CANADA ECONOMICS

VENEZUELA

Global Affairs Canada. OAS. February 24, 2018. Canada welcomes OAS resolution on crisis in Venezuela

Ottawa, Ontario - The Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today made the following statement:

“Canada welcomes the adoption of a resolution by the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States calling on the Government of Venezuela to take all necessary actions to guarantee a free, fair, transparent, and legitimate electoral process. The passing of a strong resolution demonstrates the hemisphere’s shared commitment to upholding the principles of democracy in our region.

“Through this resolution and other statements, the international community has been clear: the Maduro regime’s unilateral decision to hold presidential elections on April 22 that exclude opposition parties has undermined the electoral process. The proposal to move parliamentary elections forward to the same date, and with the same restrictions, would run the risk of further undermining Venezuela’s entire democratic system.

“Canada remains seized by the Maduro regime’s ongoing assault on the rights of the Venezuelan people. We are also deeply concerned by the grave humanitarian situation and its increasing impact on neighbouring countries.

“Canada stands firm with our partners throughout the Americas, in the OAS, and in the Lima Group, in defending the rights of all Venezuelans, and in particular, their right to participate in a credible electoral process.”

U.S. Department of State. February 24, 2018. Western Hemisphere: Concerns for Democracy in Venezuela. Press Statement. Heather Nauert, Department Spokesperson

Washington, DC - The United States respects the decision by Venezuelan opposition parties, most recently the Democratic Unity Roundtable, to reject President Maduro’s terms and conditions for April presidential elections. We reject ruling party calls to replace the democratically elected National Assembly simultaneously, rather than in 2021, as provided for under the 1999 Constitution. Deepening the rupture of Venezuela’s constitutional and democratic order will not solve the nation’s crises.

We reiterate our call for the establishment of a legitimate and independent National Electoral Council, selected by the National Assembly as required by the Constitution. We renew our call for the establishment of an electoral calendar in compliance with the Constitution and in consultation with the legitimate National Assembly. We note that the lack of agreed terms for an election seriously compromises the integrity of the process. A free and fair election should include the full participation of all political parties and political leaders, the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners, a proper electoral calendar, credible international observation, and an independent electoral authority.

The United States stands with democratic nations around the world in support of the Venezuelan people and their sovereign right to elect their representatives through free and fair elections.

AVIATION

REUTERS. FEBRUARY 25, 2018. Boeing to have 51 percent stake in venture with Embraer: paper

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Boeing Co (BA.N) will have a 51 percent stake in a joint company currently being negotiated with Brazilian aircraft maker Embraer (EMBR3.SA), O Globo newspaper columnist Lauro Jardim reported on Sunday.

Boeing has agreed to a Brazilian government demand that the U.S. company have no more than a 51 percent controlling share, Jardim said, without citing sources.

Embraer said it would not comment on the matter. Boeing did not respond to a request for comment.


Boeing has sought Brazilian government approval of the partnership with Embraer that would create a new company focused on commercial aviation, excluding Embraer’s defense unit, Reuters reported three weeks ago.

The Valor Economico newspaper later reported that Boeing’s proposal would give it an 80 percent to 90 percent stake in a new commercial jet business with Embraer.

Embraer is the world’s third largest planemaker and the leader in the 70-seat to 130-seat regional jet market.

With the proposed tie-up Boeing would be the market leader in the smaller passenger jet market, creating stiffer competition for the CSeries aircraft program designed by Canada’s Bombardier Inc (BBDb.TO) and backed by European rival Airbus SE (AIR.PA).

Boeing Co
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Boeing’s initial plan to buy Embraer was rejected by the Brazilian government because it did not want a foreign company to control its defense unit for strategic security reasons.

The government maintains a so-called golden share in Embraer, a former state enterprise, that gives it veto power over strategic decisions, including Boeing’s push for a tie-up.

On Thursday Brazilian Defense Minister Raul Jungmann told reporters that Boeing had understood Brazil’s refusal to give up control of Embraer. He said negotiations on the creation of a third company were advancing well.

Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe

NAFTA

The Globe and Mail. 26 Feb 2018. Presidential feud muddies NAFTA talks. Ahead of Mexican elections, Trump ‘lost his temper’ on call with Pena Nieto, intensifying border-wall rhetoric. Trump's combative call with Mexican president casts shadow over NAFTA talks. As the seventh round of NAFTA renegotiations opened on Sunday in Mexico City, a serious dispute between the presidents of Mexico and the United States threatens to disrupt talks.
ADRIAN MORROW, MEXICO CITY

U.S. President Donald Trump’s border wall is casting a shadow over the contentious NAFTA renegotiations following a combative telephone call that caused Mexico’s President to cancel a planned visit to Washington.

Mr. Trump’s continuing insistence that Mexico pay for a wall along its frontier with the United States is a major complication for the already difficult talks, whose seventh round opened Sunday at a luxury modernist hotel in Mexico City’s tony Polanco neighbourhood.

And with a Mexican presidential election looming, the three sides must decide whether to risk continuing to negotiate in an increasingly volatile political climate or put discussions on hold until after the July 1 vote.

The resurfacing of the wall dispute also throws a wrench into the U.S.’s negotiating strategy, which recently had been to encourage Mexico’s conciliatory approach to talks as a counterpoint to Canada’s tougher posture.

The Feb. 20 call between Mr. Trump and his Mexican counterpart, Enrique Pena Nieto, was supposed to be a prelude to an in-person meeting in the U.S. capital next month. But, as first reported by The Washington Post Saturday, Mr. Trump “lost his temper” during the 50-minute conversation when Mr. Pena Nieto insisted the U.S. President back off his promise to make Mexico foot the bill for the wall.

Whether Mr. Trump will actually insist on Mexico writing the U.S. a cheque is an open question: He has suggested in recent weeks that, instead, he would simply claim a renegotiated NAFTA is so much better for the U.S. that it counts as “payment” for the wall.

But even such rhetorical spin would be too much for Mexico, where Mr. Trump is deeply reviled. One Pew Research poll last year showed 93 per cent of Mexicans had no confidence in the U.S. President, the highest rate of disapproval of any country in the world.

Mr. Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party faces an uphill battle to hold on to power. Polls show its presidential candidate, Jose Antonio Meade, trailing leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and conservative Ricardo Anaya.

Two Canadian government sources said Sunday that Mr. Trump’s spat with Mr. Pena Nieto would not immediately affect the negotiations, in which trade officials are focused on the technical details of the trade pact and not the broader political context.

But the President’s intervention risks further inflaming Mexican public opinion, making it harder for the government to compromise for fear of triggering an electoral backlash.

“If the current government is not able to show that they’re getting a good deal, it will hurt them at the polls,” said Luz Maria de la Mora, a former Mexican trade official who was involved in the original NAFTA negotiations.

“This will become an issue in the campaign: Candidates need to show that they’re firm and will defend Mexico no matter what. It will be extremely difficult to get a deal done in the next few months.”

One source in the U.S. business community said it was increasingly likely that the talks would be suspended within the next few weeks, and resume either after Mexico’s presidential election or the U.S. midterms in November. A Canadian government source said it was too soon to say whether negotiations would be paused, and that Ottawa was pushing for progress in the current round. The United States imposed a March deadline to conclude the discussions, but hitting such a target seems unlikely.

The talks are at loggerheads over a series of protectionist demands from the Trump administration. Washington wants all autos made in Canada and Mexico to contain 50-per-cent U.S. content, tight restrictions on Canadian and Mexican companies bidding on U.S. government contracts, the abolition or gutting of the pact’s dispute-resolution mechanisms and a sunset clause that would end NAFTA in five years unless all three countries agreed to extend it.

