What are Canadas obligations within the GATS “Library Services” sector?
Commercial and/or competitive library activities that do not fall under the GATS’ public services exclusion appear to fall under the sector named “Library Services”. According to the United Nations classification system used to define GATS sectors, Library Services are: “Services of libraries of all kinds. Documentation services, i.e. collection, cataloguing, whether manually or computer-aided, and retrieval services of documents. The services may be provided to the general public or to a special clientele, such as students, scientists, employers, members, etc.” Canada has not made any commitments in the GATS’ Library Services sector. Thus, Canada does not need to provide market access and non-discriminatory treatment to foreign firms that compete with domestic libraries offering commercial Library Services. Canada has not given any indications of making commitments in this sector (only about a dozen countries have done so to date), and Library Services has not been a priority sector d
