Evidence of meeting #47 for International Trade in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was environmental.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:15 p.m.
Latin America Program Coordinator, MiningWatch Canada
You can just go to our website. They're all posted there.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
Okay.
Mr. Pomerleau, you mentioned a number of things that I want to follow up on. In your opening statement you said there was a clause allowing you to catch up with United States competitors. Could you just explain what that clause allows and how it works?
5:15 p.m.
President, Canada Pork International
Basically, it will allow us to catch up with the elimination stages because the tariffs will be eliminated over a long period of time. Some are starting immediately and others are starting at a later date.
The point is that we will catch up with them, with their calendar, but we will lose three, four, or five months for the difference when we don't have a treaty. We will catch up with them, but we could lose some time.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
Wouldn't this clause then give some assurance to the Panamanian exporters that it's just a matter of time and this clause will allow you to catch up? Are you really falling behind that much? Is it that much of a competitive disadvantage to not have this agreement ratified?
5:15 p.m.
President, Canada Pork International
It would be if it isn't, but Panamanians are not familiar with our political situation here, so how could they trust that the Canadian government could implement in one month or three months or three years or five years? They don't know, so they act on what they see.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
And what they see is a U.S. that's open—
5:15 p.m.
President, Canada Pork International
They see a U.S. free trade agreement being implemented next month.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
Right.
Can you give me some idea as to the impact in dollars or a percentage for how much of an advantage we're losing as a nation?
5:15 p.m.
President, Canada Pork International
As I said, it could be difficult to assess, but I can tell you that the market was around $7 million or $8 million in the last two or three years. What we've seen is that for this year we've already lost something like 15% compared to last year.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
That's substantial.
You also talked about the agreement having a beneficial dispute resolution. Could you explain how that dispute resolution mechanism works?
5:15 p.m.
President, Canada Pork International
It would be only on the sanitary and phytosanitary issues. What the agreement would do is establish coordinators for each party. Those two coordinators would be charged with trying to resolve, through meetings or whatever other means they have, the outstanding sanitary and phytosanitary issues that we could have.
At this time we don't have any, but you never know when it will happen. I don't know. We've seen it in the past, when we've had to deal with disease factors and that kind of thing. At least we have a mechanism by which we could facilitate communications and try to resolve issues. It's one of the very first agreements in which we've seen that.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
If those coordinators aren't able to resolve things among themselves, is there another further level of appeal or binding arbitration?
5:20 p.m.
President, Canada Pork International
Oh, I don't think so. It's literally between the veterinary services on each side or the agricultural services on each side. No, I don't think there would be anything binding there. It's very difficult. In that case, you have to deal with sovereignty and different regulations, so it would be very difficult to have anything binding here.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
I have a brief point of order, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Moore offered to supply the committee.... She said the website of MiningWatch had the breakdown of their source of funding and who those supporters were. Can you follow up through the clerk with the organization and get that for all the members?
5:20 p.m.
A voice
I'm on the website right now.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
If it's not on the website, can we get it? I don't see it on the website.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
I'm sure we can look at that for you. We'll look into that.
Go ahead, Monsieur Morin.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Marc-André Morin NDP Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Ms. Moore, maybe you can help me validate the information I have. It seems that indigenous people in Panama have been left out of the economy for the last 400 years. With improvements in Panama, when they got rid of the dictatorship and when they started moving into more democratic governments, they got the first area on which they had any land rights. I believe Inmet is going to be mining right in the centre of that area.
5:20 p.m.
Latin America Program Coordinator, MiningWatch Canada
Where Inmet is located is not within one of the designated administrative areas, which are known as comarcas in Panama. It is located in the area of a number of indigenous communities that are living effectively outside of one of these areas—here, we might say “off reserve”. They are living in that area and have done so for a long time. The company is located within the Meso-American biological corridor and in an area where there have been attempts to protect it.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Marc-André Morin NDP Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Is the sacred mountain unfortunately a big pile of copper?
5:20 p.m.
Latin America Program Coordinator, MiningWatch Canada
You might be referring to Cerro Colorado, which is located within the Ngöbe-Buglé comarca in western Panama, where a group of consultants have been working for a company called Corriente Resources. It's unclear if that's the company they've continued to work for, because it was bought up by a Chinese consortium that bought their holdings in Ecuador a number of years ago.
It has been working on promoting mining in that area, where the pushback on that and the massive protests in the last couple of years have actually led to a prohibition on mining in the area of Cerro Colorado currently.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Marc-André Morin NDP Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Do you think there's a way an agreement with Panama will improve the social responsibility of Canadian mining corporations with regard to the conditions for aboriginal people in Panama?
5:20 p.m.
Latin America Program Coordinator, MiningWatch Canada
No, unfortunately, I don't. I don't see any incentive with this agreement to improve corporate behaviour within Panama. Rather it's a reinforcement of the status quo, which to date has not been very beneficial to indigenous peoples in Panama. They have suffered tremendous repression over the course of the last couple of years. They've lacked effective access to democratic channels to have their disputes solved peacefully and they continue to complain about the Panamanian government's failure to follow through on its obligations to ensure social, educational, and other benefits for their communities, regardless of whether or not mining is happening in their territories.