The Canada-US Ambassador Bridge is in need of repair. The bridge may have outlived its usefulness.
Court won’t release Ambassador Bridge owner from jail - The Globe and Mail
Showing posts with label trade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trade. Show all posts
Friday, January 13, 2012
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
INDIA AND CANADA CLOSER TO TRADE, IMMIGRATION DEAL
India and Canada are said to be close to a trade deal. If that is correct, Canada should ensure that the integrity of its legal safeguards in immigration is enforced, given the high level of corruption in India. It may be a good time to secure India's cooperation to crack down on immigration scams that plague the Indian marketplace.
New deal eases free trade hurdles, work restrictions for India, Canada News National Post
New deal eases free trade hurdles, work restrictions for India, Canada
Postmedia News Nov 14, 2011 – 8:24 PM ET
By Lee Berthiaume
OTTAWA — Canada and India are on the verge of signing an agreement that would make it easier and more financially viable for thousands of Indian professionals to work here, and vice versa.
The agreement also eliminates a significant hurdle to free trade talks between the two countries, which the Conservative government has pledged to complete by 2013.
The Agreement on Social Security has been in negotiations since 2009 and has been considered a key ask for the Indian side as Canada tries to cozy up with the emerging economic power.
Cabinet last month gave Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird permission to sign the agreement on behalf of the government, according to an order-in-council published on Oct. 27.
Under the agreement, Indians working in Canada on temporary visas and making social security and pension contributions back to India would be exempt from making similar contributions here.
The same will be true for Canadians working in India, who will only pay the Canadian government.
An official with Citizenship and Immigration Canada said there were more than 14,000 Indians working in Canada at the end of 2010.
Indian deputy high commissioner to Canada Narinder Chauhan said she expects that number to increase once the social security agreement is signed.
“Lots of Indian professionals are coming into Canada,” she said, “and this agreement actually facilitates the movement of those professionals.”
The same will be true of Canadians working in India, she added.
“So we are just basically looking at an opportune moment to sign it,” she said.
Puneet Kohli, vice-president of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce, said the agreement is very important for Indian companies who want to expand into Canada, and its successful conclusion would represent a big step in the Conservative government’s effort to bring the two countries closer together economically.
“It’s one of those important steps toward achieving that ultimate goal, which is a formal free trade agreement,” he said.
Canada and India recently completed a third round of free trade talks, with a fourth round set to be held in Delhi next month.
With $6.6 billion invested in Canada, Indian businesses have established a huge presence here in a variety of sectors, and Kohli said the social security agreement will likely lead to more Indian money pouring into the country.
But while Kohli acknowledged the agreement will result in more Indians coming to work in Canada, he dismissed suggestions they do so at the expense of Canadian job-seekers because of the associated influx of foreign investment.
“Theoretically I can see that concern,” he said. “But usually when they set up Canadian branches, it always means employment for Canadians. It’s an expansion into our economy. And I think that’s the most relevant factor to keep in mind.”
The Canadian economy lost 54,000 jobs in October, the largest single-month loss since February 2009. That pushed the unemployment rate up from 7.1 per cent to 7.3 per cent.
Postmedia News
New deal eases free trade hurdles, work restrictions for India, Canada News National Post
New deal eases free trade hurdles, work restrictions for India, Canada
Postmedia News Nov 14, 2011 – 8:24 PM ET
By Lee Berthiaume
OTTAWA — Canada and India are on the verge of signing an agreement that would make it easier and more financially viable for thousands of Indian professionals to work here, and vice versa.
The agreement also eliminates a significant hurdle to free trade talks between the two countries, which the Conservative government has pledged to complete by 2013.
The Agreement on Social Security has been in negotiations since 2009 and has been considered a key ask for the Indian side as Canada tries to cozy up with the emerging economic power.
Cabinet last month gave Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird permission to sign the agreement on behalf of the government, according to an order-in-council published on Oct. 27.
Under the agreement, Indians working in Canada on temporary visas and making social security and pension contributions back to India would be exempt from making similar contributions here.
The same will be true for Canadians working in India, who will only pay the Canadian government.
An official with Citizenship and Immigration Canada said there were more than 14,000 Indians working in Canada at the end of 2010.