REUTERS. FEBRUARY 26, 2018. Negotiators seek progress on NAFTA despite fresh Trump tension
Anthony Esposito, Adriana Barrera

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - U.S., Mexican and Canadian negotiators meet on Monday seeking to narrow disagreements on how to overhaul the NAFTA trade deal despite renewed signs of tension between Mexico and U.S. President Donald Trump over his planned border wall.

The trade teams began a seventh round of talks on Sunday aiming to finish reworking less contentious chapters of the North American Free Trade Agreement in order to create space to broker agreement on the trickiest subjects.

Still, with a presidential election looming in Mexico in July and U.S. mid-term congressional elections in November, the talks increasingly run the risk of getting entangled in domestic political considerations.

Negotiators are confident that the lesser hurdles will gradually be cleared. But not for the first time, the discussions have been clouded by the wall along the U.S. southern border that Trump has long touted as a necessity to curb illegal immigration and that he says Mexico must pay for.

Mexico has consistently rejected paying for the wall, and its government had hoped to arrange a meeting between President Enrique Pena Nieto and Trump in the next few weeks. However, a senior U.S. official said at the weekend that plan had been postponed after a phone call between the two soured over the wall earlier this month.

The trade negotiators have become used to such distractions, but the talks are increasingly centering on U.S. demands that officials say can only be resolved at the top political level.

The NAFTA talks were launched last year after Trump said the 1994 agreement should be overhauled to better favor American interests or Washington would withdraw.

Officials do not anticipate major breakthroughs on the most intractable proposals during the latest round of talks in Mexico City, which are due to run until March 5.

Those U.S. demands range from changes to automotive content origin rules and dispute resolution mechanisms, to imposing a clause that could automatically kill NAFTA after five years.

Agriculture, rules of origin, labor and regulatory practices are among the issues scheduled to be tackled by the experts on Monday, one day before the chief negotiators return to the fray.

The Trump administration wants NAFTA rules of origin changed to impose higher sourcing requirements on automotive content, a major sticking point that the industry itself opposes.

Seeking to break the deadlock, the Mexican government has said it would put forward a proposal on rules of origin, though it has not given any details. A Mexican official said late on Sunday that the country did not yet have a counterproposal.

There was little sign of compromise on other thorny issues early on, with a senior Canadian agriculture official pushing back against U.S. demands to dismantle Canadian protections for the dairy and poultry sectors known as supply management.

“When it comes to supply management, we believe there can be no concession,” said Jeff Leal, the minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs for the province of Ontario.

Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by Frances Kerryting by Frances Kerry

REUTERS. FEBRUARY 25, 2018. New NAFTA talks aim to clear pathway to toughest issues
Anthony Esposito, Sharay Angulo

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico and Canada aim to finish reworking less contentious chapters of the NAFTA trade deal with the United States in new talks that began on Sunday, hoping to clear the path for a breakthrough on the toughest issues before upcoming elections.

In six months, negotiators have made progress on the technical details of a revamped North American Free Trade Agreement, but made little advance on strong demands for change made by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Ranging from calls for major changes to automotive content rules and dispute resolution mechanisms, to imposing a clause that could automatically kill NAFTA after five years, the chief stumbling blocks laid by the White House look unlikely to be removed in the latest Mexico City round, officials said.

Trump frequently threatens to walk away from NAFTA unless big changes are made to a pact he blames for U.S. manufacturing job losses.

“I think there’s going to be major progress on the technical issues and major obstacles on the critical issues,” Bosco de la Vega, head of the Mexico’s National Agricultural Council farm lobby, said of the talks running until March 5.

Once agreement is reached on technical chapters such as state-owned enterprises, barriers to trade and e-commerce, about 10 percent of the modernized accord would eventually be left over for political leaders to work out, de la Vega estimated.

A schedule for the latest round showed that the discussions for the first three days would include rules of origin, an issue at the heart of the Trump administration’s demand to raise the amount of auto content sourced from the NAFTA region.

Under NAFTA, at least 62.5 percent of the net cost of a passenger car or light truck must originate in the region to avoid tariffs. Trump wants the threshold raised to 85 percent.

