International Trade committee  If I can fill in a bit here with some supplementary information, it includes comprehensive disciplines for financial services including banking, insurance, and securities; provides access to markets for cross-border financial service providers and financial institutions established in each jurisdiction; includes obligations to provide for right of establishment, to ensure non-discrimination, and to promote regulatory transparency, as Jean-Benoit was just mentioning.

International Trade committee  If I might come back to Mr. Keddy's question, I can give him a couple of examples based on 2007 exports, just a quick-and dirty-assessment from the back row here. For motor vehicles, we'd be looking at around $250,000 worth of tariff savings. For malt, it's around $150,000. This is based on immediate access.

International Trade committee  I'll start, but if I don't give you enough then we can come back to you with more information. You're now into the bowels of this stuff, which is a bit tricky. My understanding is that the agreement replaces and improves upon the provisions of the 1998 agreement by further locking in and expanding market access.

International Trade committee  I'm always leery about trying to explain the rationale of why other people or other countries do anything, but you know, not everybody has the domestic procedures that we do in terms of putting things into effect. In fact, in some areas an international treaty becomes part and parcel of the domestic law, whereas we, as you know, have to change our domestic laws to bring them into conformity with the international treaties we've undertaken.

International Trade committee  We have undertaken to immediately eliminate tariffs on over 99% of current imports from Panama, so it's probably easier to work from the exceptions than from the other end. The remaining tariffs will be eliminated over 15 years, and those would include refined sugar and certain sugar-containing products, some prepared foods such as ketchup and prepared pizzas, some alcohol and tobacco products, and animal feed.

International Trade committee  I think each industry, each situation, is different. Speaking fairly generally, we would argue there is certainly an advantage to getting ahead of a trading partner. Some products are very price-specific: you eliminate all the other issues, you don't get a lot of bells and whistles.

International Trade committee  I suspect many of the businesses that see potential benefits here would share your view.

International Trade committee  We're in your hands, Mr. Chairman.

International Trade committee  Yes. It's a good question. And I think it is something we'd probably have to do some homework on.

International Trade committee  We can tell you quickly that the tariff on X has gone from 15% to 5% or whatever. So based on current dollars, current amount of trade, that can be translated into a saving of whatever that happens to be. That's sort of looking back. It doesn't necessarily take into account potential growth.

International Trade committee  Panama excluded some agricultural products from tariff elimination, including some dairy, poultry, and egg products, as well as some other products, such as certain vegetables, rice, and coffee products. A lot of these areas aren't of potential strong interest to us. It reflects the fact that everybody going into these negotiations has certain sensitivities that have to be addressed in one way or another.

International Trade committee  No. You raised the matter of the election last night in the U.S. Obviously we're keeping an eye on that, because there are a number of agreements that are hung up in the American system right now, and it's going to be of interest to us to see whether the change of the guard in the U.S. plays a role in movement of any of these agreements down there.

International Trade committee  I think that's as close to it as we have.

International Trade committee  Let me start by saying obviously some of the issues you've raised are of concern to us, and not just here but more broadly. With respect to the agreement itself, if you look at article 20, which is part of the overall transparency chapter of the agreement, you'll see there are anti-corruption provisions that use language that tries to address some of these corruption issues more generally.

International Trade committee  I just need to check, because I was not the negotiator on this particular agreement. So we'll need to check with our colleagues to see whether there were specific consultations with the RCMP during this period about the issues you have raised.