CANADA ECONOMICS

NAFTA

The Globe and Mail. 20 Nov 2017. NAFTA talks creep along in Mexico. Negotiations move forward on smaller items even as Canada, Mexico reject U.S. proposals on auto industry and dispute resolution
ADRIAN MORROW

Negotiators are making progress on less contentious portions of the North American free-trade agreement – such as slashing red tape for exporters and standardizing foodsafety regulations between the three countries – while punting the more difficult ones to future rounds of talks.
The fifth session of the NAFTA renegotiation in Mexico City has taken on a workmanlike tone, with the three sides prioritizing easier parts of the deal. It is a sharp contrast with the previous round near Washington last month, which was marked by non-stop tension as the Trump administration hammered Canada and Mexico with a string of tough protectionist demands.
Sources with knowledge of the negotiations said the United States’ tone has shifted over the last month, and Washington seems more interested than before in making a deal. It was Robert Lighthizer, Mr. Trump’s trade czar, who suggested that he and his counterparts from the other two countries not attend this round of talks in a bid to turn the political temperature down, the sources said.
“The work is moving forward,” Juan Carlos Baker, Mexico’s top trade official, told reporters as he left negotiations at the Camino Real Polanco hotel Saturday evening. “The atmosphere is good.”
Other areas the trading partners hope to advance before the round ends on Tuesday include an expansion of the deal to cover digital commerce and provisions to make it easier for financial services companies to do cross-border business.
But the sides remain deadlocked over the tough proposals advanced by the United States: A 50-per-cent American-content requirement for all vehicles made in Canada and Mexico, gutting or abolishing the deal’s dispute-resolution mechanisms, limiting the amount of U.S. government contracts Canadian and Mexican firms can bid on and automatically terminating the deal in five years unless all three sides agree to extend it.
Canada and Mexico have flatly rejected all of these demands. People with knowledge of the talks say the Canadian and Mexican position is that the United States must back down from these hard-line proposals before any deal can be made.
When the three sides discuss autos in this round, for instance, Canada plans to deliver the United States a lecture on why Mr. Trump’s protectionist proposals will hurt American industry, sources said. The Canadians contend that stringent vehicle content requirements will make the U.S. auto sector less competitive with its European and Asian counterparts, and will move jobs out of the United States as firms choose to simply ignore the rules and pay tariffs instead.
Flavio Volpe, president of Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, said Ottawa’s decision to give no ground on these demands but still remain at the table appeared to have forced the United States to get serious about negotiating.
“There is some positive movement on the stuff that isn’t so controversial. This is a real working round,” Mr. Volpe, who was in Mexico after the talks, said in an interview. “We’re back into an adult discussion.”
But the head of Canada’s largest private-sector union said there was no hope for a deal as long as the U.S. demands on autos and dispute resolution remained on the table.
“To be perfectly candid with you, talks are really not going anywhere,” Unifor president Jerry Dias said Sunday morning after emerging from a meeting with Canadian chief negotiator Steve Verheul. “The Canadian team is not going to move at all as long as the United States continues to hold some ridiculous proposals.”
Mr. Dias said the United States is “flirting with danger” because Canada will never give in to their demands – a scenario he predicted would lead to the demise of the deal.
“The odds of NAFTA succeeding, I will say, are something less than zero,” he said. “[Canada is] not going to be bullied into a bad deal.”
Other sources, however, played down Mr. Dias’s doom-and-gloom warnings, saying it will not be clear until further along in talks whether a deal can be made. It will largely be a question of whether the United States is willing to compromise on the protectionism in order to get Canada and Mexico to deal, the people said.
Negotiators will reconvene for more technical discussions in Washington next month, followed by the next full round of talks in Ottawa in January.

The Globe and Mail. 20 Nov 2017. End of NAFTA would hurt U.S. agriculture, auto sectors: C.D. Howe. Battle over NAFTA ‘will be fought within the United States’
GREG KEENAN, AUTO INDUSTRY REPORTER

The termination of NAFTA would deal sharp blows to the auto industry and agriculture – two key sectors of the U.S. economy – setting off a battle between the Trump administration, and the two industries and Congress, which will try to save the deal.
That’s one of the conclusions of a forthcoming study done by the C.D. Howe Institute on the effect of the end of the North American freetrade agreement on the economies of the three NAFTA partners.
The United States would sustain more economic damage than Canada, while Mexico would suffer most, the study concludes. If the pact were allowed to lapse, gross domestic product in each of the three countries would take a hit, with exports of goods and services within the region slumping by about $110-billion (U.S.) or 9 per cent by 2023, the study says.
Negotiators from the three countries are meeting in Mexico City in the fifth round of talks on the future of the 23-year-old deal amid widespread concerns that U.S. demands in key areas are so onerous on Canada and Mexico that the Americans are effectively forcing termination.
U.S. President Donald Trump has criticized the deal as one of the worst his country has ever signed.
The C.D. Howe study ran economic models to assess the impact of three possible outcomes from the negotiations: the pact lapsing and the relationships among the three countries reverting to World Trade Organization rules; an end to the tripartite deal but the prior Canada-U.S. freetrade agreement remaining in place; and a Canada-U.S. free-trade deal supplemented by a separate Canada-Mexico agreement.
Although the effect on the U.S. economy would not be particularly heavy, the damage would be acute in agriculture and autos, the study says, causing the auto industry, the farm lobby and Congress to unite to try to save the deal.
“This battle will be fought within the United States, between U.S. stakeholders, Congress and the White House, not between Canada and Mexico and the Trump administration,” says the study, titled Nafta Requiem: What if the U.S. walks away?
The effects on agriculture and autos amount to “poison pills” that Congress would be unable to swallow, said Dan Ciuriak, lead author of the study and a former chief economist with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade who now heads his own consulting firm.
“How would the Trump administration roll over the agriculture lobby plus the auto lobby to withdraw from NAFTA?” Mr. Ciuriak asked in an interview. “I just don’t see the politics working for the administration on that.”
Terminating the agreement would cost Mexico $25-billion in economic welfare, or the combination of a reduction in wages and increases in prices as tariffs rise.
The comparable figures for Canada and the United States are $14.5-billion and $20-billion, respectively, the models in the study show.
“Mexico is by far the most exposed economy to NAFTA lapsing. Mexico put its economic eggs in the NAFTA basket and thus faces outsized risks from losing its gamble,” the study says.
Mexico has been the target of much of Mr. Trump’s rhetoric denouncing the deal, based on his perception and that of his supporters that millions of jobs have shifted to Mexico from the United States because of the elimination of tariffs on most goods and services when NAFTA came into force almost 25 years ago.
The impact on Canada from termination would be less drastic in part because 75 per cent of Canada’s tariffs are at zero under the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) regime that would apply if there were no free-trade agreement.
But some sectors in Canada would take billion-dollar hits, the study notes, including business services, autos, and chemicals, rubber and plastics, whose exports to former NAFTA partner countries would decline.
U.S. bilateral auto exports would slump by $13.2-billion.
The beef, pork, poultry and dairy industries in the United States would each take hits of about $1-billion in exports.
The auto sector would be hit hard in Mexico as well, the study finds, in part because of the socalled chicken tariff of 25 per cent that the United States levies on pickup trucks imported from non-NAFTA countries.
Pickup assembly “would likely immediately pack up and move into the United States to avoid the 25 per cent if NAFTA lapses,” the study says.
There is a debate among auto industry officials about what would happen to production of General Motors Co. pickup trucks in Oshawa, Ont. – scheduled to begin in January – if there is no NAFTA and the tariff regime reverts back to MFN status and the 25-per-cent chicken levy.
The study says the Trump administration would achieve its goal of reducing its trade deficit “but not because of improved trade balances with its NAFTA partners, but because the negative impact on its economy drives down overall imports from all sources compared to exports.”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a report on Friday that said the 12 U.S. states most hurt by that country’s withdrawal from NAFTA all voted for Mr. Trump a year ago.
Michigan, home to the head offices and several manufacturing operations of the Big Three auto makers, topped the list.