“You can’t have a successful negotiation if there’s no change to the rules of origin,” said a Mexican official, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding: “It won’t be 85 percent. We’re not sure what the number is going to be.”

Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo has said his negotiating team aims to present a proposal on rules of origin, although he has not provided details.

On Sunday evening, the Mexican official told Reuters: “We don’t have a counterproposal yet.”

Any final agreement would need to be reached between Trump and auto-sector leaders in the United States who oversee the NAFTA region, an industry source close to the process said.

The North American auto industry has pushed back against Trump’s demands, arguing they would damage competitiveness and regional supply chains.

Mexico aims to build on the previous round in Montreal, when Canada floated proposals to address U.S. demands, including one to include costs for engineering, research and development and other items in the total value of an auto.

The schedule showed that several chapters that negotiators have signaled are close to concluding, including e-commerce, telecommunications and energy, are up for discussion toward the end of the round. Financial services will last for three days.

NO QUICK FIX

The latest round comes amid flare-ups between Washington and Ottawa and growing, if cautious, optimism in Mexico that the trade agreement will remain.

Talks are running behind schedule and some officials believe the longer they last, the less likely it is that Trump will dump NAFTA.

Negotiators had wanted to wrap up talks by March to avoid them being politicized by Mexico’s July presidential election. U.S. congressional elections in November could also complicate the talks.

But officials have raised the possibility that they will run past Mexico’s vote, and some said they could continue at a technical level for several months if necessary.

A U.S. official said: “There has never been a hard deadline,” and belief is growing among Mexicans following the process that lobbying efforts by U.S. business leaders and politicians to preserve NAFTA have been gaining traction.

The office of Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton on Friday published a letter sent this month to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in which he urged him to “preserve and expand market access” under NAFTA, and build on existing ties.

While pledging to stay in the talks, Canada’s chief negotiator, Steve Verheul, struck a downbeat tone last week, telling a business audience: “There are large gaps between what we’re trying to achieve and what the U.S. is trying to achieve.”

Additional reporting by Dave Graham and Adriana Barrera in Mexico City, Lesley Wroughton in Washington and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Susan Thomas and Peter Cooney

FOREIGN POLICY

The Globe and Mail. 26 Feb 2018. ARTICLE. Trudeau is delivering the foreign policy Canadians deserve
DAVID MULRONEY, President of the University of St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto and a former ambassador to China

The best that can be said about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s visit to India is that it may prompt a review, if not a complete rethinking, of a Canadian foreign policy that appears to be seriously off the rails. We have some hard lessons to learn.

At the very least, the Prime Minister’s debacle in India should encourage smart people in Ottawa to zero in on what isn’t working.

Most worrying is a fundamental and puzzling failure at the level of policy implementation, something that appears to be compounded by the Prime Minister’s own impetuosity. Flying to India before the big meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in the bag, much like heading off to Beijing on a free-trade themed visit without any reasonable expectation that a deal was doable, exposes Mr. Trudeau to a degree of prolonged public skepticism that comes to define the visit itself.

Ottawa’s obsession with exotic photo ops is a less likely candidate for serious review, given its long and undistinguished lineage through such past devotees as Stephen Harper and Jean Chrétien.

But we can at least hope that the Trudeau version of this practice may get dialled down. Through his rapid succession of exotic costume changes, Mr. Trudeau managed to do to his own image what Alec Baldwin does, through similarly comic exaggeration, to U.S. President Donald Trump’s on Saturday Night Live.

Even harder to banish will be our obsession with diaspora politics. No one is denying that we derive wonderful advantages from our multicultural society. But other multicultural countries, such as the United States, Australia and Britain, are far less inclined to view their international interests so completely through the prism of diaspora communities.

We need to understand that Canada’s interests in India are not entirely the same as those of influential portions of the Indo-Canadian community or of the SikhCanadian subset of that community. Worse, our continuing insistence on the political importance of diaspora groups makes it more likely that their countries of origin – and this is particularly true of China and India – will be inclined to interfere in Canadian affairs.

