While there was initial fanfare about the proposed free-trade agreement with Europe, the explosive developments in the Senate scandal last week quickly overshadowed the landmark deal.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is rightly taking his lumps for the Senate controversies, but the government deserves credit for achieving the landmark agreement in principle. It’s no small feat given the size of the European market and Canada’s success in getting ahead of other countries on the issue.
Despite Harper’s pronouncements aimed at forestalling opposition to the deal, there are legitimate questions and concerns. Local procurement policies, the dairy and wine industries, and provincial governments that buy drugs all stand to come out on the losing end of the deal. There are also concerns about protections for foreign investors and questions about whether Canadian companies will really be able to secure much additional business through the deal. But the concessions aren’t as significant as some people had been suggesting and, of course, they’re a reality of negotiating trade deals. Through the negotiations, we got better terms for pork and beef farmers, so it’s natural that the Europeans would get other advantages in return. And just as we expect our trade partners to relent on things like agricultural subsidies, Canada can’t necessarily hold on to all aspects of supply management forever.
While it’s not yet clear exactly what the deal means overall, it will involve work opportunities for lawyers as they wait for the government to bring in legislation implementing the deal. “The profession has two roles to play at that point,” Cliff Sosnow of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP tells
Law Times. In addition to finding which advantages the deal contains for clients, lawyers will also be looking at the legislation to check that it properly reflects the agreement or point out any conflicts.
For Richard Dearden of Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, the deal is significant in helping Canada diversify its economy. “We really needed to wean ourselves from the exports to the United States,” he says.
Ultimately, Canadians need more details before concluding whether the free-trade deal really is in their interests. But regardless, it’s clear the federal government has worked hard to negotiate a deal that has a lot to offer. Senate scandals notwithstanding, it has at least done a good job on this aspect of the trade file.
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Glenn Kauth
