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Results: 91 - 105 of 315
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Absolutely not. Probably the elements of our work on CETA.... I want to back up and say on CETA that one of the things I think is so exemplary about this deal is it shows that Canada can be strongest when we can have a change of party and government but continue to work in the national interest. The Prime Minister and I are very happy to acknowledge in particular the work of the former prime minister, Stephen Harper, in setting CETA in motion. As you know, in opposition, we were very proud to support it.
Having said that, I'm perhaps proudest of all, on a personal note, of the changes we made to make this agreement more progressive. When we formed government, one of the first things we learned was that CETA, this very important agreement we championed in opposition, was actually stalled—
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
No; let me finish, please, and then I'm happy to take more questions.
CETA was concluded at a technical level in September 2014. From that time to November 2015, when we formed government and took office, there was no progress. The finalization of the legal scrub was stalled, and that was because the Europeans had come to the conclusion that the old-school ISDS provisions in the old-school CETA were not something Europe could support. They weren't something European civil society could support, and they weren't something that progressive Europeans could support.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
We looked at it, and I agreed. I thought they were exactly right. ISDS has been around for a long time. I think that now is the time to build a more progressive system, something in which the right of states to regulate is fully enshrined—
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Hang on.
In addition to making this a better agreement in substance, the changes that we made to the ISDS provisions were essential to getting CETA done on a practical level. I made those changes because they were the right thing to do, but had we not made them, this agreement would still be in legal purgatory in the offices of the European Commission.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Gerry, that is simply untrue.
It was the European Commission that put forward its investment court proposal. This was something that was a concern of the governments of Germany, France—
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
—the Netherlands, and Italy. This agreement would not have happened had we not made the changes to ISDS.
Let me also say—and I think it's good for the committee to know this—the progressive direction that we have moved in with CETA is something that we are rolling out across all of our trade agreements. It's something we believe in and that we're proud to champion.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
—she's very close to the Ukrainian market. I think that a desire you and I share, and I hope everyone around this table, is to do as much business with Ukraine as possible.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much.
Interestingly, I find a similar question, although perhaps with a different emotional tone, from both sides of this table.
As we've been discussing, what had happened was that CETA was stalled, and it was stalled around European concerns about ISDS. When we looked at the agreement, we found that we shared those concerns, and we were happy to work with the Europeans to develop the most progressive ISDS system that exists in a trade agreement.
We made changes in two particular areas. One was on the substance. We strengthened the right of the state to regulate, particularly in the interests of the environment and when it comes to labour standards. We clarified that it was the job of democratically elected states, and not of a trade agreement, to choose which parts of the economy should be in the private sector and which should be in the public sector, and that this agreement should not restrict, for example, the right of a government to choose to renationalize some area.
That's very important, and I think that speaks to concerns people have. People want to be able to elect a government and through that election to choose what will be public, what will be private, what will be environmental standards, and what will be labour standards. They don't want a trade agreement to decide that, and that is one of the things we were very pleased to change.
The other element we were pleased to change was the process and how the ISDS system worked. We have created a system in which the arbiters, the judges, have a much clearer ethical line. They cannot be lawyers in private practice one day and arbiters the next. That's really important. We've also created a system in which the choice of who sits on the panel is not dictated by the company that is choosing to bring a case, so both the process and the substance have been improved.
Something else that's worth explaining is that when it comes to the dispute settlement system, this is the one element of CETA that the Europeans determined was of national competency. That means that it is the element of the agreement that will not be provisionally applied, if and when the agreement is ratified by the European Parliament and by us.
In the way we structured the work we're doing on improving ISDS, there are some areas that are open to discussion. This is really a very important landmark development in how dispute settlement is done in international trade, and we have embarked on a very important conversation with Europeans on how to create the next-generation, more progressive dispute settlement process. I think it's something Canadians can be very proud of.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
It was these changes we made to the investment dispute settlement process that unblocked the agreement. As a result of these changes that we made—and I want to thank Steve Verheul, with whom I worked on them very closely—we were able to move the agreement forward, finalize the legal scrub on February 29, and move the agreement through the European system.
Those changes were also absolutely central in securing support of key European countries, particularly France and Germany. France and Germany had been hesitant, even critical, of the agreement prior to those changes. Right after we made those changes, I travelled to Brussels, Berlin, and Paris. There we had public announcements of support for the agreement from Germany and France. That's really what got it going.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
I'm going to start by addressing your assertion at the beginning.
First of all, thank you for your question and thank you for the hard work you do on the trade file. I know that you're very focused on it and that you care a lot about your constituents.
I do want to challenge one assertion, which is the idea that we are somehow rushing with CETA. This agreement, and I think Steve, of all people, can—
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Steve can point to the fact that as a country, we have been working on CETA for seven years.
The legal document, which is the one that we are going to be voting on, was finalized on February 29 of this year—
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
We've had a lot of time to look at it and study it and I believe very strongly, as I believe do the majority of Canadians, that it's very important, particularly in this protectionist moment in the world, to get this agreement in place to start creating the jobs and growth that it will create for Canadians. It's also a very important moment to be diversifying Canada's economic relationships.
On the pharma question, I think it's important for us to bear in mind, as I think Steve said in his testimony to the committee, that we are very mindful of this issue. This is something my colleague, the Minister of Health, is working on very attentively.
We do need to bear in mind that we have time. The new elements—
Results: 91 - 105 of 315 | Page: 7 of 21

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