Indian deputy high commissioner to Canada Narinder Chauhan said she expects that number to increase once the social security agreement is signed.
“Lots of Indian professionals are coming into Canada,” she said, “and this agreement actually facilitates the movement of those professionals.”
The same will be true of Canadians working in India, she added.
“So we are just basically looking at an opportune moment to sign it,” she said.
Puneet Kohli, vice-president of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce, said the agreement is very important for Indian companies who want to expand into Canada, and its successful conclusion would represent a big step in the Conservative government’s effort to bring the two countries closer together economically.
“It’s one of those important steps toward achieving that ultimate goal, which is a formal free trade agreement,” he said.
Canada and India recently completed a third round of free trade talks, with a fourth round set to be held in Delhi next month.
With $6.6 billion invested in Canada, Indian businesses have established a huge presence here in a variety of sectors, and Kohli said the social security agreement will likely lead to more Indian money pouring into the country.
But while Kohli acknowledged the agreement will result in more Indians coming to work in Canada, he dismissed suggestions they do so at the expense of Canadian job-seekers because of the associated influx of foreign investment.
“Theoretically I can see that concern,” he said. “But usually when they set up Canadian branches, it always means employment for Canadians. It’s an expansion into our economy. And I think that’s the most relevant factor to keep in mind.”
The Canadian economy lost 54,000 jobs in October, the largest single-month loss since February 2009. That pushed the unemployment rate up from 7.1 per cent to 7.3 per cent.
Postmedia News
Friday, February 13, 2009
NAFTA: CANADA AND MEXICO, STRANGE BEDFELLOWS
Canada and NAFTA
No mariachis, please
Feb 12th 2009 | OTTAWA
From The Economist print edition
Some Canadians think they are more important than Mexicans
FOR the past 15 years Canada and Mexico have been joined with the United States in the three-way North American Free-Trade Agreement. But both still set much more store by their bilateral relationship with their superpower neighbour. This has led to sometimes farcical rivalry. To the joy of Canadian officials, Barack Obama is making his first, albeit brief, foreign visit as American president to Ottawa on February 19th. But Mexican officials whisper that their president, Felipe Calderón, got in first with a lunch with Mr Obama days before his inauguration.
More seriously, a growing number of Canadians, including politicians, trade negotiators and former ambassadors, have called for their government to turn its back on NAFTA and put all its efforts into improving bilateral ties with Washington. Canada was always a reluctant member of NAFTA, joining the talks mostly to safeguard gains made in a bilateral free-trade deal with the United States concluded five years earlier. Politicians chafe when Canada is lumped together with Mexico, as happened last year during Mr Obama’s campaign when he vowed to renegotiate NAFTA to protect Americans from weak environmental and labour standards. Even more woundingly, Janet Napolitano, the new secretary of homeland security, who is a former governor of Arizona, ordered a review of the northern border, saying that it presented a greater terrorist threat than the southern one.
Peter Harder, a former Canadian deputy foreign minister, argues that NAFTA holds back bilateral ties. “It is not in our interests to allow the speed of three to define the relationship of two,” says Mr Harder. “We have trilateralised for too long.” That view has been echoed by John Manley, a former Liberal deputy prime minister.
In fact many cross-border problems differ only in degree. That applies to the drug trade, gun smuggling, border security, the environment and illegal immigration. All three countries have a stake in the floundering car industry, which is organised on a North American basis. Canada and Mexico are the United States’ top two suppliers of imported energy, giving them both an interest in Mr Obama’s plans for energy and environmental measures.
Few Canadians speak up for enhancing ties with Mexico. But before leaving Ottawa this month, Emilio Goicoechea, Mexico’s ambassador, wrote a rebuttal urging Canada to stay the trilateral course. Trade between the two has grown fivefold since 1994 to $21 billion in 2007—though that is dwarfed by the United States’ two-way trade with Mexico, worth $349 billion, and with Canada ($566 billion). Some Canadian companies have invested in Mexico: Bombardier has factories making aircraft parts and trains, while Scotiabank is Mexico’s seventh-biggest bank.
