OTTAWA – Now that Canada and the Eu have “scrubbed” the legal text of the long-promised free-trade agreement, governments on both sides from the Atlantic are starting to put a shine on the deal as it heads to ratification and signing later this year.
The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, still isn’t likely to become law until 2017. But Canada’s International Trade Minster is already calling it “a gold-plated trade deal.”
“It is going to bring tremendous advantages to Canadians and to Europeans,” Chrystia Freeland told reporters Monday in Ottawa.
“We’re likely to visit a real increase in prosperity, and I’m confident this really is likely to end up being the landmark trade agreement,” she said. “CETA’s entry into force will give you us with unprecedented use of a market of half a billion people, with a GDP of some $20 trillion.”
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The new Liberal government of Justin Trudeau was handed the CETA file when Stephen Harper’s Conservatives were defeated in the October federal election. The offer was generally accepted by the Liberals throughout the campaign.
Monday’s announcement moved CETA – agreed in principle in 2013 – another step nearer to reality, but not without lingering concerns over how governments and also the rights of companies operating within the two trading zones ought to be protected.
In their joint statement Monday, Canada and the 28-member EU said that included in the legal overview of the agreement, “modifications were created to the investment chapter … (that) will strengthen the provision on governments’ right to regulate.”
Freeland told reporters that they is “absolutely certain that Canadian investors and Canadian businesses may have their rights fully protected in this agreement.”
“And I would like to underscore it is really an agreement using the Eu, a democratic union with shared Canadian values. And I have every confidence that this is really a deal that will be strongly supported by Canadian business and that Canadian business will be fully protected through the investment chapter.”
With the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions, governments will need to authority to establish tribunals to settle disputes, in addition to provide an appeal process.
“To me, it appears as though old wine in new bottles,” said Scott Sinclair, a senior trade researcher at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
“The Canadian government and also the (European) Commission might be pleased with this, but I’m not certain that it will allay a few of the broader concerns about investor-state dispute settlements which have been expressed in Europe through the public and by some member governments,” he explained.
“Looking in internet marketing, the legal scrub has barely changed the substantive provisions of the investment chapter.”
Sinclair said the ISDS process agreement still “allows foreign investors to bypass our domestic court system.”
“Maybe where domestic courts are corrupt or unreliable that’s justified. But in the case of Europe and Canada, the onus should be on (those concerned) to help make the case that they ought to be included,” he said.
Freeland said Monday that “we’re likely to have a period between now and also the signing, and then between the signing and the getting into force … to look at length at (whether there will be) some negative effects and how governments can cope with them.”
“We are committed, once we were in opposition, to appear carefully at sectors that might be affected. And people are consultations that will begin today.”
gisfeld@nationalpost.com
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