The Globe and Mail. NOVEMBER 17, 2017. Mexico working on compromise on NAFTA rules of origin for vehicles, sources say
ADRIAN MORROW, MEXICO CITY

The Mexican government is working on a compromise proposal to tighten the so-called rules of origin that govern the content of vehicles made under the North American free-trade agreement, The Globe and Mail has learned.

Sources with knowledge of the prospective proposal said Mexico City is trying to find a way to placate the Trump administration by squeezing overseas content out of North American-made cars and trucks, but without harming the auto industries in Mexico or Canada.

The idea would be aimed at resolving one of the toughest issues in the contentious renegotiation of the pact. It has not yet been finalized, the sources said, and will likely not be presented at the current round of talks.

The move comes as Canada's chief negotiator acknowledged publicly on Friday that the talks are at loggerheads. The three sides are hunkered down until Tuesday at the Camino Real, a modernist luxury hotel in Mexico City's tony Polanco neighbourhood, for the fifth round of negotiations.

Under the current rules of origin, autos must contain 62.5 per cent North American content in order to be shipped between the NAFTA countries without paying tariffs. A list called the "tracing requirements" spells out which exact components of the vehicles count toward the content requirement.

The Trump administration has demanded that a new 50-per-cent U.S. content requirement be imposed on autos made in Canada and Mexico, the North American content requirement be jacked up to 85 per cent and the tracing list expanded to include every component of a vehicle.

The proposal Mexico is crafting, the sources said, would offer Mr. Trump a more extensive tracing list and possibly the 85 per cent North American content requirement in exchange for the United States withdrawing the 50-per-cent U.S. content provision. One source said Mexico is looking to write the tracing requirements in such a way as to ensure low-cost components from China and other countries in Asia are now instead sourced from within North America.

Rules of origin are scheduled for four days of discussion starting on Saturday, but one source said this round will mostly focus on ironing out technical matters while more substantive negotiations over the percentages the United States has demanded will be put off to a future session of talks.

The auto industry and Canadian government fear tougher rules of origin will make North American manufacturers less competitive than their overseas peers. The Mexican government is more open to tightening the rules, sources said, because it believes much of the extra work in manufacturing components would go to Mexico. Both Ottawa and Mexico City, however, agree that a U.S. content requirement is completely unacceptable.

The potential Mexican proposal shows an increasing desire by the Pena Nieto administration to play deal-maker and find ways to preserve NAFTA by offering victories to Mr. Trump. Earlier this week, Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo announced that he would propose a compromise on the U.S. demand to insert a sunset clause into NAFTA. Instead of the U.S. proposal – which would automatically kill NAFTA in five years unless all three countries agreed to extend it – Mr. Guajardo suggested a review of the pact every five years, under which all three countries could agree to make changes to the deal.

So far, the talks have been all but deadlocked on the most substantive matters. Besides rules of origin and the sunset clause, these include U.S. proposals to severely limit the amount of American government contracting Canadian and Mexican firms can bid on and to gut or abolish the deal's dispute-resolution mechanisms.

"We're just getting started. Long ways to go," Canada's chief negotiator, Steve Verheul, told reporters at the Camino Real on Friday. "It's a challenging negotiation. Really challenging. Sorry I keep saying that."

The leader of Canada's largest private-sector union, who has been advising the negotiating team, said Mr. Verheul told him privately that the United States is so far refusing to compromise on anything.

"Steve Verheul in essence is saying the United States is not showing any flexibility," Unifor president Jerry Dias said in the lobby of the Camino.

The current round of talks will mostly focus on easier NAFTA issues – such as expanding the deal to cover digital trade and cutting red tape at the border – while punting the hardest subjects to future rounds.

