Advance Canada's progressive trade agenda.

What success looks like

Canadian workers are protected from unfair trade practices, trade agreements maintain or improve Canadian levels of protection in key areas like employment and the environment, and Canada advances the rules-based international order and trading system.

Government's narrative on progress

As part of Canada's inclusive approach to trade the government continues to consult broadly and advocate for stronger provisions on the Environment and Labour, as well as on gender equality and women's economic empowerment, trade and Indigenous peoples, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and the right to regulate in public interest. Canada's inclusive approach to trade seeks to ensure that the benefits of trade and investment are more widely shared. This approach also seeks to ensure that levels of environmental and labour protection are upheld and that a country’s environmental and labour laws and obligations are enforced in the context of trade and investment liberalization. The modernized Canada-Chile Free Trade Agreement (CCFTA) includes a Trade and Gender Chapter, a first for Canada and any G20 country, as does the recently modernized Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement (CIFTA), demonstrating Canada’s continued commitment to furthering gender equality and women’s participation in international trade. The Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) includes provisions on protecting the environment, health and safety, and employment standards. The CETA joint committee recently issued three joint recommendations on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, Trade and Gender, and SMEs. The Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (CPTPP) includes robust labour and environment chapters that are subject to the Agreement's enforceable dispute settlement. Furthermore, in parallel to the signing of the CPTPP, Canada, Chile and New Zealand issued a Joint Declaration confirming their commitment to work together to ensure that international trade policy is more inclusive and that the benefits of international trade are more widely shared. The government will continue to develop and advance inclusive approaches to trade through bilateral and multilateral engagement and play a leadership role in international fora. Canada's implementation of International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 98 which entered into force on in June 14 2018 and which affirms the fundamental right to collectively bargaining is one example of this approach. Canada has now ratified all eight of the ILO Core conventions. Also, in December, 2017, Canada played a leadership role in advancing the WTO Buenos Aires Declaration on Women and Trade, endorsed by over 120 WTO members and observers. Declarations on Progressive and Inclusive Trade and Investment were also signed in the context of the Foreign Investment Protection Agreements (FIPAs) with Kosovo in March 2018 and Moldova in June 2018. In support of Canada's commitment to the rules-based order, in October 2018, Canada convened a meeting of 12 WTO member countries at the Ottawa Ministerial on WTO Reform (now known as the "Ottawa Group"), with the view to identifying possible concrete actions to enhance and improve the WTO over the short, medium and long term. The Ottawa Group met again on the margins of the World Economic Forum in Davos (January 2019), where a key outcome was the launch of an open-ended process open to all WTO Members to improve the ways that WTO committees function, as a tangible way to make a difference in improving the operation and transparency of the WTO.

Note: this is the government's own description, not an independent assessment.