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Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)
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Current FTAA Negotiations
Background Information on Services Negotiations
Canada’s economy is increasingly driven by a dynamic services
sector which includes a number of knowledge-intensive industries.
Canadians excel in providing sophisticated services and are global
leaders in telecommunications, aerospace, computer services, biotechnology,
environmental technology and many other sectors of the new economy.
Canada's services exports to FTAA countries, excluding the U.S.
and Mexico, are growing fast (average annual rate of 7.6%) and totaled
$2 billion in 2001. Commercial services such as financial, legal
and professional services were responsible for the bulk of these
gains and grew at an average annual rate of 9.7% to reach $1.2 billion
in 2001. Once completed, the FTAA would be the world's largest free
trade area.
Canada’s objective in the FTAA negotiations is to improve
international market access, transparency and predictability for
Canadian services providers, particularly with regard to small and
medium-sized enterprises. In the elaboration of FTAA rules on services,
Canada will be guided by its existing rights and obligations in
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Canada-Chile
Free Trade Agreement (CCFTA), and the WTO General Agreement on Trade
in Services (GATS).
All trade agreements covering services and signed by Canada exclude,
in one way or another, public services such as health, public education
and social services. In the context of the ongoing FTAA negotiations,
therefore, Canada has made its position regarding public education,
health, and social services very clear: they are not negotiable.
This approach is reflected in Canada’s initial FTAA offer
for services and investment which reserves against, inter alia,
national treatment for existing and future measures respecting health,
public education and a variety of social services to the extent
that they are established or maintained for a public purpose. Nothing
in any of Canada’s international trade agreements can force
countries to privatize or to deregulate their public services. Decisions
to either privatize or deregulate in areas such as health, public
education and social services are domestic policy decisions.
Canada is also committed to maintaining flexibility to pursue its
cultural policy objectives in the FTAA negotiations. The Government's
position on culture is to continue its traditional approach to bilateral
and regional agreements and seek a general cultural exemption as
it did in the Canada-Chile and Canada-Israel free trade agreements.
With regards to water distribution services, Canada will ensure
that nothing in the FTAA undermines the ability of governments to
deliver potable water. In Canada, drinking water is currently delivered
to citizens by municipal, regional or provincial governments, either
directly by these governments or through procurement by these governments
of water distribution services. In the FTAA negotiations, Canada
will continue to ensure, using the approach that was taken in the
NAFTA, that our international trade obligations preserve this right.
Water in its natural state is a natural resource and is not a good
for the purposes of trade agreements. Only when water has been transformed
into a good does it become subject to trade disciplines dealing
with trade in goods. With respect to water distribution services,
the Government of Canada is committed to ensuring that Canada’s
international trade obligations, including those for government
procurement, continue to clearly preserve the ability of Canada
to deliver drinking water to its citizens either as a public service
or by means of government procurement.
Further information on Canada’s positions regarding the FTAA
negotiations on services click here.
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