The Globe and Mail. 20 Nov 2017. The softwood dispute gives Ottawa leverage in NAFTA – largely because the odds are in Canada’s favour. Canada’s lumber challenge is a NAFTA bargaining chip. U.S. case against Canada is not strong.
BARRIE McKENNA, Columnist

Canada has done the obvious thing by taking the softwood lumber fight to a NAFTA dispute settlement panel.
And why not? The Canadian government has gone this route twice before – in 1992 and 2001 – and won both times. Given that track record, last week’s filing under Chapter 19 of the North American free-trade agreement is a no-brainer.
There is another, less obvious reason this is an astute move by the Trudeau government. Canada could have held off on a challenge as a sign of goodwill to the Trump administration. Instead, it has given itself a valuable bargaining chip in the ongoing renegotiation of NAFTA.
U.S. negotiators want Chapter 19 scrapped, arguing that it usurps the sovereignty of U.S. courts. Canada sees dispute settlement as an insurance policy against a U.S. antidumping and subsidy regime that is tilted in favour of the home team.
The softwood lumber case gives Ottawa some leverage – particularly because the odds are good that Canada would win. Assuming the United States does not abandon NAFTA, Canadian negotiators should take the position that if the United States want to talk about Chapter 19, it will first have to settle the softwood lumber dispute, permanently.
The United States cannot easily make this case disappear by walking away from NAFTA. Canada could pursue it through the World Trade Organization and the U.S. courts.
On the other hand, a U.S. pullout from NAFTA would almost certainly end Canada’s Chapter 19 challenge, Toronto trade lawyer Lawrence Herman said.
“The U.S. will simply end whatever panel proceedings are under way. Period,” he said. “In practical terms, it’s game over.”
That is unfortunate, because the U.S. case against Canada on softwood lumber is not strong. The United States initially sought a duty of nearly 27 per cent, but that has already been scaled back to 21 per cent. A NAFTA panel could reduce those duties further, perhaps to near zero.
The United States should want to put the lumber dispute to rest, for many reasons.
The Americans have long argued that the provinces, which control access to most of Canada’s forests, unfairly subsidize lumber mills by charging too little to log on Crown land. This argument has never stood up to legal challenges. And Canada’s forestry practices are far more market-oriented now than they were during the last go-around, in the early 2000s.
More importantly, the North American lumber market is already showing the consequences of protectionism.
Prices are up sharply since the United States launched its latest complaint against Canadian lumber imports. In the past 12 months, the price of lumber rose about 27 per cent to $436 (U.S.) per thousand board-feet, according to the Random Lengths composite index.
The purpose of the duties is to punish Canadian producers and level the playing field. But that is not what is happening.
For the most part, the duties are just being added to the final price. The result is that U.S. consumers – homeowners, builders and contractors – not Canadians, are paying the price.
Any good economist could have predicted this. Take a market with growing demand and tight supplies, and then throw in a severe price shock in the form of duties.
Americans use more lumber than they can produce domestically, much of it for home construction. Canada has traditionally filled the gap, supplying about 30 per cent of the U.S. market. Last year, the United States imported $7.5-billion (Canadian) worth of lumber from Canada.
The pace of U.S. housing starts has more than doubled, to about 1.3-million a year, since the depths of the recession in 2009. Rebuilding after Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma has spurred additional demand.
Meanwhile, the supply of lumber is tight because of this year’s forest fires and the continuing effect of a pine beetle infestation in Western Canada.
In short, there is plenty of evidence that the tariffs are inflicting a toll on the U.S. economy.
As long as NAFTA lives, Canada should use the tools at its disposal to get what it wants.

REUTERS. NOVEMBER 20, 2017. Canada, Mexico to question U.S. auto content demands at NAFTA talks
David Lawder, Sharay Angulo

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Canada and Mexico will not make counterproposals to U.S. demands for tougher NAFTA automotive content rules but instead will offer rebuttals and pepper American negotiators with technical questions on Monday, people familiar with the talks said.

A NAFTA banner is seen during the fifth round of NAFTA talks involving the United States, Mexico and Canada, in Mexico City, Mexico, November 19, 2017. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido
Canada will make a presentation arguing U.S. demands would cause serious damage to U.S. as well as North American automotive manufacturing, a Canadian source with knowledge of the negotiations said.

The rebuttal is expected to come on Monday as negotiators resume discussions on automotive rules of origin in the fifth round of talks to update the 23-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The Trump administration last month stunned its NAFTA partners by unveiling demands that half of the value content of all North American-built autos be produced in the United States and that the regional vehicle content requirement be sharply increased to 85 percent from the current 62.5 percent.

The demands are aimed at meeting U.S. President Donald Trump’s NAFTA goals of stemming the flow of U.S. carmaking jobs to low-wage Mexico and reversing a $64 billion U.S. trade deficit with its southern neighbor.

“In terms of the automotive sector, the United States´ proposal is insane,” said a Mexican auto industry representative with knowledge of the talks. “You cannot counter-propose such madness.”

The Canadian negotiating team’s presentation will “provide information about how the U.S. rules of origin proposal for autos would damage the continental industry in general and the United States in particular,” the Canadian source said.

“If you move the content requirement to 80 percent, or even to a number lower than that, it will hit the supply chains. You would then have to deal with potentially ill-equipped suppliers that are maybe more expensive,” the source added.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative’s office on Sunday declined to comment on the talks.

Flavio Volpe, president of Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association, also said Canada and Mexico would try to convince U.S. officials that the proposals would damage North American competitiveness and lead to fewer auto assembly and parts jobs on the continent.

Volpe told Reuters that his group has been briefing Canadian negotiators on the effects of the U.S. proposals. Its analysis found that even if some assembly operations are returned to the United States, these job gains will be more than offset by parts production moving to Asia and other low-cost production areas.

Many car manufacturers and parts makers will simply forego NAFTA free-trade benefits and pay the 2.5 percent U.S. tariff on many components, he added.

His U.S. counterpart, the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association, last month unveiled a study showing that the United States would lose up to 24,000 auto parts manufacturing jobs from higher NAFTA content requirements and up to 50,000 if NAFTA is terminated.

The Mexican auto industry representative said the country’s negotiators would likely ask more technical questions about the U.S. automotive content demands during discussions on Monday and Tuesday. The industry would not back down from its opposition to the U.S. proposal, he added.

Another source close to the negotiations said Mexico and Canada consider the U.S. proposal “unviable” and disagree with the concept.

“So we are not in a situation of being able to go over numbers. It is not about analyzing the figures that they put on the table and us returning with other figures,” the source said.

Additional reporting by David Ljunggren and Anthony Esposito, writing by David Lawder; Editing by Cynthia Osterman

REUTERS. NOVEMBER 20, 2017. Canadian dollar dips as oil falls, investors weigh NAFTA talks

TORONTO (Reuters) - The Canadian dollar edged lower against its U.S. counterpart on Monday as oil prices fell and investors focused on negotiations to update the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Oil, one of Canada’s major exports, eased as traders were wary of betting too heavily on which way prices might move ahead of next week’s meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

U.S. crude CLc1 was down 0.76 percent at $56.12 a barrel.

