Poison pills and protectionism: negotiators still face long list of issues in next NAFTA round
Last week, trade observers could be forgiven for feeling whiplash after reports swung from Canadian advisers expecting an imminent United States withdrawal from NAFTA to U.S. President Donald Trump musing negotiations could continue past Mexico’s July presidential election. The fifth round of negotiations was supposed to be a ministerial meeting, but was a dialled back […]
NAFTA leaves workers coming up short
While NAFTA talks continue in Ottawa, very little focuses on its impacts on working people. Before committing to any agreement, we need to ensure that Canadians’ lives and our communities have been improved by this trade relationship. Twenty-three years ago when NAFTA was originally negotiated by the Mulroney Conservatives, they tried to sell Canadian workers […]
Environment Minister McKenna plucks new D. Comms from think-tank
Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna has bolstered her communications team, hiring Julia Kilpatrick to serve as her director of communications as of Dec. 1. Before then, Ms. Kilpatrick was communications director for Clean Energy Canada, a think-tank under Simon Fraser University’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue that focuses on “work to accelerate our […]
PCO’s innovation unit nudging more women to join the military
Young women are not sure they can successfully complete basic training when they consider a career in the Canadian Armed Forces, and think they are committing for life, says Elizabeth Hardy. But neither of these are true, she said, when in reality nine out of 10 women pass basic training, and many do better than […]
I’m okay, you’re screwed: the inequality time bomb
As if the anecdotal evidence weren’t overwhelming enough, a study published Nov. 15 in the research journal Nature warned that record levels of income inequality, particularly in the United States, could produce social instability. The Republicans in Congress, apparently fearing an unruly mob, responded by passing massive tax breaks for the people who make the barricades. The U.S., […]
Canada, EU in trade row over fees on aircraft exports
Canadian officials have been working for months to lower what they have called “excessive” fees levied on the country’s aerospace exports to Europe, but have had a hard time getting cooperation from their European counterparts. The dispute over fees charged by the European Aviation Safety Agency to certify Canadian aircraft and parts goes back to […]
Vox Populi on Canada’s aerospace industry
Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains on the domestic aerospace industry in June 2017: “Canada’s aerospace industry is defined by its global leadership in the development of new technologies, which depend on the talents of the highly skilled men and women who work in this sector. Our highly skilled workforce is the reason […]
Canada lobbying U.S. influencers on Bombardier dispute, says Bains
Canada isn’t ready to back down in the spat between plane-makers Bombardier and Boeing, which has turned into a multi-country trade dispute, federal Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains signalled in a Q&A with The Hill Times. Canadian officials are lobbying decision makers and “influencers” south of the border, according to Mr. Bains, as the U.S. Commerce […]
No worries: Aerospace industry not fazed by melding of Harper-era R&D program into general innovation fund
Aerospace industry advocates are expressing support for the folding of the federal government’s Strategic Aerospace and Defence Initiative (SADI) into Ottawa’s broader innovation fund, saying the move better meets current research and development needs. Along with two other industry-specific programs, SADI was consolidated into the $1.26-billion Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) in the 2017 budget, which […]
Supply management keeps ‘family farming’ alive in Canada
Renegotiating NAFTA is not a simple task, and the potential effects of such an important trade agreement go far beyond what we hear in the news. While Canadian, American and Mexican farmers have commonly asked our governments to “do no harm” when it comes to our industries—a position that has since then been adopted by […]
