To this end, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that Canada and the European Union (EU) have reached an agreement in principle on a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, which will significantly boost commercial ties between the two partners, and create jobs and long-term economic growth and prosperity.
The investment rules proposed in the Canada-EU Comprehensive economic and Trade agreement (CETA) are hotly debated. They have the potential to open new doors …show more content…
The Agreement will provide Canada with preferential market access to the EU’s more than 500 million consumers and to its annual $17 trillion in economic activity. In fact, a joint study conducted with the European Union, which supported the launch of negotiations, concluded that an agreement could boost Canada’s income by $12 billion annually and bilateral trade by 20 per cent. That’s equivalent to creating almost 80,000 new jobs or increasing the average Canadian family’s annual income by $1,000. While much can be said of the positive nature, CETA has nevertheless become a cause for concern for some Canadian Industries and civil society groups who fear that their government may lose regulatory control over the provision of public services and the capacity to protect certain key Canadian industries among such concerned bodies is the Canadian Auto …show more content…
Others think it will bolster European sales in Ontario, cutting into the manufacturing of luxury cars in the province.
Auto analysts have mixed opinions on what a new trade agreement between Canada and the European Union means for Canadian carmakers.
Of particular interest is that the deal will allow more North American cars to be sold overseas, and all those vehicles must have a certain amount of Canadian content.
Rajeeva Sinha of the University of Windsor's Odette School of Business said a new trade agreement could encourage American automotive companies to export more cars from its Ontario plants.
"So this could mean more jobs - potentially," Sinha said. "It would be an incentive for them to send [or] export their cars from their Ontario plants."
Last year Canada exported 13,000 cars across the Atlantic. Under the new agreement, should the tentative deal be signed, a maximum of 100,000 vehicles will be exported, duty free.
"I don’t think anyone can definitively know what the impact of the current EU Agreement will be on the automotive sector," said longtime auto analyst Dennis DesRosiers of DesRosiers Auto