International Trade Committee on May 13th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Our time has gone for that segment.

Mr. O'Toole, you have the last three and a half minutes.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to both our witnesses.

Mr. Quick, I've had the good pleasure as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade to meet with a number of your member companies from across the country, who seem quite keen on the new markets being opened up and the strategy of the global markets action plan, so thank you.

In the short time I have, Mr. Cameron, I have a couple of questions for you.

You certainly have a detailed biography here and I notice in your references to the early 1980s your writing of The Other Macdonald Report and a variety of these things. Would it be unfair to characterize you as opposed to trade generally?

[Dr. Duncan Cameron]

Yes.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

It seems that, beginning with the U.S. FTA deal, which actually was the Macdonald commission report , the real one, not the alternative one, through to GMAP, you don't want Canada to enter into free trade agreements, or you think there should be an industrial sector approach, sort of a 1950s construct for industrial development.

[Dr. Duncan Cameron]

Well, let's put it this way, Canada does not actually have a free trade agreement with the United States. We still are up against all the protectionist legislation that they can throw at us.

I did an evaluation—it was published in 1993—of the Canada-U.S. trade agreement. It showed that Canada had lost in fact access to the U.S. market, our ability to sell in the U.S. market had declined, and our access to our own market had declined. The U.S. had lost share of its own market. The only place in the world that was growing share was in Canada.

The energy provisions allowed Canadians to subsidize the promotion of industry in energy. We've done that. The result is we've sold off most of our easy-to-reach oil and gas. We have these huge sunk costs in the bitumen production in my native Alberta, and much of those are now stranded assets and we're unlikely to see them in fact be realized. We're looking at an impending industrial disaster, as well as an ecological disaster, from entering into what is essentially an energy agreement with the United States.

For the same amount of money, we could have promoted certain sectors in Canada. We had a very strong presence in CorelDRAW and other industries in Ottawa that were allowed to go under. Nortel, BlackBerry, these companies get up and going, and without the kind of support that other countries give their champions, they end up disappearing, which is a shame.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Do you think there should be more public ownership? Is that what you're advocating, that the federal government take stakes in these private enterprises?

[Dr. Duncan Cameron]

I think there should be different types of social ownership. Co-ops work, crown corporations.... I'm quite happy to look at my electricity bill when I'm in Quebec City or in Vancouver with public hydro. When it was deregulated in Ontario, I wouldn't want to be trying to heat a house in Ontario these days under those circumstances. Power was the watchword of Ontario Hydro, was a very positive thing. I like the kind of radio I get from Radio-Canada, it's better than anything I get on commercial radio.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

But you have choice. There are alternative offerings as well.

[Dr. Duncan Cameron]

Absolutely, and one of the things I didn't like about the Canada-U.S. trade agreement is that—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much. Our time has gone.

I want to thank both witnesses for coming forward. I believe both of you were scheduled for last week. I'm sorry, Mr. Quick, that it didn't work out, but we are pleased that you could make it today. Thank you.

That takes us to the end of our time.

We will adjourn our meeting.