OTTAWA—This week’s round of North American free trade talks is expected to be a “get to know you” session — an exercise in establishing the scope of the coming negotiations where the three sides will discuss their priorities and main goals.Canada’s chief negotiator Steve Verheul said Monday they have agreed there will be 28 negotiating “tables” on separate issues.Only later will negotiators get down to the nitty gritty and look at topics such as harmonizing regulations.Freeland said she instructed her department to prepare for these talks as soon as NAFTA became an issue in the 2016 U.S. election.Briefing documents for Freeland as part of that exercise, obtained by the Star under Access to Information, indicate officials looked across several sectors of the economy.Officials analyzed the impact of NAFTA on enforcement of rules of origin at the Canada-U.S. border, compared sales taxes in the U.S. and Canada and looked at how trade with Canada stacks up against trade with China and Mexico.They flagged areas where work had achieved harmonized standards or was underway.They pointed to regulations to ensure the free flow of flammable liquids across the shared border, common standards for personal flotation devices, common evaluations of neonicotinoid pesticides, for the review of veterinary drugs, pharmaceuticals for human use, for the electronic labeling of medical devices and the hazard classification of workplace chemicals.But the documents, which are heavily censored to omit any advice offered to the minister, show several points of irritation remain which are certain to come up at the trade pact talks.For example, standards for analysis of meat imports vary greatly between Canada and the U.S. Canada conducts random inspections covering about 10 per cent of U.S. meat imports based on a “risk assessment” approach to products. That’s in sharp contrast to the U.S. which holds and tests 100 ...
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