Business lines up behind EU deal

OTTAWA — The heads of Canada’s leading business lobby groups are urging the federal government to get on with negotiating a free-trade deal with Europe.

The groups issued a letter to assure Trade Minister Ed Fast that they will stand behind the deal, once it is negotiated, and help sell it to workers and communities across Canada.

“You can count on our full support,” concludes the letter, signed by the heads of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Council of Chief Executives, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, the Canada-Europe Roundtable for Business and the Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters.

Opponents of a Canada-EU trade and investment agreement are also galvanizing forces. On Monday, Canadian groups wrote French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who is visiting Canada, to express their opposition with an emphasis against the investorprotection chapter, which allows firms to sue governments over restrictive policies.

Jayson Myers, who heads the manufacturers and exporters group, said the business community is anxious that a deal be signed quickly because it will take many months and even years to ratify. He notes that provinces will likely need to sign on, as will the 27 member countries of the European community.

But an insider in the business coalition says there is real concern that negotiators have taken the talks about as far as they can go, and that it’s now time for political leaders to make the needed decisions.

Since negotiations began almost four years ago, the talks have missed several deadlines, including the most recent pledge to complete an agreement by the end of 2012.

Although progress has been made, the two sides are still apart on controversial issues.

For Canada, opposition has formed around European demands that government procurement at the provincial and municipal level be opened up, that drug patents be extended, and that agricultural quotas be reduced.