These persistent problems point to an inconvenient truth: The problem isn’t with politicians, it’s with all of us. We’re getting the foreign policy we deserve. We seem unable to grasp that our engagement of countries such as India and China ultimately needs to be about something more than reminding them of how much they admire us.

India isn’t our friend. It is a rising regional power beset with a range of domestic problems, including serious human-rights issues. It takes a prickly approach to global issues that is often at odds with traditional Canadian policies in areas ranging from trade policy to nuclear disarmament.

The Indian diplomats I worked with could be wonderfully pleasant after the official day was done. But, for the most part, they brought a formidably ruthless precision to their pursuit of India’s interests in the world. While they might ultimately agree to grant Canada a concession, this was always a product of hard and often heated negotiations. They never conceded a point because they liked us or because we are home to a large Indo-Canadian community.

My experience with Chinese diplomats was entirely similar.

Long before the election of Mr. Trump, it should have been clear to us that the world is changing in ways that do not align with traditional Canadian views, interests and values. If we’re smart, the rise of countries such as China and India can certainly contribute to our prosperity, and with hard work, we should be able to find common cause on important issues such as global warming.

But the rise of these assertive and ambitious Asian powers will almost certainly challenge global and regional security. Both will also continue to reject traditional Canadian notions about global governance and human rights, and neither will be particularly squeamish about interfering in Canadian affairs.

The Trump era should convince us that we can no longer rely entirely on the protective cover of a globally engaged United States. We need to be smart and hardnosed when it comes to promoting and defending our own interests. Photo ops and costume changes won’t cut it any more.

CANADA - INDIA

Canadian Intellectual Property Office. February 23, 2018. CIPO strengthens relationship with Intellectual Property India and expands toolkit for protecting IP abroad

Gatineau – Innovation, Science and Economic Development / Canadian Intellectual Property Office
The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for cooperation on intellectual property (IP) with Intellectual Property India’s parent department, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

As Canada sharpens its focus on innovation and IP, this MoU will strengthen bilateral cooperation through a number of mutually beneficial activities, including raising the awareness and understanding of the IP environment in both countries. As well, information sessions and personnel training will enhance the quality of work performed by both IP offices, and the services they provide to their respective clients.

In support of its strategic priorities to advance innovation through active international collaboration, and build IP awareness and education, CIPO has also released a new guide for Canadian entrepreneurs looking to expand to India, titled “Protecting your IP in India”. CIPO has produced similar guides to assist businesses in protecting their IP in China, the United States, and the European Union.

Quick facts

• India has been identified by the Government of Canada as a country that represents tremendous opportunity for deeper Canadian engagement.
• Since 2005, investment and trade between Canada and India have grown significantly.
• IP filings at CIPO by Indian residents have increased by 58% between 2010 and 2016.

FULL DOCUMENT: https://www.canada.ca/en/intellectual-property-office/news/2018/02/cipo-strengthens-relationship-with-intellectual-property-india-and-expands-toolkit-for-protecting-ip-abroad.html

AGRICULTURE

StatCan. 2018-02-26. Dairy statistics, December 2017
   
Cheddar cheese production rose 4.6% from 2016 to 162 350 tonnes in 2017, while specialty cheese production increased 3.6% to 310 856 tonnes. Creamery butter (up 16.4% to 108 774 tonnes) and hard ice cream (up 3.0% to 141 875 kilolitres) production was also higher, while yogurt production decreased 5.0% to 387 464 tonnes.

Stocks of creamery butter were 83.7% higher on January 1, 2018, at 21 255 tonnes, compared with the same day last year. Meanwhile, cheddar cheese stocks rose 10.1% to 52 269 tonnes and variety cheese stocks were up 11.5% to 36 246 tonnes.

Total cash receipts from milk and cream sold off farms totalled $6.6 billion in 2017, up 6.3% from 2016.

FULL DOCUMENT: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/180226/dq180226a-eng.pdf

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