In questioning NAFTA, Canadians do not just risk playing to protectionists in America’s Democratic Party. Their belief that on its own Canada would get more attention than Mexico also looks misplaced. Canada’s economy may be 40% bigger, but its population is much smaller. Mr Obama has recognised that he owes his electoral victory in part to Hispanic voters (most of whom are of Mexican descent). More than half a million Americans live in Mexico. And the security problems in Mexico caused by the American demand for cocaine are a growing worry to policymakers in both countries.
“By working together with Mexico we remain on the radar screen,” says Carlo Dade of the Canadian Foundation for the Americas, a think-tank. Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, has made no comment on trilateral relations, except to oppose reopening NAFTA. He has made Latin America a foreign-policy priority, and gets on well with Mr Calderón. When the Buy America provisions of the American Congress’s economic stimulus plan hit the news, Mr Harper called Mr Calderón to confer on how to fight protectionism. The Democrats in Congress may have unwittingly handed Canada and Mexico something big their relationship has lacked in the past—a common cause.
No mariachis, please
Feb 12th 2009 | OTTAWA
From The Economist print edition
Some Canadians think they are more important than Mexicans
FOR the past 15 years Canada and Mexico have been joined with the United States in the three-way North American Free-Trade Agreement. But both still set much more store by their bilateral relationship with their superpower neighbour. This has led to sometimes farcical rivalry. To the joy of Canadian officials, Barack Obama is making his first, albeit brief, foreign visit as American president to Ottawa on February 19th. But Mexican officials whisper that their president, Felipe Calderón, got in first with a lunch with Mr Obama days before his inauguration.
More seriously, a growing number of Canadians, including politicians, trade negotiators and former ambassadors, have called for their government to turn its back on NAFTA and put all its efforts into improving bilateral ties with Washington. Canada was always a reluctant member of NAFTA, joining the talks mostly to safeguard gains made in a bilateral free-trade deal with the United States concluded five years earlier. Politicians chafe when Canada is lumped together with Mexico, as happened last year during Mr Obama’s campaign when he vowed to renegotiate NAFTA to protect Americans from weak environmental and labour standards. Even more woundingly, Janet Napolitano, the new secretary of homeland security, who is a former governor of Arizona, ordered a review of the northern border, saying that it presented a greater terrorist threat than the southern one.
Peter Harder, a former Canadian deputy foreign minister, argues that NAFTA holds back bilateral ties. “It is not in our interests to allow the speed of three to define the relationship of two,” says Mr Harder. “We have trilateralised for too long.” That view has been echoed by John Manley, a former Liberal deputy prime minister.
In fact many cross-border problems differ only in degree. That applies to the drug trade, gun smuggling, border security, the environment and illegal immigration. All three countries have a stake in the floundering car industry, which is organised on a North American basis. Canada and Mexico are the United States’ top two suppliers of imported energy, giving them both an interest in Mr Obama’s plans for energy and environmental measures.
Few Canadians speak up for enhancing ties with Mexico. But before leaving Ottawa this month, Emilio Goicoechea, Mexico’s ambassador, wrote a rebuttal urging Canada to stay the trilateral course. Trade between the two has grown fivefold since 1994 to $21 billion in 2007—though that is dwarfed by the United States’ two-way trade with Mexico, worth $349 billion, and with Canada ($566 billion). Some Canadian companies have invested in Mexico: Bombardier has factories making aircraft parts and trains, while Scotiabank is Mexico’s seventh-biggest bank.
In questioning NAFTA, Canadians do not just risk playing to protectionists in America’s Democratic Party. Their belief that on its own Canada would get more attention than Mexico also looks misplaced. Canada’s economy may be 40% bigger, but its population is much smaller. Mr Obama has recognised that he owes his electoral victory in part to Hispanic voters (most of whom are of Mexican descent). More than half a million Americans live in Mexico. And the security problems in Mexico caused by the American demand for cocaine are a growing worry to policymakers in both countries.
“By working together with Mexico we remain on the radar screen,” says Carlo Dade of the Canadian Foundation for the Americas, a think-tank. Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, has made no comment on trilateral relations, except to oppose reopening NAFTA. He has made Latin America a foreign-policy priority, and gets on well with Mr Calderón. When the Buy America provisions of the American Congress’s economic stimulus plan hit the news, Mr Harper called Mr Calderón to confer on how to fight protectionism. The Democrats in Congress may have unwittingly handed Canada and Mexico something big their relationship has lacked in the past—a common cause.
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