Canada’s next ‘gold-plated trade deal’ with European Union getting closer to reality

OTTAWA – Now that Canada and the European Union have “scrubbed” the legal text of the long-promised free-trade agreement, governments on both sides of the Atlantic are starting to place a shine around the deal as it heads to ratification and signing later this year.

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, still isn’t prone to become law until 2017. But Canada’s International Trade Minster has already been calling it “a gold-plated trade deal.”

“It is going to bring tremendous benefits to Canadians and also to Europeans,” Chrystia Freeland told reporters Monday in Ottawa.

“We’re likely to see a real rise in prosperity, and I’m confident this is likely to become the landmark trade agreement,” she said. “CETA’s entry into force will provide us with unprecedented use of a market of half a billion people, having a GDP of some $20 trillion.”

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The new Liberal government of Justin Trudeau was presented with the CETA file when Stephen Harper’s Conservatives were defeated within the October federal election. The offer was generally accepted through 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 the rights of businesses operating inside the two trading zones ought to be protected.

In their joint statement Monday, Canada and also the 28-member EU asserted as part of the legal review of the agreement, “modifications were made to the investment chapter … (that) will strengthen the provision on governments’ to regulate.”

Freeland told reporters that she is “absolutely confident 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 with the European Union, a democratic union with shared Canadian values. And I have every confidence that this is a deal that’ll 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 have to authority to establish tribunals to stay disputes, in addition to provide an appeal process.

“To me, it looks like 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 may be pleased with this, but I’m not certain that it will allay some of the broader concerns about investor-state dispute settlements which have been expressed in Europe by the public by some member governments,” he said.

“Looking at it, 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 courts.”

“Maybe where domestic courts are corrupt or unreliable that’s justified. But in the situation of Europe and Canada, the onus should be on (those concerned) to make the case they ought to be included,” he said.

Freeland said Monday that “we’re going to possess a period between now and the signing, and then between your signing and the getting into force … to appear in detail at (whether you will see) 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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