Canada and Mexico will not make counterproposals to U.S. demands for tougher NAFTA automotive content rules but instead will offer rebuttals and ask technical questions on Monday, people familiar with the talks said.

At 9:17 a.m. ET (1417 GMT), the Canadian dollar CAD=D4 was down 0.1 percent at C$1.2776 to the greenback, or 78.27 U.S. cents.

The currency traded in a narrow range of C$1.2756 to C$1.2800.

On Friday, the loonie touched a two-week low at C$1.2824 after tame inflation data tempered prospects for the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates in the first quarter of next year.

Plans by Canada’s central bank to add more speeches from policymakers to its schedule after an interest rate decision will not do enough to provide clearer guidance on monetary policy, analysts said.

Speculators have cut bullish bets on the Canadian dollar, data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Reuters calculations showed on Friday. 1090741NNET

As of Tuesday, net long positions had slipped to 47,335 contracts from 50,889 a week earlier. In October, bullish bets had reached 76,392 contracts, their highest in five years.

Canadian government bond prices were lower across the yield curve, with the two-year CA2YT=RR down 3 Canadian cents to yield 1.473 percent and the 10-year CA10YT=RR falling 14 Canadian cents to yield 1.955 percent.

Canadian wholesale trade for September is due on Tuesday, and retail sales data for that month is set for release on Thursday.

Reporting by Fergal Smith; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn

REUTERS. NOVEMBER 19, 2017. Mexico, Canada shun NAFTA autos counteroffers: sources
Anthony Esposito, David Lawder

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Divisions over updating the NAFTA trade deal showed no sign of easing on Sunday as Mexico and Canada signaled they would not offer counterproposals to U.S. demands for far stronger automotive content rules, people with knowledge of the talks said.

The lack of movement on major issues such as autos rules of origin could put the North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations in danger of grinding to a stalemate as an early 2018 deadline for revising the pact approaches.

A source close to the negotiations said Mexico had serious problems with a number of U.S. proposals, including Washington’s demand that regional content for autos be raised to 85 percent from 62.5 percent, with 50 percent coming from the United States.

The source also said that Mexico could not accept a U.S. proposal that would restrict imports of some Mexican produce at certain times to protect growers.

Mexico does not plan to make counterproposals in those areas, the source said, adding that the U.S. autos proposal was “unviable” and would “make the region less competitive.”

A Canadian source with knowledge of the negotiations said Canada also intended to refrain from offering an autos counterproposal and instead make a presentation on Monday arguing that the U.S. demands would cause serious damage to both U.S. and North American automotive manufacturing.

The United States, Canada and Mexico are holding the fifth of seven planned rounds of talks to modernize NAFTA, which U.S. President Donald Trump blames for job losses and big trade deficits for his country.

“The talks are really not going anywhere,” Jerry Dias, president of Unifor, the largest Canadian private-sector union, told reporters after meeting with Canada’s chief negotiator on Sunday.

“As long as the United States is taking the position they are, this is a colossal waste of time,” said Dias, who is advising the government and regularly meets the Canadian team.

‘NO SIGNS OF FLEXIBILITY’

Hanging over the negotiations is the threat that Trump could make good on a threat to scrap NAFTA.

Canada and Mexico object to a number of demands the U.S. side unveiled during the fourth round last month, including for a five-year sunset clause that would force frequent renegotiation of the trade pact, and major changes to dispute- settlement mechanisms.

“Our internal view as of this morning is that if any progress is to be made, the United States needs to show some flexibility and a willingness to do a deal,” said a Canadian source with knowledge of the talks.

“We are seeing no signs of flexibility now,” added the source, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation.

U.S. officials declined to comment.

Mexico is expected to offer an alternative to the U.S. sunset clause proposal that would offer periodic reviews of the trade pact but without an automatic expiration.

U.S. negotiating objectives that were updated on Friday appeared to accommodate the Mexican proposal, saying the revised NAFTA should “provide a mechanism for ensuring that the Parties assess the benefits of the Agreement on a periodic basis.”

Additional reporting by David Ljunggren and Sharay Angulo; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Peter Cooney

BLOOMBERG. 20 November 2017. Nafta Talks Get Bogged Down
By Eric Martin , Josh Wingrove , and Andrew Mayeda

• Congress, business groups ask White House to moderate posture
• Most controversial issues likely to wait for future rounds

Canada and Mexico are holding firm in their resistance to addressing America’s most contentious proposed changes to Nafta in the latest talks, with the parties making some slow progress on areas of greater consensus.

The U.S. is frustrated with what it perceives to be the reluctance of Canada and Mexico to present counter-proposals to U.S. positions on key issues such as regional content requirements and dispute settlement, said a person close to the negotiations. American officials are especially discouraged by Canada for publicly stating that the U.S. proposals are unacceptable, without presenting alternatives at the negotiating table, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The fifth round of talks, which began in Mexico City on Nov. 15 and wrap up on Tuesday, is the first held without the top trade chiefs from the three countries. That’s allowed the respective teams to work on the challenge of updating the more mundane facets of the nearly 2,000-page North American Free Trade Agreement, which started in 1994 and is undergoing a major overhaul.

Progress was slow over the weekend. While hundreds of hours of talks are unfolding on issues ranging from car manufacturing to telecommunications, negotiators have punted decisions on the most divisive issues to future rounds. The three countries have extended the deadline for the talks to March, when they could be complicated by elections in Mexico and U.S. midterms.

Mexico and Canada are holding out hope the U.S. will bow to domestic pressure from lawmakers and industry groups to soften its demands -- and Canada is warning there won’t be a deal if it doesn’t.

Since talks left off in October, U.S. companies and business groups, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have mounted a campaign to mobilize Congress and convince the White House to back down from proposals they see as damaging to corporate interests. The Chamber on Friday warned that an American pullout would hit hardest some of the swing states that President Donald Trump took on his road to power.

Key Demands

The fate of the talks may hinge on that lobbying effort and whether the U.S. relaxes key demands. With Washington lawmakers focused on tax reform, that’s a question expected to linger into 2018. Two Canadian government officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said this weekend there’s no chance of any deal without the U.S. significantly altering its most contentious proposals.

That message was echoed by a prominent Canadian union leader. “As long as the U.S. has those proposals on the table, nothing is going anywhere” on less controversial issues, Jerry Dias, head of Canada’s largest private-sector union, said Sunday in Mexico City. “These negotiations are going nowhere fast.”

