Evidence of meeting #16 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 tpp.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
I just presumed that will come from the report, but let me just work through this.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I'd like to thank our guests. Mr. Woo and Mr. Van Keulen, welcome back again.
Mr. Van Keulen, isn't the elephant in the room with TPP on the issue of New Zealand and powdered milk? If you had to net it all down to your biggest concerns as it affects the dairy industry in Canada, would it be that?
11:10 a.m.
Board Member, British Columbia Dairy Association
Repeat the question again. On the powdered milk, you said?
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
It's the powdered milk issue, where I would presume New Zealand wants to export a considerable amount of powdered milk into Canada. Is that a concern for you?
11:10 a.m.
Board Member, British Columbia Dairy Association
It would be one of the issues. It's not the big elephant in the room. We have a structural surplus, that's what it is. We have a rolling tonnage of powdered milk that we have to either use domestically or there is a certain amount of quota that we can export.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
Last week we had the EU ambassador to Canada into Ottawa as one of our witnesses to the trade committee. He spoke about how there will be unfettered access to cheeses from Canada into the entire EU. It seemed to give you some comfort yesterday. Are you still comfortable today?
11:10 a.m.
Board Member, British Columbia Dairy Association
With the unfettered access?
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
To the European Union market....
I'm trying to get something on the record so that we have this. Just say yes, and I'll go on.
11:10 a.m.
Board Member, British Columbia Dairy Association
No, I'm not going to just say yes.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
11:10 a.m.
Board Member, British Columbia Dairy Association
So you want me to answer that?
The aspect of unfettered access into the EU is based on your submission that the ambassador said we had that. If that is true, that we do have unfettered access, then I will clearly state that if we have unfettered access that is profitable, then I have comfort in it.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
We talked about a whole number of countries where Canada has established free trade agreements. I won't name them all right now. One of the things that we've been very clear on is that we've protected the supply management aspects up to this point. Perhaps I could ask your opinion on that in terms of how the government has handled that to this point as it relates to the dairy industry.
11:10 a.m.
Board Member, British Columbia Dairy Association
The government has handled it very well.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Woo, if I might ask you, you talked about bilaterals, and I got the sense from what you said that it's multilaterals, if necessary, but not necessarily multilaterals. In other words, don't let the pursuit of a multilateral get in the way of a bilateral dialogue.
Did I understand that correctly, and could you explain that a little bit, please?
11:10 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada
Yes.
First of all, I wouldn't use the word “multilateral”. That's usually in reference to the WTO.
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President and Chief Executive Officer, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada
TPP is an example of what we call a—
11:10 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada
A mega-regional, that's the new term that's come up now. CETA, of course, is the first mega-regional, and the most prominent one. The next big one coming up is the TTIP, of course, between the EU and U.S.
My point is that we don't go into free trade agreements, I think, for the sake of negotiating. There are lots of things that governments need to focus on. Free trade agreements are a tool for improving economic welfare for Canadians and for the welfare of the region.
From a strategic perspective, we want to do a number of things. One is to improve the efficiency of the economic system as a whole, and trade liberalization, I believe, does that. So there's value in liberalizing trade through multilaterals, mega-regionals, preferential bilateral agreements, and so on and so forth. However, from a competitive perspective, we only really benefit if we get a preferential agreement with a partner that others don't have an agreement with, right? Then we have a margin of preference to sell into their market.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
Based on that, you said, don't ignore and don't exclude China. Is it your view that it would be better for Canada and the current participants in the TPP to have that agreement in place before they approach China? Or should that be a part of the mix? What's your sense?
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President and Chief Executive Officer, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada
My sense is that, from a Canadian strategic perspective, we should try to get an agreement with China before other people do.
11:10 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada
A bilateral agreement. The fact is that China has offered to negotiate with us; they haven't offered to negotiate with most other industrialized countries. They only have one deal with an industrialized country, and that's New Zealand.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
I can't comment on whether we will do that or not.
If that were or were not to happen, would it be strategically better for the current membership of the TPP to have their agreement in place before they approach China? If that were the choice, or if the other option were to bring China in as a full and willing partner straight away, what do you think is Canada's strategic interest? Ignoring the bilateral comment that you indicated, what would be best...?
