A working roundtable to produce recommendations to reinvigorate and guide Canadian trade engagement in the Pacific Rim based on recent policy research

* Invitation only

Date/Time: Thursday June 1, 2017 at 10:00 am to 11:30 am
Location: APF Canada’s Vancouver Office, #900 – 675 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC

The U.S. sidelining the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement has thrust Canada back into last place in the Americas with the fewest trade agreements with Asia. Without the TPP Canada has no active ‘Plan B’ in place to close this gap and become more competitive in the region. The upcoming re-negotiation of NAFTA and the signal by the Canadian government that it is considering opening trade talks with the Latin American trade bloc Mercosur are reminders of the need for those concerned with Canada’s future place in the global economy to continue to make the case for prioritizing engagement with the economies of Asia.

The Canada West Foundation has new policy research that lays the basis for a renewed strategy for engagement around the Pacific Rim. The research examines the transition of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement into an 11-member pact that can proceed without the U.S. Economic modelling shows that a ‘TPP11’ would benefit Canada. It could also chart a path for Canada to push for open liberal trade with a Trump administration in Washington.

This working roundtable will review the recent research to develop priorities and actions for the Canadian government to revitalize engagement around the Pacific Rim. Its recommendations will be published and disseminated by the Canada West Foundation.

Please have a look at both articles by clicking here and here.

Agenda

Welcome

Current context: Where is the Asia Pacific trade agenda?

Options for advancement:

•   Presentation of TPP11 modelling

•   Policy options for a Plan B

Discussion: Are the priorities laid out in the Plan B option the way to go?

•   Additions, deletions, edits

•   Priorities

•   How to advance

Final agreement on priorities and actions.

Speakers

Dan Ciuriak is author the Canada West Foundation-commissioned paper on modelling the economic benefits for Canada of a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement without the U.S. He is Director and Principal, Ciuriak Consulting Inc. (Ottawa), Fellow-in-Residence with the C.D. Howe Institute (Toronto), and Senior Fellow with the Centre for International Governance Innovation (Waterloo). He is active in international trade, finance, industrial policy and economic development. Previously, he was Deputy Chief Economist at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT, now Global Affairs Canada) with responsibility for economic analysis in support of trade negotiations and trade litigation, and served as contributing editor of DFAIT’s Trade Policy Research Series (2001-2007, 2010 editions). Prior positions with DFAIT include Deputy to the Chair of the APEC Economic Committee and Finance Counsellor at Canada’s Embassy in Germany. Before joining DFAIT, he worked at the Department of Finance, including from 1983-1990 with the Financial Sector Policy Branch where he served as Chief of the Financial Institutions Section and Project Director, Financial Institutions Reform Project, and chaired the Inter-Departmental Legislative Review Committee.

Deborah Elms is co-author with Carlo Dade of the Canada West Foundation’s Plan B for Canadian Trade Policy in a post-TPP World. She is founder and Executive Director of the Asian Trade Centre and a senior fellow in the Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry’s Trade Academy. Previously, she was head of the Temasek Foundation  Centre for Trade & Negotiations (TFCTN) and Senior Fellow of International Political Economy at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her research interests are negotiations and decision-making, and her current research involves the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) negotiations, and global value chains.

Carlo Dade is author of The TPP The West Wants In and co-author with Dr. Deborah Elms of Plan B for Canadian Trade Policy. He is Director of the Trade & Investment Centre at the Canada West Foundation. Carlo develops and leads research to promote growth and profitability in Western Canada’s export economy. He has a long history in international public policy most recently as Senior Fellow with the University of Ottawa’s School of International Development and Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.. Carlo has been a leading voice in debates on recent Canadian free trade agreements and development of trade infrastructure. He is a leading global expert on pan-Pacific trade, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Pacific Alliance trade blocs.

Moderators

Dr. Eva Busza is Vice-President, Research and Programs, at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. Prior to joining the foundation, she was Director of Policy and Strategic Planning for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Previous appointments also include Team Leader for Asia Pacific in the United Nation’s Development Programme’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery and Senior Advisor at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. Ms. Busza holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and a Master’s degree from the University of British Columbia. In addition to teaching in the Department of Government at the College of William and Mary, she has been a research fellow at several universities and institutes including: Columbia University, George Washington University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Brookings Institution, and the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University.

Dr. Colleen Collins is Vice-President for Research at the Canada West Foundation. A faculty member since 1991, Collins was Associate Dean of the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University from 2008 to 2013. She brings with her a broad range of experience in administration, government, and academia that reaches back to her early career in the 1980s as a researcher in the office of then-Alberta premier Peter Lougheed. Collins earned her PhD in Marketing at the University of Alberta in 1993. Her academic research includes published work in public policy, entrepreneurship, exporting and marketing.