The fifth round of talks has produced no substantial breakthrough so far and has largely avoided the most divisive U.S. proposals on dairy, automotive content, dispute panels, government procurement, and a sunset clause.

Weekend Talks

Talks over the weekend focused on a wide range of subjects, and officials said they made progress in less-contentious areas. Negotiators are scheduled to spend much of their time on auto rules of origin, which govern how much of a vehicle must be produced in North America to trade without tariffs, though discussions on that have centered on mundane details such as paperwork requirements.

“It’s very important to have advances, not just on the most controversial topics, to be able to continue with a pace of advance and so that the cost of leaving for the U.S. keeps rising,” Moises Kalach, the head of trade for Mexican national business chamber CCE, said on Friday in comments aired on El Financiero Bloomberg TV.

Sensing danger, the auto industry has stepped up its lobbying to preserve Nafta. A coalition of industry associations called Driving American Jobs traveled to Mexico City to make its case.

Auto Rules

That’s because the White House has proposed major changes to Nafta’s auto requirements, introducing a stipulation that 50 percent of parts or vehicles be U.S.-made, and increasing the minimum amount of regional content needed to 85 percent from 62.5 percent.

Tightening the rules of origin would make auto manufacturing in the region less competitive, said John Bozzella, president and chief executive officer of Global Automakers, a lobbying group that represents the U.S. operations of foreign automakers and suppliers.

More than 70 House Republicans and Democrats in a recent letter threw their support behind the auto industry’s opposition to changes sought by the Trump administration.

Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said last week that Mexican negotiators planned to ask the U.S. for a more detailed explanation of the autos proposal and the reasons for it, but didn’t yet plan to present a counteroffer. A person familiar with discussions said Mexico views the U.S. position as completely unworkable.

Canada will respond to the U.S. auto proposal this round by detailing why it thinks implementing the plans would harm the sector, but won’t formally propose a counteroffer, one Canadian official said.

Dias, the Canadian union leader, has regularly predicted talks to save the Nafta accord will fail, and did so again on Sunday in remarks to reporters. “The Canadian team is not going to move at all as long as the United States continues to hold some ridiculous proposals,” Dias said. “The problem you’ve got now is you can’t even get any sort of consensus on the small stuff, because as long as there’s a perception that Nafta is falling apart, nobody is in a position to really make any moves.”

— With assistance by Nacha Cattan

FOREIGN POLICY

The Globe and Mail. 20 Nov 2017. Trudeau’s feather-ruffling foreign policy. Justin Trudeau’s Asian excursion may have been something of a disaster.
JOHN IBBITSON, Columnist

According to a report out of Australia, crossed signals over the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations left some leaders so furious with the Prime Minister that they have blackballed Canada from joining the East Asia Summit, the prestigious forum of Asian and Pacific countries that Canada has been trying to get into for years.
“Australia and other nations have all but shut the door on Canada joining” the EAS, the Australian Financial Review stated.
If so, then Mr. Trudeau may have achieved a foreign-policy trifecta: endangering the future of the TPP, a major trade agreement that Canada fought hard to become a part of; wrecking any hopes of one day joining the East Asia Summit; and damaging Canada’s campaign for a seat on the United Nations Security Council in 2021.
The Canadian government insists the report is false. But what may matter most is not what happened, but how people feel. And the Australians, at least, don’t seem to be happy.
Stephen Harper’s Conservative government tried but failed to gain access to the 18-member EAS, a high-level talking shop that includes the members of ASEAN plus the United States, China, India, Russia, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
Canada is anxious to join the annual forum, which currently has a moratorium on admitting new members.
So it was a big deal when Mr. Trudeau was asked to attend as a guest at the summit in the Philippines this year. According to the Financial Review, Mr. Trudeau personally asked Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to go to bat on Canada’s behalf to have the moratorium lifted.
But then came Black Friday in Vietnam. The 11 ministers who sought to rescue the Trans-Pacific Partnership after President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the pact were in high spirits on Thursday, having reached unanimous agreement at the APEC summit over the terms of the smaller, but still vital, TPP-11. International Trade Minister François-Philippe Champagne reportedly celebrated along with the others.
However, shortly after the meeting ended, word began to circulate that Canada was not, in fact, on board. On Friday, when the heads of government gathered to announce the agreement in principle, Mr. Trudeau failed to attend.
Mystifyingly, all sides reached agreement on Saturday on wording essentially identical to what had been agreed to on Thursday. But by now, it appears, Canada was in deep trouble with other Asian and Pacific leaders.
“The fact is that delegations and leaders were gobsmacked at their behaviour,” the Financial Review quoted an unidentified senior Australian official as saying. “He pulled out of the TPP at five minutes to midnight and then he rocked up at the EAS like he belonged there.”
A Canadian government official, speaking on background because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the issue, said the Australian report was false, that the summit meeting went well and that the government remains on track to realize its trade and diplomatic goals in Asia and the Pacific.
In the government’s defence, Canada has at least one good reason to go slow on the TPP. This country is also involved in talks to renegotiate the North American free-trade agreement, which Mr. Trump is also threatening to scrap.
Until Canada knows the terms of the new treaty – on matters such as the permitted foreign content in automobiles, for example – it arguably makes sense to hold off on signing the TPP.
Though it’s worth pointing out that Mexico is also part of both the TPP and NAFTA talks, and it was willing to sign. In any event, if Canada had concerns, it should have raised them earlier and more clearly.
Compound that with the Liberals’ retreat on their promise to seriously engage in peacekeeping – the contribution that Mr. Trudeau revealed in Vancouver last week fell well short of the original commitment – and Canada’s hopes for a seat at the United Nations Security Council just got considerably thinner.
Not that the mostly symbolic seat matters. What matters is keeping access to the American market open, while improving access to large and emerging markets in Asia and the Pacific.

Those are the declared goals of this government, though it appears Mr. Trudeau did that policy no favours while he was away.

