Bill C-100 (Historical)

An Act to implement the Agreement between Canada, the United States of America and the United Mexican States

This enactment implements the Agreement between Canada, the United States of America and the United Mexican States, done at Buenos Aires on November 30, 2018.
The general provisions of the enactment set out rules of interpretation and specify that no recourse is to be taken on the basis of sections 9 to 19 or any order made under those sections, or on the basis of the provisions of the Agreement, without the consent of the Attorney General of Canada.
Part 1 approves the Agreement, provides for the payment by Canada of its share of the expenditures associated with the operation of the institutional and administrative aspects of the Agreement and gives the Governor in Council the power to make orders in accordance with the Agreement.
Part 2 amends certain Acts to bring them into conformity with Canada’s obligations under the Agreement.
Part 3 contains coordinating amendments and the coming into force provisions.

Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement Implementation Act

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I also work with the member for New Brunswick Southwest on the trade committee. She is a very valuable member, who speaks up for Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

I had the pleasure of joining her and the member for Prince Albert in Washington recently. I want to ask her for her thoughts on the last trip to Washington as it relates to CUSMA.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, as someone who has taught international trade for over 20 years, to be sitting in Washington the week before the decision came forward regarding steel and aluminum was really a “pinch me” moment. To sit in the offices of members of Congress or senators with my colleagues as a small team and say that if the tariffs were not lifted we would not be ratifying the new NAFTA was a real turning point for me on the trade committee. We were very clear, and it was accepted. We now see that the tariffs have been lifted on steel and aluminum.

I would say to all parties in this House that, even after the deal has been ratified, we have a responsibility to continue that relationship. Just like with any family, we cannot take the relationship for granted. I think we have done a tremendous job in this House with respect to educating and creating greater awareness about our relationship, and we need to continue that.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Calgary Forest Lawn.

This deal has definitely been a rocky road for Canada. It has created a lot of tension, although “stress” may be a better word, for a lot of Canadians and Canadian businesses. In light of working with a president who was threatening to rip up NAFTA and with all sorts of other issues going on in the U.S. and the U.S. election, it definitely caught Canadians' attention these last four years. It is very important that we now talk about the rest of the story, how we have ended up where we are today and why we ended up being a target instead of having a deal that would make North America more competitive in the world marketplace.

Two and a half years ago, the Prime Minister volunteered to renegotiate NAFTA, and that is fine. What was not clear was what his goal was. In his mind, I do not think he had a clear goal. I do not think he had a clear idea of what he wanted the outcome to look like, and that caused a lot of stress and failures as the negotiations progressed.

We could look at the new NAFTA as a chance to make North America more competitive, to create an environment throughout North America and take advantage of all the strengths that Mexico, the U.S. and Canada have to offer, putting them together and competing strongly in the world marketplace. We had that opportunity and we lost it. That is frustrating for Canadian businesses and it is frustrating for businesses right across North America because it was there and we did not achieve it.

Mexico calls it NAFTA 0.8. We call it NAFTA 0.5. The reality is this is not a good agreement. It is okay; it stinks, but the business community says it would rather take a bad agreement in this case than have no agreement, to have it ripped up and have nothing. After all, the U.S. is 70% of our business and we do some $2 billion in trade every day with the U.S. The reality is that we ended up with an agreement that the U.S. and Mexico negotiated and Canada signed onto afterward. How did that happen?

I will talk about the inside baseball going on in D.C. while this was going on. When I went to D.C. the first time after the Trump election, I and the former leader of the Conservative Party, Rona Ambrose, visited Congress and very quickly we realized a couple of things. The first was that Canada was not the target in these deals. Members of the House of Representatives and Senate said they had problems with Mexico. We told them that if they were renegotiating NAFTA, they were also renegotiating with Canada. They said, “We have no issues with Canada. That is crazy.” They did not even understand the relationship between Canada and the U.S. They did not understand how important that relationship is and how much business is done.

