Canada’s lead trade negotiator is asking Parliament’s international trade committee to show unified support for the Canada-EU free trade negotiations on their trip to Europe next week. When asked about the point of the visit by Conservative MP Ed Holder, Steve Verheul responded it was “about influencing groups like the European Parliament that don’t have a direct role in the negotiations, influencing representatives of member states that don’t have a direct role in the negotiations, influencing the business community that won’t have a direct role in the negotiations, because all of those will have a direct bearing on whether or not we get this through, at the end of the day.”
The stop in Strasbourg in particular “will be an excellent opportunity to signal strong support for the CETA negotiations in Canada as well as to underline the importance Canada sees in enhancing close and open trading links with the EU,” said Verheul, apparently forgetting he was talking to trade critics. “It will be important to underline Canada’s continuing commitment to rejecting protectionism, reducing barriers to trade, and promoting environmentally and socially responsible trade.”
Some MPs may want to talk about tar sands, said Verheul (the link to the transcript should be uploaded soon), but the government will provide trade committee members with speaking notes to respond to their concerns.
I don’t blame Verheul for assuming the trade committee will be happy repeating the Harper line on CETA. With a few notable exceptions, committee members have shown little interest in critically assessing the effect of free trade on the Canadian economy or the economies of our partners. But if they are going to Europe it should be in a purely fact-finding capacity, with an open mind and a plan to meet as many interested groups as possible. That includes non-business and non-political groups with positive and critical views of the current CETA negotiations.
So who are they meeting? According to Verheul, groups so far include:
– Canada-UK Chamber of Commerce
– UK House of Lords subcommittee on economic and financial affairs
– Members of the European Parliament, including the EU trade committee and the European delegation for relations with Canada
– Italian deputies, senators and trade officials
– Italy’s national association of food producers
– Confindustria, Italy’s main industry association
– The Hungarian parliament’s EU affairs committee (responsible for CETA), and economic and informatics committee (responsible for trade)
– The Canada-Hungary Parliamentary Friendship Group
– A Hungarian business group (time permitting)
