Posted: Wednesday, 25 March 2009

Towards a Closer Economic Partnership?
Submission by the Canadian Labour Congress to the Minister of International Trade on the proposed negotiations between Canada and the European Union

Introduction

On behalf of the 3.2 million members of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), we want to thank you for affording us the opportunity to present our views. The CLC brings together Canada's national and international unions along with the provincial and territorial federations of labour and 137 district labour councils whose members work in virtually all sectors of the Canadian economy, in all occupations, in all parts of Canada.

Negotiations between Canada and the European Union

The governments of the European Union (EU) and Canada have announced preliminary talks to scope out the parameters for a closer economic partnership. It is expected that negotiations towards a Canada-EU trade and investment agreement will be launched in the spring of 2009 at the next Canada-EU summit to be held in Prague. The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) has announced it is receiving submissions on the matter and the CLC has prepared the following preliminary review of the issues arising.

As indicated in our letter of December 9, 2008, we feel it is imperative that the CLC and its affiliates be involved in ongoing study and decision-making about any agreement with the EU. In our letter we argued that the social and employment impacts, as well as the distributive effects of such a deal must be assessed. We further requested that the CLC as well as the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) be invited to participate in the process.

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