The former Conservative leader and I said we needed to help them on this deal because if they did not get this right, it would cost us a lot of jobs and our economy would suffer substantially. We worked closely with the Liberal Party. There is no question about it. We did not deny it. I did round tables right across Canada and spoke to Canadian businesses about what they wanted out of the agreement. The committee sat in the summer to give the minister a chance to talk about what she thought the agreement could look like when it was completed, and she did not. She sent some virtue-signalling ideas of what she would like to include in the agreement, ideas the Liberals knew the U.S. president would never accept, ideas that really did not do anything for competitiveness in Canada, but that was their starting point. We knew right then that we were in trouble.

I will admit that members of the House from all parties worked very well together on this agreement. Whether it was the trade committee or the Canada-U.S. group, they worked well together. Where did it fall down? Where it fell down is very serious and shows how problematic things can get. It fell down in the PMO and the minister's office. Members did a great job educating members in the U.S. at the state level and the federal level on the importance of our relationship. When we go to the U.S., they quote our numbers back to us on how important that relationship is. How did it end up that Canada became the target instead of Mexico?

During Trump's speeches in the U.S. during the election campaign, what did he talk about? He talked about building a wall. He said NAFTA was horrible and Mexico took all of the jobs. He said that trade with China is horrible and China took all the jobs. He said that the U.S. lost all their jobs. The only thing he mentioned about Canada was a bit about dairy. He wanted access to dairy into Canada. He did not like the fact that our dairy producers are profitable and the U.S. dairy producers were in a system that did not allow them to become profitable. In reality, they did not want to ship milk to Canada; they wanted the price that Canadians had for their milk in Ohio.

What changed? I can remember sitting down with Secretary Ross, who said, “Canada and the U.S., everything is good here. In fact, there should be some changes here, maybe in the buy America provisions to include Canada like the 51st state.” I remember him saying, “We should also do a trade deal together with Japan.”

We were invited to the table to go to Japan, if we wanted to choose that. We chose the TPP route, which I think is a better route. However, it shows how good the relationship was at that point and where it has ended up today. It comes back to how the PMO and the minister handled the relationship with the President of the United States.

We said very publicly that the Prime Minister did not need to be his best friend, but he should not poke him. I said, “Do not poke him.” Making a speech in New York, in his backyard, criticizing the president is not a wise thing. It might get the Prime Minister on Saturday Night Live and all the left-wing media in the U.S. would love him for it, and the Prime Minister would enjoy himself because he is popular with the left-wing media in the U.S., but at what expense? Canadian jobs.

After the Montreal summit, what did the comments the Prime Minister made about the president do? It led to the aluminum and steel tariffs. On those types of things, he could not help himself. He wanted to be a popular prime minister in the U.S. I needed a functional prime minister here in Canada, not a populist in the U.S.

With the minister, it was the same thing. Some of her articles in the U.S. were insulting to the president. Why would she do that in the middle of negotiations with our biggest trading partner?

Mr. Speaker, how would you feel if I insulted you right now? Would you cut me off and tell me to sit down, or would you let me keep going?

That is what they were doing down there. That is what the Prime Minister and the minister were doing in the U.S. That is what was creating the problems we have here today. That is how we ended up with NAFTA 0.5.

We would go down and actually build a strong relationship between the White House and Parliament, and they would destroy it over and over again. I am sure our ambassador down there must have been pulling out his hair, because some of the directions he was given to lobby on behalf of Canada were definitely anti-Trump or anti-Republican sentiments. Why would they do that in the middle of negotiations of our biggest trade deal? Why? It is just amazing.

We saw that over and over again. That part of the story needs to be told here in Canada so that Canadians understand when we start losing jobs, so that Canadians understand why we gave up market access, and so that Canadians understand why we cannot expand another auto plant in Canada. It is not because we were the target at the start. It is because of the actions of these offices that created that problematic situation.

We are going to support this deal. As I said, in this case a bad deal is better than no deal. Too many jobs are at stake.

It is going to be interesting to watch this. As we watch the outcome and what is going on with Mexico and the U.S., and the battles they are having amongst themselves, it will be interesting to see if our Prime Minister can actually stay out of it. It will be interesting to see how the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, moves forward with legislation, and how we are going to handle that. Even though we think we have an agreement, and we have signed an agreement, until the Democrats put it through the House ways and means committee, we really do not have a 100% final agreement. I think it is important that we do that in sync with them. That is the route the committee is looking at.

