Evidence of meeting #11 for International Trade in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was workers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Thank you, Mr. Peterson.
We'll move now to Mr. Fonseca for five minutes.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
Thank you, gentlemen, for your presentation.
What I love is that you're fully integrated, that you came here together as a team and talked about your strategy and the investments you've made over the long term and the jobs you've been able to create in that value-added chain. Rarely do we see this, that a sector comes in like yours together, joined as a team, and is able to put forth your vision and how that would help Canadians with jobs and with growing a great industry. I think that was terrific.
With that diversification—and here I'm moving away somewhat from the United States, following up a little on what Mr. Peterson was asking you, and not understanding the industry well—what is your capacity? What do you see as your capacity?
Does anything get left on the table back in Canada, or is everything sold to the United States, around the world, and exported? Where do you see that growth?
April 19th, 2016 / 9:45 a.m.
Executive Director, Alberta Beef Producers
The things that get left on the table are cattle coming to the processing plants and the utilization rates in the processing plants.
Partly as a result of shortages of cattle and shortages of labour, but also market access elements as we expand the market access here, our processing plants are able to compete more aggressively for cattle against plants in the United States that might be taking cattle south.
We're not leaving meat on the table once it's turned into beef, but we're not taking full advantage of the opportunities to turn cattle into beef and full advantage of our value-added opportunities. At the plants themselves, due to shortages of labour, there are certain cuts they're not able to produce because they don't have labour that's able to do those cuts. We're leaving opportunities not fulfilled in that area.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
Could you explain to me why in your trade with Japan, with the extremely high trade tariffs they have right now and non-tariff types of barriers, the Japanese want this Canadian beef so badly?
I can tell you, we had some great steaks yesterday at the Alberta Hotel, and they were mighty tasty. We looked on the menu, and they were actually promoting the Alberta beef, and they talked about the exports. We thought you were doing a plug on us, some marketing.
What is it about Japan and the Canadian beef?
9:50 a.m.
General Manager, National Cattle Feeders' Association
It's a high-quality product. They recognize high quality and they're prepared to pay for it. That's why it's a lucrative market. It's the jewel in the crown in this agreement.
Another thing that hasn't been touched on here is that if the TPP is implemented, which we're hopeful of, other countries like Korea may come knocking on the door. Korea was the fourth-largest market for us before BSE hit, and Indonesia, and then China, but China's a different ball game. Those are big and lucrative markets. We can't be the top shipper in every market, but we can do a good job. We have the best beef in the world, and even our competitors will admit that.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
Bryan, a 2015 publication on the CCA website identified both Vietnam and Malaysia as potential markets in the beef industry, but in the past neither country has been a significant beef consumer, so why do you say that would be an untapped market that you think—
9:50 a.m.
General Manager, National Cattle Feeders' Association
I think with Vietnam's 89 million people, income is on the rise and that it's an emerging economy. Rising income correlates with more consumption of protein and the ability to pay for what we produce.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
That's where you saw Vietnam and Malaysia as opportunities.
9:50 a.m.
General Manager, National Cattle Feeders' Association
Did you have anything you wanted to add, John?
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
Okay, great.
Mr. Robertson, what subsidies have reduced Canadian barley farmers' access to markets in the TPP countries, and how would the TPP address the barriers created by some of these subsidies?
9:50 a.m.
President, Western Barley Growers Association
It's more the tariffs they use to protect their domestic industries. As I said, one of the ones we're facing just on feed barley, which is kind of the lowest class of barley going into Japan, is $113.00 per metric tonne right now, which would become zero. That's a pretty significant whack there.
They're very restrictive on the food barleys, on anything that's considered to be food. It's a real tough slog getting into Japan and a lot of the Asian countries. You have to spend years and years. It's all about relationships. That's kind of what the Alberta Barley Commission has been working on since about 1993, I believe. We've spent a lot of money going over there and trying to develop those relationships. It's a slow, hard slog trying to get into those, but once you develop the relationship, then you can't get in there, because you have the tariff barriers against the food-grade grain.
The good thing is that we have the quality and the type of product they want. There's a difference between what the government's trying to do to protect domestic producers—they don't have a lot of them—and what the industry would like to import.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Thank you very much, sir.
We're going to move over to the Conservatives now.
Mr. Van Kesteren, you have five minutes, sir.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON
Mr. Weekes, Mr. Ritz asked you a question earlier. I wonder if you could maybe answer that question at this point.
9:50 a.m.
Trade Consultant, National Cattle Feeders' Association
Do you mean the one on labour and environment?
9:50 a.m.
Trade Consultant, National Cattle Feeders' Association
I have some experience with this because the first trade agreement that we started getting into labour and environment issues was the North American Free Trade Agreement, where it was done in side agreements rather than in the main body of the agreement. I think since that time you can see a considerable amount of progress in putting in disciplines, which have more teeth in them, in terms of both labour and environment—on labour, for instance, referencing the need to respect a number of the international labour agreements, and then, of course, for each country to be respecting the implementation of its own laws.
One important feature of the TPP as compared with the NAFTA is that the dispute-settlement provisions of the agreement itself apply to those areas of the agreement. That's not the case in the NAFTA. The side agreements had their own separate provisions.
I think this is moving in the direction of making it less likely that other countries are going to be able to engage in unfair practices in either labour or environment, to try to steal business from Canada.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON
You were chief negotiator for the NAFTA agreement, and what I'm gathering from you is that we're getting better at this. This is a leading question, and you can tell me whether I'm wrong or not, but is that the case globally?
We always want to have the best deal for Canada, and that's natural. That's your job. But is this something that is evolving throughout the globe so that trade agreements are getting it right more often? I want a real honest evaluation of what we can foresee will be the future for all of us.
9:55 a.m.
Trade Consultant, National Cattle Feeders' Association
Yes, I think these elements are becoming more important components of modern trade agreements.
Let me put it this way. The developed countries, generally speaking, attach more importance to provisions on these matters than do some of the developing countries. It's been harder, for instance, in the World Trade Organization agreements, to get major progress on these issues. But in terms of these free trade agreements and regional free trade agreements, where major developed countries are prepared to open their markets in a major way for developing countries, then they're prepared to take on these additional commitments.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON
To build on that, today we had representatives from mostly small to medium-sized businesses, small family farms, and the dialogue we all would agree is advantageous to all of us. It's something we want to do. The charge, as we've heard repeatedly, is that it's the major corporations that are driving this, that they're the ones who are going to benefit.
Maybe you can just elaborate on that and give the committee some....
9:55 a.m.
Trade Consultant, National Cattle Feeders' Association
When people make that case about major corporations benefiting from this and I ask them in friendly conversations exactly what they mean, normally they seem to get back to the investment provisions of the agreement and the investor-state dispute settlement provisions in particular. As you can see on these provisions—which were in investment agreements before, but were put into a trade agreement for the first time in the NAFTA—we have been making some refinements since then in trying to make it clearer what these provisions mean, to get around any problem with these agreements potentially impeding legitimate regulatory activity by governments to protect their citizens or their environment. You can see in the provisions that are incorporated now in the CETA with Europe that there has been a sea change there. The provisions in the TPP are a major improvement in clarity on this matter, when you compare them with those of the NAFTA.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON
Very quickly then, would it be a fair analysis to say that we're getting better at this?
