Mr. Reuben East:

There are a few parts to the Deputy's question. The Deputy mentioned the Energy Charter Treaty. Canada is not a party to that treaty. If there are any cases due to the Energy Charter Treaty, it could not come from a Canadian company.

To pick up on the point made by Mr. Collenette regarding Canadian SMEs, while I do not have the exact figure for Canadian SMEs operating in Ireland, I am aware that 88% of Canadian exports to Ireland are from SMEs. It would not surprise me if there was a similarly high number. I also heard the ministers at the CETA joint committee in March state that 99% of Canadian and EU companies using CETA are SMEs. Actually there is a very high number of SMEs using it; it is not necessarily just large corporations.

On the concerns about decisions of the Irish Government or court decisions, CETA is quite clear that the ICS cannot overturn a decision of the Irish courts and cannot overturn an Irish law of any kind. That is quite important.

We are aware of the concerns about the old ISDS system and the Deputy mentioned the Philip Morris case in that regard. This is a very different system that actually took those concerns to heart. I was one of the negotiators on this treaty and I worked very closely with my EU counterparts.

We heard about these decisions and concerns and did our best to alleviate those concerns by coming up with a reformed ICS that is meant to be something that would not go against a multilateral investment court but, rather, complement it. It is a stepping stone and CETA makes mention of this. One does not preclude the other. In fact, it is our hope that it will be a good example when it is put in place of how a reformed ICS can work. We are very hopeful on the multilateral investment court front, but that is some years away, I think.