It did not have to be this way, if we had approached this in the right way with the president. When he said he had labour issues in Mexico, we could have said that we have labour issues in Mexico. When the president said he had steel being dumped from China, we could have said we have steel being dumped from China. Canada had a lot of the same issues the president was talking about during his campaign. We are not building a wall. We are not doing those crazy things. We do not need to. Mexico has been a good trading partner and a good friend. However, the reality is there were opportunities to build upon the same concerns the U.S. had, and to actually produce an agreement that would have made us even more competitive internationally.

Another failure in this agreement has to be on softwood lumber. Canadians have to see that. The reality is there are lots of things in this agreement that we need to fix.

On October 21, Canadians are going to change their government, and we are going to have the responsibility, again, of fixing all the discrepancies that the Liberals have left on the table. We will fix them. We will go back to the U.S. We will do it in a positive and approachable manner, and we will deal with them issue by issue. A government led by the Leader of the Opposition will fix these things. Canadians can take comfort in knowing that.

In the meantime, this agreement will pass and hopefully will be ratified because, as I said, the instability created by not having an agreement is far worse than what we have right now.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to commend the hon. member for Prince Albert for all the great co-operation he has shown with his commitment on the international trade committee to get this deal and the deal on the steel and aluminum tariffs. He has worked diligently with the government, and I want to commend him for that.

However, I do not agree with the way he spoke in the House today. I want to remind the hon. member that it is the current Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs who have shown the leadership to get this deal done. The Conservatives wanted any deal at any cost to Canadians. They wanted to take off the retaliation measures on tariffs on steel and aluminum, but they still wanted to get the deal through.

There is one thing that I agree on with a former prime minister. Does the hon. member agree with the former prime minister, Brian Mulroney, when he said that Canada got what it wanted and it was a good deal?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, Canada got what it took. The deal was arranged in Mexico between the U.S. and Mexico and we signed on after it was done. We did not add anything to it at that point in time. We vacated the responsibility of our negotiators to Mexico to do the final deal. That is where the breakdown in the minister's role in this deal was.

The reality is that when the negotiators walked away and the U.S. and Mexico kept negotiating, without our even being in the room, this is what the Liberals got. If there had been leadership, they would never have allowed that happen. If there had been leadership, they would have recognized the issues right away and dealt with them. If there had been leadership, they would have focused the conversation, like every member of the House did, on competitiveness, on ensuring we would have a very vibrant North American economy and would deal with the issues that the U.S. had, Mexico had and we had and then get those issues dealt with in a positive manner so we could be even more competitive in the world.

The Liberals did not do that. They did absolutely nothing. They just went along for the ride because they did not know what they wanted. That is the reality of what we have here today.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, free trade agreements with the Liberal government have now cost our dairy sector about 10%. From my perspective, two things should be protected in every trade agreement. Number one is our water and number two is our food and agriculture.

I wonder if the member cares to comment on whether continuing to lose agriculture to these trade agreements is the right thing to be doing.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, before the trade agreement talks even started, one of the big issues in the U.S. was all the people who would be left behind. What about the people who are negatively impacted by a trade deal? What are we going to do to ensure they are made whole and are able to function in a very progressive manner in the new environment created by the trade deal? Dairy is another example of that. What are the Liberals going to do for the dairy sector to ensure people are properly compensated for the loss they have had in both TPP and in these NAFTA talks?

There is nothing in the budget to help any of the sectors that are negatively impacted by this agreement. There is no game plan for them. The Liberals have not listened. They have not learned from people's complaints in the past. They have done nothing. Yes, people are going to feel the pain, unfortunately, and the Canadian economy will grow, but some people will be left out because the Liberals have not planned for that.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder what the hon. member's position is on this. If he believe that this is 0.5 of a deal, why would the Conservative Party support it? This is not 0.5. This is a 2.0 effort that has been engaged in by parliamentary committees and by hundreds of visits by the Prime Minister, the minister and the parliamentary secretary. The engagement from all parliamentarians has been very supportive. How can the Conservatives possibly support a deal they do not think is a very good deal?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, when we talk to people in the business community, they say it is not a good deal but they want the stability. They tell us to plug our noses, get it done and get off its radar so they can keep on doing business and get investment in Canada. That is the reality and that is what we are dealing with.

