Thank you, Helena.

In terms of internal trade, the Bill C-5 provisions in part 1, clauses 7 to 9 are of tremendous concern. This part of Bill C-5 would override all other federal laws. Bill C-5 would allow a company to comply with a weaker provincial or territorial standard instead of a more stringent federal standard.

In the government's June 6 backgrounder, it gave an example of how a weaker provincial energy efficiency standard for washing machines would prevail over the federal standard. Here are a few examples from us. The first is asbestos, where the federal government bans asbestos in products while provinces have weaker restrictions, allowing asbestos up to a certain percentage. Bill C-5 would allow these weaker provincial restrictions to prevail. In another example, tobacco, federal regulations ban all menthol and flavour ingredients in cigarettes, whereas provinces have a less restrictive requirement allowing some flavours.

Health and environment exceptions are standard in international trade agreements, and several agreements also have an explicit exemption for tobacco control measures, given the long history of abuse by tobacco companies seeking to use trade agreements to block or to invalidate tobacco measures, and that's also in the Canadian Free Trade Agreement. Thus, Bill C-5 has unintended consequences.

The good news from our perspective is that there are ways to fix the problem. First, we recommend an amendment to include a general health and environment exception for the internal trade part of the bill, clauses 7 to 9 in part 1. We have provided proposed text for this to the committee. Alternatively, we urge the government to commit to regulations under the bill for an exception for health and environment for these clauses 7 to 9 in part 1, and there should also be a specific regulatory exception for tobacco.

If other free trade agreements can include exceptions for health and environment, and also specifically for tobacco, then so can Bill C-5 for internal trade within Canada.

We welcome your questions. Thank you.

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