Canada Leans on De Havilland Deal to Encourage CETA Ratification, Trade Minister Says — Update

By Paul Vieira

OTTAWA--Canadian Trade Minister Mary Ng said Friday a just-completed sale of 22 De Havilland aircraft to European states demonstrates the value of the trade treaty between Canada and the European Union, which has yet to be fully ratified by parliaments in Europe.

De Havilland, a Calgary, Alberta-based aerospace company, finalized on Friday the sale of new water bombers to six EU members, for about 1 billion Canadian dollars, or the equivalent of $740 million, Ng said. State-owned Export Development Canada is providing up to C$750 million of financial guarantees to facilitate the transaction.

"The story of this deal is really the success story of the Canada-EU trade relationship," Ng said in an interview.

Following seven years of negotiations, Canada and the EU struck a free-trade deal in October 2016, known as the Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement, or CETA. Canada and the European Parliament approved the treaty, and since 2017 has been enforced on a provisional basis, leading to the lifting of roughly 9,000 tariffs.

However, full ratification requires approval from all EU member parliaments, and to date only 17 of the 27 have endorsed the pact. Among the parliaments yet to ratify are France, Italy, Greece and Poland.

According to researchers at Ottawa's Carleton University, opposition to CETA has focused on the proposed system of investor-state dispute settlement, agricultural interests and food safety, and consumer and worker rights.

"I will continue to work with the European Union on ratification by their member states," Ng said. "The best way of showing whether trade agreements work are through commercial deals," like the completion of the De Havilland sale, and other deals between Canadian and European states.

Write to Paul Vieira at paul.vieira@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 04, 2024 17:44 ET (21:44 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.