However, they have also say that we have to get rid of those guys. They say they cannot afford the Liberals anymore, that they have to go. They tell us that we need a clean plan for things like softwood lumber, for dealing their competitiveness factor in North America. We need a plan. Only the leader of the Conservative Party has that plan and it will change on October 21. The sun will shine again on Canada after October 21.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise once more in the House to talk about the NAFTA trade deal. I listened to the talking points of the Liberals. They talk about all the good things international trade and the free trade agreement do. They are the same old talking points.

Once upon a time when we were in government, we said the same thing in support of free trade. However, I need to remind members on the other side that it was the Conservatives who were the party that pushed for free trade. NAFTA came about because of the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney. No one in the country would say that NAFTA was not a good deal for Canada.

However, as my colleague from Prince Albert has just eloquently said, the problems are with NAFTA .5. When the parliamentary secretary says why 0.5 and not 0, simply and straightforwardly, we do not trust the Liberals to set up any kind of a good deal, knowing the results since they have come into power.

I remember very clearly that it was the Liberal Prime Minister who shunned TPP in Vietnam. He was the only leader not to go. At that time, he had his own idea of free trade. Even the Chinese shut the door in his face. The point of this story is the reason why the Conservative Party supports this, despite all the flaws and everything here, because the business community needs this. The Conservative Party has always been a very proud free trade party. During the time of Prime Minister Harper, we signed a lot of free trade agreements around the world because we knew it is right.

The biggest one for everyone was NAFTA. Today, we call it NAFTA 0.5. The Liberals want to call it NAFTA 2.0. Mexico calls it NAFTA 0.8. The fact is that, yes, the business community needs stability. The business community is looking for some kind of stability in this economy so it can move forward. This is one way in which we can bring that kind of stability.

However, to remind all Canadians, since the Liberal government has taken power, five premiers have written to the Prime Minister today. They has said that under his regime, Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 will threaten national unity. That has never happened before, where five premiers have written to say that Liberals have created an environment in the country that is not conducive to business and actually threatens the security of national unity. It is unprecedented. That is the record the Liberals have for the economy, which is why we do not trust them to get NAFTA back.

However, there is some hope in the sense that even with this flawed NAFTA deal, the business community will have some kind of confidence in the economy, forgetting about what the Liberals have done. The country needs to do it. We do not know where the Liberals are going with the Trans Mountain pipeline. Hopefully very soon we will have shovels in the ground.

I come from a province that has taken a massive hit by the Liberals' economic policy, and it continues. Right now, confidence in Canada is declining under the government.

Under Prime Minister Harper's government, confidence in Canada was going up. Under the current government, investor confidence in Canada is going down. We can talk to anyone out there, in London or New York and so on. If it comes to Canada, they slowly turn their heads away. The sunny days and sitting on the international stage by the Prime Minister has all evaporated in the air. He is no longer the darling of anything and if he continues the way he is, we could face serious economic poverty.

Hopefully, on October 21, Canadians will have a choice and will send the Liberals packing on their economic record, which is one of the most important things that needs done, because jobs bring stability.

I saw the most foolish ads yesterday when watching the Raptors. They were so-called third party advertisements against the leader of the official opposition. I have never seen a more idiotic advertisement. They will make Canadians more angry.

Unifor, the so-called journalists' union, is absolutely at the forefront of this sentiment, making it very clear that it does not like the Conservative Party. What it seems to forget, however, is this is not about Unifor; it is about Canadians and jobs. Unifor keeps saying it wants to fight for jobs. However, if it wants to fight for jobs, it should be honest about it. It should work for all Canadians and not be partisan.

Once more, I am standing in the House of Commons to stand up for free trade. We all know free trade has immense benefits for our country and for our jobs. If there were no tanker ban, no problematic Bill C-69, there would be such confidence in Canada. We would be a model country.

We have been blessed with natural resources. We do not have just one natural resource, but multiple. We should develop them, although I agree 100% that this should be environmentally sound.

