Understanding TPP

Demystifying the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)


TPP - Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS)
Free Trade and the TPP

TPP Final Table of Contents

Canada General Notes to Tariff Schedule
Canada Tariff Elimination Schedule
Canada Appendix A Tariff Rate Quotas
Canada Appendix B Japan Canada Motor Vehicle NTM

Major Complications : The TPP and Canadian Health Care

It finds that the TPP investor protections would make it more difficult and costly for Canadian governments to establish new public health programs, including pharmacare, which is on the agenda of ongoing federal-provincial health talks.

The overarching impacts of the proposed treaty would be to weaken the Canadian public health care system, undermine health regulation, and obstruct efforts to renew and expand public health care in the face of new challenges.

Involuntary Medication :
The Possible Effects of TPP on the Cost and Regulation of Medicine in Canada

This study examines the possible effects of the TPP on how Canada regulates medicines and how much the country spends paying for them. It finds that the TPP would require Canada to extend patent terms to compensate brand-name pharmaceutical firms for regulatory delays in approving drugs. This policy change could add $636 million annually to the price of drugs in Canada. The agreement will restrict future policy options in these areas in ways that benefit brand-name producers over consumers and the broader public interest.


According to the study, the TPP could have profound effects on the criteria that Canada uses to decide on drug safety and effectiveness, how new drugs are approved (or not) for marketing, post-market surveillance and inspection, the listing of drugs on public formularies, and how individual drugs are priced in the future.

TPP hides significant health costs, according to two new studies  

The TPP includes many new rights for U.S. and Japanese drug companies to comment on, review and appeal Canadian regulatory decisions, which could adversely affect drug approvals and safety.

Faster regulatory approvals of medicines, which might result from the TPP, have been shown to lead to a higher incidence of safety problems, including warnings and withdrawals.

The TPP’s carve-out for tobacco control measures will not provide meaningful protection for future Canadian plain-packaging rules, since U.S.-based tobacco companies will continue to have access to NAFTA’s investor-state protections.

Other forms of public health regulation, from controls on trans-fats to regulating legalized marijuana, are fully exposed to lawsuits from disgruntled foreign investors.

The TPP expands these rights to cover investors from Japan, Malaysia, Australia and other countries. The TPP financial services chapter actually makes it easier for foreign insurers to challenge the expansion of public health insurance into new areas by allowing investor-state disputes involving a much-abused “minimum standards of treatment” rule.

The Liberal government is not willing to accommodate the concerns of the TPP critics. So far, the government has heard from mostly constituencies supportive of trade agreements general and the TPP in general, including business groups.