Bye Buy Canada? Evaluating social procurement strategies under Canada’s trade commitments

The opinions and recommendations in this report, and any errors, are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funders of this report. [...] The trouble is that the content of these agreements can block 5 Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives What is the rules-based international order? The rules-based international order, or RBIO, is the set of rules and institutions governing international trade and foreign relations. [...] The RBIO emerged after the Second World War in the Bretton Woods institutions (World Bank and International Monetary Fund) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT 1947). [...] For goods, the internal Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA) covers the broadest number of public entities and at the lowest thresholds, though the deal is only binding domestically.5 For services, several international agreements have lower thresholds than the CFTA. [...] At least notionally, the federal government can modify its procurement commitments at the WTO in free trade deals like CETA and the Comprehensive and Progressive 13 Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and in the internal Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA), by notification.