Let us look at our oil production. We have one of the best systems in the world. We can compare it to those in countries like Venezuela and Nigeria, where there are no environmental standards. They are moving full steam ahead. Let us be honest. Let us work environmentally. It is time for the country to move forward with developing its natural resources.

With respect to the new NAFTA that has just been signed, all my colleagues have, very eloquently, made it clear that it has serious flaws. We want confidence. It is the one piece of legislation the government has brought forward that can give some kind of confidence to the business community that Canada is a free trade country.

Many people do not understand the amount of money Canadian businesses invest overseas. It is in the trillions of dollars. If it were not for free trade agreements, Canadian businesses would be unable to invest overseas. The Canadian investments of over $1 trillion will, in the longer term, help our country's economy, making businesses very strong.

Free trade agreements go both ways. They are for us and the countries with which we sign. That is why so many are signing on to the TPP. I am glad that the government finally, after insulting the leaders of the TPP, came to its senses. This came after China told us to take a hike when Canada went to China to sign a free trade agreement.

In the end, the Conservatives will support the bill because we believe Canadians need confidence, the economy needs confidence and the business community needs confidence so we can proceed forward and create jobs that will benefit each and every Canadian.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was very happy to hear my colleague across the way speak about the importance of jobs and supporting different industries. Of particular importance are our cultural industries across our country. I know this as I am chair of the Canadian heritage committee.

I would like the member to comment on Magazine Canada's response to the USMCA. It said:

Magazines Canada’s nearly 400 members across the country congratulate [the] Prime Minister...[the] Minister [of Foreign Affairs]...[the] Minister [of Canadian Heritage] and the Canadian negotiating team for their successful preservation of the cultural exemption in the USMCA.... We are especially pleased that the cultural exemption applies in both the analogue and digital spaces. This digital inclusion will be critical to Canadian magazines and other cultural industries in the years to come.

The magazine points out that there is about a $1.7-billion contribution to Canada's GDP from the magazine industry.

Could the member respond to the notion that this is a success for our cultural industries?

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we are a small country. The U.S.A. is a very large country. Naturally, being a small country, we have to safeguard our cultural industries. Otherwise, we will be overpowered by big American companies.

This is why we have stated that we will support the free trade agreement. However, we need to improve on it. There are finer details to note on the issues the member raised, but in the larger scheme of things, indeed Canadian culture is thriving.

Governments do not have to give money for Canadian culture. Governments do not have to give money for newspapers to stay alive. Right across the country, wherever I go, Canadian culture is thriving.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's knowledge and history in this chamber, and his understanding of many of the trade issues that have occurred. This particular situation seems to have arisen with the President of the United States talking about some trade issues he had with Mexico, and then the Prime Minister of Canada wanted to be involved. We are not sure why he did that. I know he would understand that some people might think the softwood trade agreement that we often hear about has something to do with British Columbia. However, it is not just British Columbia. He might be able to respond about how big an issue this is for Canada from coast to coast.

Could my colleague respond with what he knows about the history of trade and other things that are important that are not in this agreement?

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Mr. Speaker, actually my hon. colleague is my member of Parliament, so he can ask me that question. However, he brought up a point rightly. We just said that we are resource rich across this country. Every region has its strengths and weaknesses. Every region has its own natural resources. Right now, there is fossil fuel in Alberta, softwood lumber, when we talk about British Columbia, and fisheries and lobster across the east.

It is critically important that when we sign free trade agreements that we take all of that into account and do not just sign sector by sector by sector, which is why this is critically important. I have seen TPP in Australia and New Zealand and their issues. There is no question or doubt about the free trade agreement and natural resources. There is no question about being environmentally friendly. Climate change is there, and it is important that we take that into account now that we are developing our resources.

I can assure my friend that when we were in power, we did well. When we are in power, we will do better.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, seeing that the member is from Alberta and was talking about premiers earlier, I want to know if he would agree with what Premier Jason Kenney said on Twitter on May 17: “The removal of US tariffs from Canadian steel and aluminum products is good news for our economy. Thank you to the federal government for its successful efforts, and to the US Administration for doing the right thing.”