Please let us know what the rules are and please make sure that once the rules are in place, they really are in place for everyone. That desire for consistency and certainty lies at the heart of the logic for including environmental rules within trade agreements. And frankly, Canada is pleased with our success at giving even greater clarity to such rules through ancillary environmental agreements. We do not want a nation shirking its environmental responsibilities because the wording of a trade deal is too lax or incomplete. That leads to a public reflection on international trade.
Any commercial advantage is then at risk.
On the other hand, I'll be darned if I want to see a Canadian firm hamstrung by another nation's dreaming up an ad hoc and unjustifiable environmental regulation as a ruse to block legitimate trade. That is why environmental considerations must be front and centre in trade talks. But we need to do more than look at things through the prism of international trade negotiations. We need to work hard to guarantee that all multilateral bodies contribute to an intelligent and forward-looking integration of trade and environmental policies. Let me give you an example.