provide for the Newfoundland government to compensate AbitibiBowater for its real property—its land, its equipment, and the sorts of assets that are normally considered compensable in an expropriation under Canadian law. The legislation al

International Trade committee  Yes; they would include severance, pension, and environmental remediation claims. That was clearly their position. You'd have to invite the company to the committee to discuss what actually happened there. The point you raise about the nationality of the company is a very import