Evidence of meeting #5 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was energy.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

André Plourde  Professor, Department of Economics, University of Alberta
Thomas d'Aquino  Chief Executive and President, Canadian Council of Chief Executives
Sam Boutziouvis  Vice-President, Economics and International Trade, Canadian Council of Chief Executives
David Stewart-Patterson  Executive Vice-President, Canadian Council of Chief Executives
Clerk of the Committee  Ms. Angela Crandall

5:10 p.m.

NDP

Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON

—just like you and the border.

5:10 p.m.

Chief Executive and President, Canadian Council of Chief Executives

Thomas d'Aquino

Yes, it became really part of a great corporate conspiracy to homogenize North America.

But I would say this, SPP was in fact badly sold—badly sold in the United States, very badly sold in Canada by the previous government and also by this government, and badly sold in Mexico. One of the reasons it was badly sold is that people, when you really got down to it, found that the nitty-gritty of it was really pretty boring.

I'll just give you one example. You say it was in the shadows, but it was never in the shadows; it was always out there. You could find any report on SPP on the Internet. Every summit that took place had reports that were issued. The North American Competitiveness Council, of which we are part, was part of SPP. Our reports were issued within minutes of the three leaders getting together, and on the Internet. You know what the problem was? Most of it was so utterly and completely boring that nobody wanted to pay attention to it.

The leader of the Raging Grannies, who's a good friend of mine and lives down the street from me, came to me one day and said, “You know, you were at Fortress Pearson, behind closed doors, conspiring with.... We didn't see anything.” I said, “Did you see our report on our website yesterday?” She said, “No, is it there? Is it possible?”

That's only to say that no institution has been more wrongly maligned for the wrong reasons than the SPP. But you're right, one of the reasons it suffers this terrible reputation is that we've all done a terrible job of selling what the SPP was.

In final conclusion, I think the SPP is probably dead, because I believe probably under President Obama we will see something else. But as my colleagues will attest, we always said to one another, it doesn't matter whether you erase the SPP now, six months ago, or two years ago; do you know what will happen? Something will replace it. Why it will be replaced is because energy, the environment, trade, financial regulation, and agriculture, all these things that we do in the form of millions of cross-border transactions every day, are going to have to be coordinated and will be coordinated.

So whether they end up calling it something else—there are already some names floating around Washington—it doesn't matter. But you know what I predict? Whatever name they give to it, if we meet here three years from now, you will say, Mr. Dewar—or maybe not you, but others may say—“You know what? We don't know anything about this new arrangement.” And the few people who actually take the time to read it will say, “Boy, this is a good way to be put to sleep.” When you're talking about tariffs and regulations, a lot of that very unsexy stuff, it doesn't really capture very much attention.

5:15 p.m.

NDP

Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON

Chair, I have a last comment.

Thank you for the answer. I take it from you that you would like to see it in a different process. That's all I was asking. I think it was important to have it in the open, and it wasn't. Yes, there was stuff on the website, but we're a Parliament here and we make decisions about policy, and we're a foreign affairs committee and deal with foreign policy. All I was saying is, never mind the merits of the initiative, we can argue that, but you needed to do it in the light of day.

I have to declare a conflict of interest. I'm the son of a bureaucrat who negotiated nomenclature for his whole life; that's my father. So I actually find these things somewhat interesting.

5:15 p.m.

Chief Executive and President, Canadian Council of Chief Executives

5:15 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Thank you very much, and thank you for clearing up this dark cloud that has been hanging over us for some time. It reminded me of the last election and being in a debate, because the only policy some of the other candidates wanted to talk about was the SPP. Certainly we appreciate your clearing that up.

With that, we want to thank you for being here today. It has been very good to have your testimony, and I want to thank you for taking extra time. I didn't even ask you if you would be able to stay beyond the hour, but almost two hours have gone very quickly and we thank you all for being here before our committee.

I don't know if there's any committee business that anyone wants to address. Do you want to move quickly into committee business?

5:15 p.m.

NDP

Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON

Yes, very quickly.

5:15 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

We'll suspend for one minute and give our guests the opportunity to leave the table, and then we will come to committee business for a very brief moment.

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Committee, we'll call this meeting back to order. We've always tried to set some time aside at the end of testimony and the end of questions for committee business, and Mr. Dewar has asked that we discuss something.

5:20 p.m.

NDP

Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON

Two small things. One was a scheduling thing on steering. Are we going to be meeting any time soon?

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Yes, on Tuesday.

5:20 p.m.

NDP

Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON

Okay, that was sent out. I hadn't seen that. Good.

And secondly, in terms of our analyst, who is no longer with us, I don't know if we dealt with it at steering, that we were going to do something. I don't know if that's been organized. I didn't hear anything, so should we put that to steering?

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

That might be a good suggestion.

5:20 p.m.

NDP

Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON

Okay, you're going to send it out to everyone?

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

I think it's everyone's intent that we should say thank you. We did try to do that publicly here, and maybe there is a better way to do it.

5:20 p.m.

NDP

Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON

Quite frankly, the problem is--

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

We could be in camera so he doesn't know anything is coming.

Thank you, Mr. Dewar, for that point.

Mr. Crête.

5:20 p.m.

Bloc

Paul Crête Bloc Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC

How many meetings are we planning to hold on the issue of the United States? I'm not talking about all the meetings, but those that are really on the agenda. We've suggested some witnesses, and I would like to know whether we're planning to hear from them soon.

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

We have scheduled until the break on this part of the study, and we would still welcome....

Have you contacted those witnesses the Bloc has put forward?

5:20 p.m.

The Clerk of the Committee Ms. Angela Crandall

I haven't received that.

5:20 p.m.

Bloc

Paul Crête Bloc Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC

You haven't received it? We sent it this morning.

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Yes, I'll just mention that. Get your witnesses in. We try to have balance. I've left it to our clerk to this point, but we try to take all witnesses.

Is that it? Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.