The Globe and Mail. 20 Nov 2017. Article. Retooling Canada’s Asian trade strategy. November has been a good month for Canadian engagement in Asia.
ERIC MILLER, President of Rideau Potomac Strategy Group and a Fellow with the Canadian Global

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau played a prominent role at the 21country Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vietnam and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Manila.
His personal leadership resulted in an agreement on the “core elements” of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for TransPacific Partnership (CPTPP) – the rebranded Trans-Pacific Partnership minus the United States. Canada can now carefully review the agreement to ensure that its specifics are in the national interest while concurrently promoting it to the public.
Seeking to expand Canadian trade with East and Southeast Asia is a smart investment. Combined, they represent 30 per cent of global GDP. Millions of people from these fastgrowing economies are surging into the global middle class and Canada has much to offer these consumers.
Yet, to truly become a major economic player in Asia, Canada must look beyond a simple focus on freetrade agreements and retool its trade-development strategies. Start by learning from those truly succeeding in the region.
The grand masters of trade development in Asia are the Japanese.
Typically, Japan offers countries support in building physical and technological infrastructure. Using the Japanese International Co-operation Agency (JICA) as its delivery vehicle, Japan is funding everything from a subway system in Ho Chi Minh City to software systems that underpin the delivery of an array of government services across Southeast Asia. Japan even funded the purchase and installation of all of the traffic lights in Yangon, Myanmar.
Of course, this assistance is delivered with Japanese steel, Japanese engineering and Japanese technology. By offering low- to no-cost infrastructure, Japan has massive commercial pull in the region and an enormous store of political capital.
While the substantial support offered by the Trade Commissioner Service to Canadian companies seeking to enter Asian markets is crucially important, Canada should also consider experimenting with Japanese-style market-development approaches.
One promising area would seem to be cybersecurity.
It has been reported that Vietnam, for example, has been hit by repeated cyberattacks allegedly originating from their neighbours. And it is not alone.
Canada has a reputation as a trustworthy, even-handed player in many emerging markets. The time has come to convert this into commercial advantage.
The Government of Canada should put together a consortium of companies to market Canadian cyberexpertise as a coherent package. It would be led by a large firm – say, CGI Group Inc. or Open Text Corp. – and include innovative small and mid-size cybercompanies and leading cybercapable entities such as the Toronto Financial Services Alliance.
The market would be developed and payment guaranteed to the firms by virtue of the pot of money and contracts associated with a government-to-government arrangement negotiated by Canada. Export Development Canada would be the logical vehicle for providing financing. It is the clearest and safest way for smaller Canadian companies, which would otherwise have little hope of accessing foreign markets, to go global.
If properly executed, Canada could swiftly build a reputation across Asia as the go-to cybersecurity provider.
Another innovative model to study is Australia.
Each year, the country’s embassy runs a multiweek “Taste of Australia” festival in cities throughout Vietnam. The emerging consumers in this country of 90 million are being introduced to Australian products and brands early on. It includes not only food and beverage, but also fashion and design.
Ten years from now, as incomes rise, many newly affluent Vietnamese will “Think Australia” before most other countries. Canada’s farmers and fashion designers are just as talented as their Australian counterparts. Winning the pole position in this fast-growing market will depend in no small way on the right public and private support.
To succeed in Asia, where, broadly speaking, governments and leading businesses have a rather symbiotic relationship, Canadian firms need deep partnerships with their government.
The old saying tells us “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.” Canada also should apply this same logic to its dealings in Tokyo, Seoul and Hanoi.

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Canadian International Trade Tribunal. November 17, 2017. Tribunal Initiates Final Injury Inquiry—Polytethylene Terephthalate Resin from China, India, Oman and Pakistan

Ottawa, Ontario — The Canadian International Trade Tribunal today initiated an inquiry to determine whether the dumping and subsidizing of polyethylene terephthalate resin originating in or exported from the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of India, the Sultanate of Oman and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan have caused injury or retardation or are threatening to cause injury. This final injury inquiry was initiated further to a notice received from the Canada Border Services Agency stating that a preliminary determination had been made respecting the dumping and subsidizing of the above-mentioned goods.

On March 16, 2018, the Tribunal will determine whether the dumping and subsidizing have caused injury or retardation or are threatening to cause injury to the domestic industry.

The Tribunal is an independent quasi-judicial body that reports to Parliament through the Minister of Finance. It hears cases on dumped and subsidized imports, safeguard complaints, complaints about federal government procurement and appeals of customs and excise tax rulings. When requested by the federal government, the Tribunal also provides advice on other economic, trade and tariff matters.

• Canadian International Trade Tribunal—Newly Published Documents: http://www.citt-tcce.gc.ca/en/whats-new

Global Affairs Canada. November 17, 2017. Historic trade mission to India unleashes new partnerships between Indian and Canadian businesses 

Ottawa, Ontario - The Government of Canada is committed to diversifying trade markets to ensure future growth and prosperity for Canadians and Canadian businesses, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). India is one of the world’s fastest-growing economies and a vibrant market for Canadians seeking to grow their businesses into the Asia-Pacific region and create well-paying jobs at home.

The Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of International Trade, the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, and the Honourable Marc Garneau, Minister of Transport, today concluded a successful trade mission to India aimed at showcasing the Canadian talent and technologies shaping tomorrow’s economy. Some 120 representatives from more than 85 Canadian companies participated in the trade mission.

More than 300 meetings in total were facilitated over the week to enhance Canada-India commercial relations. These included 200 business-to-business meetings surrounding India’s 23rd Technology Summit, held in New Delhi, as well as numerous high-level interactions with Indian ministers and chief ministers in five cities.

During their mission, the ministers opened doors for Canadian businesses of all sizes seeking to partner with Indian companies and helped to support growth opportunities in a variety of fields, including advanced manufacturing, transportation, health, technology and the digital economy. The ministers highlighted the government’s commitment to diversity and the untapped potential of Canada’s people-to-people ties by engaging with Canadian and Indian female business leaders and small-business owners.

Canada and India have much in common and continue to have well-established partnerships in many areas. Strengthening relations between Canada and India helps foreign investors partner with innovative Canadian firms and contributes to the growth of the middle class through new jobs and business opportunities.

Quotes

“India is a vibrant market that offers boundless opportunities for Canadian companies looking to diversify into the Asia-Pacific region. This historic trade mission to India allowed Canadian companies to share their expertise and take advantage of multiple networking and partnership development opportunities. By deepening Canada’s trade and investment ties with India, we are helping our businesses succeed in creating more jobs, prospects and growth for our middle class.”

