Thank you very much to the committee for the invitation to appear before you today.

I represent the Réseau québécois pour une mondialisation inclusive, or RQMI, formerly the Réseau québécois sur l'intégration continentale, and we are union organizations and individuals concerned by the need for fair trade. I am also a member of ATTAC‑Québec, an association that advocates for tax, social and environmental justice.

With regard to the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA, the irritants for us are not so much trade-related. They concern human rights, the common good, the environment, democracy and people's living conditions. In the past, free trade agreements have too often worked against these priorities in order to satisfy commercial interests. We're not the only ones saying this.

In CUSMA, we recognize some progress from the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. We especially appreciated the elimination of the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, or ISDS, in chapter 11, although it was not as complete and quick as we had hoped. Canada is still being sued by the Ruby River Capital company. In addition, Mexico is not entirely immune to this type of lawsuit. Despite this, CUSMA set a good path forward. From now on, Canada should no longer include an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism in its free trade agreements.

CUSMA makes it possible to better regulate working conditions, particularly with a view to eliminating forced labour and violence against workers and labour organizations. However, several aspects of CUSMA remain problematic. The chapter on the environment, for example, seems woefully inadequate to us. Given the climate emergency we're experiencing and the loss of biodiversity, the agreement needs a significant update. It should be more restrictive to achieve environmental protection objectives.

In our view, it's important that the text of the agreement not hide the realities we're facing and that it contain certain keywords, such as “global warming”, “climate change”, “hydrocarbons”, “methane” and “greenhouse gases”. CUSMA should also refer directly to the recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, and add two agreements signed by the three parties to the list of multilateral agreements on the environment in chapter 7: the Paris Agreement and the Kunming‑Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Article 24.9 on the protection of the ozone layer is a good example to follow.

We're concerned about chapter 28 on good regulatory practices, which makes it more difficult for governments to regulate in favour of the common good. The parties must publish a list of the regulations they want to adopt within a year, pursuant to article 28.6. They must also justify regulations proposed by scientific analyses, which may be contradicted, as unanimity does not always exist in cutting-edge science.

During the regulatory impact assessment, article 28.11 requires the parties to justify the need for a proposed regulation, to consider other regulatory and non-regulatory alternatives, and to explain the benefits and costs of the selected alternative over other feasible alternatives considered.

Finally, article 28.13 sets out procedures for determining whether regulations made should be amended or repealed. All of these procedures, which are very cumbersome and open the door for corporate lobbyists to influence decisions, urge governments to regulate less to avoid engaging in a process that's not very encouraging. That's why we're recommending that chapter 28 be repealed.

Other aspects seem problematic to us. We regret the weakening of supply management, which affects dairy farmers' incomes, product quality and rural life dynamics. CUSMA tends to favour large farms over small and medium-sized family farms, which has a detrimental impact on the local environment of communities due to feces management, widespread pesticide use and contamination of soil, water bodies and groundwater.

While CUSMA may seem more socially advanced than NAFTA, there are still significant irritants that prevent us from seeing it as a truly beneficial agreement for all Canadians.

Thank you very much for your attention.