Op-Eds
Canadians seem to have a warm and fuzzy feeling about the Democratic Party, aided by the obnoxious and vitriolic bombast of Donald Trump, disgracefully displayed during Monday night’s U.S. presidential debate.
Canadians should shed these illusions. While our trade relations with the United States will be hugely toxic under a Trump presidency – he has no interest in building relationships with anyone – things won’t be that much better under Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. That was made clear during Monday night’s debate.
Mr. Trump repeated what he’s been saying for months about the North American free-trade agreement being an unmitigated disaster for the United States. There were no surprises here, his poisonous anti-…
It’s increasingly clear that things are going badly for the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal.
The agreement has been negotiated and all 12 TPP countries have signed it. In terms of international trade diplomacy, it’s a done deal.
But signature alone isn’t enough to bring a treaty into force. It has to be ratified, and to do that means it has to be internally approved by all the TPP parties through their own legislative systems.
In most cases, notably among Western democracies such as Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, that requires action by the legislative branch and, where necessary, passage of amending statutes so treaty obligations will be met.
The big question is trying to figure out…
We don’t have to wait for ratification – parts of CETA can be implemented now - Globe and Mail Op-Ed
Doing trade deals these days isn’t easy.
Tuesday’s announcement by the European Commission that the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) requires the approval of the European Parliament as well as the 28 EU member states is frustrating. It means the agreement can’t be fast-tracked through the EU Parliament alone, as had been hoped by Ottawa.
Just to back up for a moment, the Canada-EU negotiations ended in September, 2014, with a lot of fanfare and a joint press conference by then-prime minister Stephen Harper and former EU Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso.
However, even though the negotiations are now long over, the final text of the agreement hasn’t actually been signed…
Earls Restaurants got itself into a colossal public-relations jam with its decision to stop buying Alberta beef and instead to source “humane” beef from Kansas.
The chain was looking for suppliers that could provide it with beef free of antibiotics and steroids and slaughtered according to humane animal-welfare criteria. It ended up buying beef certified by Humane Farm Animal Care, but supplied from the United States.
A storm of protest erupted from Alberta beef farmers and consumers in Western Canada. Faced with commercial disaster, Earls shamefacedly admitted its mistake and returned to purchasing Alberta-slaughtered beef that, as it turned out, equally met humane best practices.
What drove this was a pure…
Canada is being sued by U.S. investors, but it’s not as bad as it looks: Globe and Mail Op-Ed
The federal government announced last week that it would pay Mobil Investments and Murphy Oil about $19-million to satisfy a decision made by a NAFTA investment arbitration panel last year.
The tribunal found that certain guidelines of the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board were discriminatory and thereby breached Canada’s obligations under the North American free-trade agreement. Although the government is disappointed with the decision, the $19-million payment is a small amount measured against the $66-million originally claimed by these two companies.
While not earth-shattering in dollar terms, the case raises issues about Canada and investor-state dispute settlement provisions (ISDS), not only under…