- François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of International Trade

“Canada and India share values that are the very foundation of successful trading relationships. Our mutual appreciation for a diverse and inclusive economy will facilitate growth and prosperity for our respective countries. Supporting innovation and strengthening our relationships with global partners will diversify markets, expand industries and promote investment. Canada is home to a strong, hardworking and diversified labour force. Fuelling innovation and encouraging global investment in Canada are important steps that will create more jobs and grow our middle class.”

- Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development

“When it comes to innovation, Canada and India are not only world leaders, but also ideal trading partners. Modern trends in technology and in society are changing how people and goods travel. This week, I witnessed first-hand how shared best practices, collaborative ideas and cooperation on transportation issues will help Canadian companies enhance private sector opportunities in India. Ultimately, this will improve lives and allow Canada to trade more efficiently with our international partners.”

- Marc Garneau, Minister of Transport

Quick Facts

• While in India, the travel itineraries of ministers Bains, Champagne and Garneau included Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, New Delhi and Pune.
• Minister Bains was the first Canadian federal minister ever to make an official visit to the city of Pune. Sometimes referred to as “the Oxford of the East” for its role as a major education hub, Pune is also recognized for its auto manufacturing industries and its emerging position as a technology hub.
• During his visit to India, Minister Champagne visited four cities and announced this year’s recipients of the Canadian International Innovation Program—a funding program offered by Global Affairs Canada designed to support Canadian SMEs undertaking bilateral research and development projects.
• While in India, Minister Garneau signed the extension of the Canada-India memorandum of understanding (MOU) on cooperation in road transportation. The updated MOU covers cooperation in road transportation and intelligent transportation systems and creates opportunities for Canadian companies in India.
• Recognizing the significance of the Indian market, Canada has been increasing its trade support network, which now includes close to 50 trade commissioners in eight different locations.
• In 2016, merchandise trade between Canada and India was valued at $8 billion.

See also:

• Canadian Trade Commissioner Service: http://tradecommissioner.gc.ca/index.aspx?lang=eng
• Canada’s Innovation and Skills Plan: http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/062.nsf/eng/home

AVIATION

The Globe and Mail. Reuters. 20 Nov 2017. Stalled deal with Emirates poses hurdles for Airbus
TIM HEPHER
ALEXANDER CORNWELL

A preliminary deal to sell 36 A380s to Emirates blew up in an Airbus SE hospitality chalet moments before the Gulf carrier was expected to shower $30-billion (U.S.) on the plane maker and its U.S. rival Boeing Co. at the start of last week’s Dubai Airshow.
Two top Emirates officials broke the news to Airbus chief executive Tom Enders and his sales chief John Leahy that the widely expected $16billion deal would not be signed that day, leaving uncertainty over the future of the world’s largest jetliner.
The halt came so swiftly that Airbus executives who were already in place for a double-signing ceremony a hundred yards away found themselves awkwardly among the audience as Boeing walked away with the sole Emirates order, worth $15-billion.
The unusual stumble in slick airshow choreography highlights problems over timing and trust that may even now complicate a deal between Airbus and Emirates, people aware of the matter said.
One of the closest and most successful relations in aviation is looking bruised and throws up new complications for Airbus just as it struggles to maintain business as usual at a time when it faces British and French compliance probes.
A day after Airbus’s hopes were dashed, airline president Tim Clark publicly delivered a message from Dubai’s government saying it wanted a guarantee from Airbus that it would keep producing the A380 for 10 years, before the state-owned carrier would agree to placing a new order. Mr. Enders e-mailed Mr. Clark calling the ultimatum, first reported by Reuters, unhelpful, two people aware of the matter said.
Airbus and Emirates declined comment.
“There is a worrying breakdown of the relationship between Airbus and Emirates,” said a person familiar with the talks. “Airbus was confident of getting a deal,” a Gulf source added. “But Dubai does not want to be taken for granted.”
Many in the industry say Airbus appears directionless as Mr. Leahy is due to retire in January, the guardian of the Emirates relationship, Habib Fekih, did so earlier this year and doubts grow over whether Mr. Enders will secure a new CEO mandate in 2019. Meanwhile, the probes have badly clogged Airbus’s decision-making.
On the Emirates side, top executive Mr. Clark – although full of energy at 67 and dismissing talk of retirement – is likely to hand over the baton at some stage, and it is uncertain how committed other managers are to the A380 flagship.
“Nobody knows who is going to be in charge of the other side later, which doesn’t help,” a person familiar with the matter said.

REUTERS. NOVEMBER 20, 2017. Bombardier taps bond markets to raise up to $900 million

(Reuters) - Canadian plane and train maker Bombardier (BBDb.TO) said on Monday it was offering seven-year bonds to raise up to $900 million (C$1.15 billion).

The company said it expects to use some of the net proceeds to buy its $600 million senior notes due 2019.

Reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar

ENERGY

StatCan. 2017-11-20. Pipeline transportation of oil and other liquid petroleum products, September 2017

• Pipeline receipts of crude oil from fields and plants: 21.0 million cubic metres, September 2017
• Exports of crude oil by pipeline: 14.4 million cubic metres, September 2017
• Closing inventories of crude oil: 11.6 million cubic metres, September 2017

Source(s): CANSIM table 133-0006

Crude oil receipts

Pipelines received 21.0 million cubic metres of crude oil and equivalent products from Canadian fields and plants in September, up 1.1% compared with the same month in 2016. The majority originated in Alberta (86.3%) and Saskatchewan (11.0%).

Chart 1: Pipeline receipts of crude oil from fields and plants

Crude oil deliveries

Pipelines delivered 7.4 million cubic metres of crude oil to Canadian refineries in September, up 5.9% compared with the same month a year earlier. Of this total, 67.8% was sent to refineries in the western provinces, while the remaining volumes were delivered to refineries in Ontario and Quebec.

Exports and imports

In September, pipelines exported 14.4 million cubic metres of crude oil to the United States, up 5.1% compared with the same month in 2016. Meanwhile, imports from the United States totalled 1.5 million cubic metres.

Chart 2: Exports and imports of crude oil by pipeline

Closing inventories

In September, closing inventories of crude oil totalled 11.6 million cubic metres, down 1.1% compared with the same month a year earlier.

FULL DOCUMENT: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/171120/dq171120c-eng.pdf

SOCIAL FINANCE

Employment and Social Development Canada. November 10, 2017. Speech from Minister Jean-Yves Duclos at the 10th Social Finance Forum held at Toronto’s MaRS Discovery District. Speech. Toronto, Ontario

Good morning, everyone.

