International Trade Committee on Jan. 30th, 2014

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

I agree.

[H.E. Marie-Anne Coninsx]

I hope to do some shopping sometime.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[H.E. Marie-Anne Coninsx]

You can see the prices of some very good cheese. It's incredible. I don't understand why Canadian consumers do not protest more. They are very well educated.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Your time is gone, Mr. Pacetti, but I'll let you have one more quick question.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Okay.

You mentioned the term “first mover advantage”. What does that mean?

[H.E. Marie-Anne Coninsx]

It means that if CETA is already in place, and Canadian enterprises profit from it, they are already in the market itself. It will be more difficult for America to also get to that place.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Cannan, the floor is yours.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Excellency and Mr. Mecklenburg. Welcome to the committee, and thank you for joining us today.

I guess as of October, in your new home, it's your first winter in Canada.

[H.E. Marie-Anne Coninsx]

I love it.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

The Canadian winter is beautiful. We had a chance to chat briefly before the meeting. I understand you have had an opportunity to travel a little bit of the country, to Alberta and British Columbia.

I represent the riding of Kelowna—Lake Country. It's about an hour's flight from Vancouver into the interior of British Columbia. We'd welcome you there. As my colleague so generously commented about the Okanagan international award-winning wines, we have some in Ontario and across Canada that would go with that cheese. We're happy to export those as well. We look forward to your visiting us as well and seeing the rest of Canada.

Approximately one in five Canadian jobs, including in my riding, rely upon trade, so we welcome those 500,000-plus mouths to feed and water...and to use their services.

First of all, I have a question about procurement. In your opening comments you talked about the potential value savings in openness and transparency for procurement. I spent nine years in local government prior to my eight years federally. We're always looking at efficiencies.

Could you maybe share with the committee your understanding of some of those procurement opportunities for Canadians over the next few years?

[H.E. Marie-Anne Coninsx]

Is that opportunities for Canadians in the European market?

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Yes.

[H.E. Marie-Anne Coninsx]

The European market is pretty open, if not completely open, for procurements already, so I think this will be a big advantage in any case to further explore. We see, as Europeans, the advantages that opening this up at a provincial level can bring for European companies, but I stressed in my intervention that there are also limitations, because I also heard quite a lot of concerns, particularly when I visited Alberta. I spoke with the mayor of a city that I will not mention, but he also expressed some concerns about procurement for municipalities. But there we have a threshold that is considerable, which means that for municipalities, for a lot of their tendering, the local content and local input will still apply, so they will not suffer. I guess also when you have major procurement projects that European companies will use some of the local inputs for them.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Just to get a perspective on the magnitude, do you have an approximate dollar value?

[H.E. Marie-Anne Coninsx]

I'm really bad with figures.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

I understand the aspect of consultation with local governments. Our colleague, the Minister of International Trade, Minister Fast also spent nine years in local government and consulted with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the provinces, various stakeholders, and the fishery and forest industries. Seafood is a big opportunity.

Maybe you could share with the committee your perspective, the European perspective, on the consultation process with your parliamentarians and members of industry and stakeholders to get to the point we are at today.

[H.E. Marie-Anne Coninsx]

Do you want me to comment on how it was in the European Union, how we did the consultation?

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Please do.

[H.E. Marie-Anne Coninsx]

Before proposing CETA, there was a scoping exercise, a study in 2008, and this study consulted all the possible sectors. When the European Commission prepared the mandate, we also consulted all the stakeholders, and, as I said in an answer to a previous question, we have been consulting all the stakeholders concerned as much as possible.

I just have a comment here on Canada. I arrived only a few months ago, but what I saw...and particularly I must say that after the breakthrough announcement, I really admire the efforts the government has been making to go to all the provinces to explain the situation and the impacts it might have. As an outsider, I am quite impressed with what the government has been doing.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you.

We had Minister Fast here, the chief negotiator, and a technical summary was released. Is that basically the same thing the European Union has provided to its parliamentarians as well?

[H.E. Marie-Anne Coninsx]

I'll give a diplomatic answer here. I used it myself, because it's so good. We did not do the same thing, not in such a beautiful format as what Minister Fast did, but we have been providing information too.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

You are saying the Canadian process has been more fulsome in disclosure. Is that what you're saying?

[H.E. Marie-Anne Coninsx]

I still have a career in Brussels—