Common use of Canada’s Arguments Clause in Contracts

Canada’s Arguments. Canada’s principal objection to New Zealand’s interpretation lies with the phrase “an allocation” and with the interpretation of both words within that phrase. For Canada, the word “allocation” means a share of a TRQ that may be “granted to an individual applicant” that “provides the recipient certain rights, including the right to import [a] specified amount at the TRQ’s preferential rate.”52 According to Canada, the term “allocation” does not simply refer to a “portion” or volume of the TRQ and the “size of an allocation is indeterminate and irrelevant for the meaning of the term as used in Section D.”53 For Canada, this means that the Processor Clause does not concern the size of allocations or the proportionate amounts allocated to processors and non-processors, individually or as a group.54 According to Canada, “allocation” cannot have the broader meaning suggested by New Zealand of “a portion of the TRQ that may be granted to applicants (plural)–such as a processor pool.”55 For Canada, the distinction between an “allocation” and a “pool” turns on an “allocation” to a single applicant granting the right to import goods subject to the TRQ versus the reservation resulting from the pooling system, which creates an initially reserved volume of TRQ for a group of potential applicants, but does not grant anyone the right to import goods subject to the TRQ.56