Evidence of meeting #14 for International Trade in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was union.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
You talk about sectors that might benefit. Have you at this point identified which customer sectors would have a greater advantage from this agreement?
12:35 p.m.
Vice-President, Public Affairs, UPS Canada
As I mentioned, a lot of the tariff reductions on seafood, like the decrease in duties, even though there are derogations, on the frozen lobster, on the peeled and cooked shrimp.... So in that industry sector, it's great for us because we opened eight new facilities in Atlantic Canada two years ago. That was the last area of the country where we were using an agent. We want to fill these facilities with outbound volume. We were pleased to see these provisions came out, and then that was endorsed by the premiers in these provinces, applauding the deal and the changes that were made. That's one specific sector.
Other reductions in duty on industrial goods, plastics—there's a range. We're going to see more when the detail comes out, but we're watching it closely. Again, the more diversity we have, the better for our business. We think that this deal is quite comprehensive. You're seeing benefits across a range of industries.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
My perception is that UPS deals in smaller parcels and packages as opposed to large-volume containers. Is that a proper perception?
12:35 p.m.
Vice-President, Public Affairs, UPS Canada
No, we actually do it all. We do the less-than-100-pounds, which you would typically refer to as “courier”, when you're seeing the brown package cars on the road, but we do freight forwarding. Then we even do supply chain and logistics management, so we'll store inventory for health care, for medical products, retail. Changes in natural resources, those benefits, that's going to benefit us as well.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
I listened to your presentations, and I think the agreement will benefit UPS more than it will the Canadian vehicle manufacturers. I'm going to probably ask the same question to both of you, but I'll start with you, Ms. Falcone.
UPS can't fail. No matter what happens, you're going to get busier, because whether it be moving parcels, small parcels, big parcels, or containers, you can't lose on this, right?
12:35 p.m.
Vice-President, Public Affairs, UPS Canada
We can't lose. We have operations in Canada and we have operations in Europe. But I'm here representing Canada and we want exports from Canada to grow—
12:40 p.m.
Vice-President, Public Affairs, UPS Canada
So I mean for us, again, trade deals are great.
12:40 p.m.
Vice-President, Public Affairs, UPS Canada
It's win-win, and we've seen this all over the world.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
You're saying you have operations in Europe. Is your goal going to be to make sure you're busy both ways—
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
—so, say, with containers, making sure your goods are going one way, and then making sure the containers come back full as well, right?
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
So that would be a challenge, or do you think that you'll have enough business with containers being full both ways?
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
You don't feel that Europe will benefit over Canada or Canada will benefit over Europe? Do you have any feeling on that?
12:40 p.m.
Vice-President, Public Affairs, UPS Canada
We've done the study. We took a look at the macroeconomic analysis that was done by the government on the projected growth due to CETA. We layered that against our trends and the applicable goods that we tend to carry at high capacity. From a percentage basis, Canada is in a position to gain more versus the EU coming into Canada. We always want capacity. We don't want to ship out empty planes and then bring them back, so we see a good—
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Let's use the example in the Atlantic provinces where you said you opened eight facilities.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Would you have opened any facilities in Europe?
12:40 p.m.
Vice-President, Public Affairs, UPS Canada
We've made significant enhancements in Europe in health care facilities. That's been more of our focus versus the package operations. We did open in Cologne a few years ago. We increased the capacity for package....
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
I have one last question. With respect to the comment about the non-tariff items, modernizing customs and all that, what exactly is the problem? Now, all of a sudden, are the goods that are going to come tariff free going to be expedited versus the items that are going to be duty imposed?