First of all, I would like to acknowledge that we are on the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, Métis and Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation people.

Thank you to the MaRS Centre for Impact Investing for inviting me here today.

And thank you for your accomplishments in the field of social finance. You play a key role in the growth of the Canadian impact investing market.

I’m thinking for example of the social impact bond which was launched at this event last year and developed by MaRS in partnership with the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Heart and Stroke Foundation. This initiative is helping 7,000 Canadian seniors by reducing their risk of cardiovascular disease due to hypertension.[1]

This is no small feat!

I also want to express my sincere congratulations to the recipients of the Social Finance Awards. Bravo for your visionary leadership.

We are gathered today at the MaRS Collaboration Centre – the perfect place to discuss the future of social finance.

 To begin, I want to quote the great Martin Luther King, who once said “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is ‘What are you doing for others?’”[2]

Every day, each of you works to help others, so I know you would all easily be able to answer this question.

I see before me social entrepreneurs, global thought leaders, investors, government representatives and educators. But whatever your expertise or field of interest, you are all driven by a common goal – the need to find innovative solutions to help lift up your communities.

You are well aware that collaboration with new partners, testing creative ideas and the impact of these initiatives can improve the quality of life of our most vulnerable citizens in a concrete way.

On behalf of the Government of Canada, I would like to express my gratitude for your exemplary collaboration.

Like you, we recognize that Canada still faces very complex and deep-rooted challenges like chronic unemployment, homelessness and social isolation.

These are challenges that cannot be easily resolved using traditional approaches or by any single level of government.

This is why we always need to be looking for creative ways to solve problems, working with the biggest brains and the biggest hearts in the private, not-for-profit and public sectors, and listening to people with lived experience.

And, like you, our government wants to take action and bring innovation to the forefront.

Over the last few years, my department has explored social innovation and social finance as a way to improve the efficiency of our programs.

New types of partnerships and approaches have already been tested, such as social impact bonds, microloans, performance-based pay and support for social enterprises.

Since 2014, many Employment and Social Development Canada grants and contributions programs have launched calls for proposals for innovative projects – including the Homelessness Partnering Strategy and the youth employment program Skills Link.

We want to build on this momentum. And rest assured that we want to do so in a concrete way.

That is why we are working to develop a Canadian Social Innovation and Social Finance Strategy.

We need to create new, better, more efficient ways to help the most vulnerable Canadians.

When I say “social innovation” and “social finance” I am talking about new ways to solve big problems, helping those most in need.

Once it is completed, this strategy will help us:

• use innovative approaches;
• build Canada’s social finance marketplace;
• create a favourable environment for social enterprises; and
• foster partnerships.

The overall objective is to face social challenges and deliver measurable results for Canadians and communities.

This past June, a Co-Creation Steering Group was appointed to bring together some of Canada’s brightest minds on social innovation and social finance.

Several members of this group are present here today and you had the opportunity to hear from some of them yesterday. I would like to acknowledge them and thank them once again for their service.

I know the Steering Group has been working hard in the past few months thinking about how to accelerate the growth of Canada’s social finance market through new initiatives, such as establishing a wholesale investment fund.

Not only has the Steering Group been exploring how the Government of Canada could make more of existing regional social finance investment funds, but also how to leverage newly developed partnerships across Canada.

We know that easier access to regional funds could help community organizations test innovative approaches.

The Steering Group is also working towards an approach that would respond to community and regional priorities, while mobilizing resources for nation-wide challenges – and looking to learn from the best international practices in this area.

In other words, the objective of this approach is to help accelerate the growth of Canada’s social finance market, while building on the distinctive strengths of regions and communities across the country.

They seek a made‑in-Canada approach that will help build on the existing ecosystem of supports for those entrepreneurs and organizations on the “demand side” of social finance.

They are actively exploring initiatives to improve the capacity and skills of community organizations interested to make use of social finance, and they have ideas for strengthening the knowledge and data infrastructure that will be needed for Canada’s social finance marketplace to succeed.

And I believe that all of you, gathered here today, can help us achieve that objective.

In fact, your invitation to this Forum comes at the perfect time.

You see, the Co-Creation Steering Group recently launched an online consultation process.[3] And the goal is to hear everyone’s ideas, including yours.

We want to hear your ideas.

We need your cooperation to develop a truly effective strategy. You are in the best position to talk about social innovation and social finance.

It’s also a unique opportunity for you to change the way things are done in Canada.

We are all aware that social innovation, social enterprise and social finance have been applied successfully in countries like the United States and the United Kingdom.

Now, it is Canada’s turn.

The Government of Canada is committed to developing a Social Innovation and Social Finance Strategy – not simply for Canadians, but with Canadians.

The bottom line is very simple: we are looking for more creative solutions to our tough social problems. By working together, and working differently, we can create a win‑win situation – one where we help our economy and our most vulnerable, including Indigenous people, youth at risk, women fleeing violence, socially isolated seniors, and the homeless.

We want to hear your most promising ideas for growing an ever more diverse, vibrant and impactful market for social finance in this country, building on the most successful practices and institutions in our communities and regions.

And you have the power to help us make this change. You have an important opportunity to have your say.

So I ask you to take part in our consultation process. Help us move in the right direction. Only by collaborating with partners like you will an effective Strategy be possible.

When we work together and mobilize everybody around a big challenge, we are more likely to solve it. When we bring everyone to the table, we can deliver better results for Canadians.

I started by quoting Martin Luther King. I will end with another of his quotes: “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”[4]

It’s clear to see that you have all made your choice.

In a world that seems to focus on consumerism, your presence and everyday actions show that giving priority to the greater good is in fact possible.

I wish you all the best for the rest of the Forum, and I thank you again for your commitment to Canadians all across the country.

Thank you.

NOTES

1. http://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/minister-of-health-announces-social-impact-bond-for-heart-and-stroke-health-599024391.html
2. Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved September 28, 2017, from BrainyQuote.com Web site: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/martinluth137105.html.  
3. https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/news/2017/09/canadians_are_invitedtosharetheirideasonthedevelopmentofasociali.html 
4. Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved September 28, 2017, from BrainyQuote.com Web site: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/martinluth132188.html.

________________

LGCJ.: