This bill was last introduced in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session, which ended in September 2019.
Bill Morneau Liberal
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament often publishes better independent summaries.
This enactment provides for the repeal of subsections 55(5) and (6) of the Customs Tariff and their subsequent re-enactment two years later. It also makes consequential amendments to the Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Pablo Rodriguez Liberalfor the Minister of Finance
moved that Bill C-101, An Act to amend the Customs Tariff and the Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Joël Lightbound LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to the legislative changes made by Bill C-101.
To understand this bill, it is important to understand our government's values. Indeed, it is a good reflection of what we have been doing since our first day in office. Since day one, our government has been firmly on the side of Canadian workers. We have made investments in Canadians and in the economy, investments that have helped create over one million jobs across the country over the past three years. We are helping more workers access skills training so they can get and keep those jobs.
Furthermore, faced with global uncertainty, we have negotiated new trade agreements that will give Canadian workers and businesses access to two-thirds of the global economy. This represents billions of customers around the world. When the United States imposed unfair tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, we stood up for our workers. We refused to turn a blind eye or take a hands-off approach, as the Conservative members suggested. At the end of the day, the fact is that our plan worked. We managed to get the tariffs lifted, and we did so because we were thinking about our workers and Canada's interests.
That was a victory for workers and for the country, but we know we are not out of the woods yet. Despite everything we have done to help Canadian workers succeed, global forces beyond our control may continue to threaten that growth, so we must remain very vigilant. We have a duty to ensure that trade practices do not negatively impact the Canadian market by undermining our steel industry and jeopardizing thousands of good middle-class jobs. That is at the core of this bill, which builds on our previous work and strengthens our government's commitment to protecting Canadian workers and their jobs from potential threats like those.
We did not get to this point by accident. We have been listening closely to Canada's industries and workers, and they say that they want more reassurance. They want a government that is willing and able to act quickly when markets are distorted, so we are taking action.
The legislation we are debating today, Bill C-101, would amend the Customs Tariff and the Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act. Specifically, it would remove the two-year moratorium on the imposition of safeguard measures should provisional safeguards be found to be unwarranted.
Safeguards are actions taken by a government to restrict imports of a product temporarily to protect a specific domestic industry. Through this legislation, Canada would be able to respond quicky and appropriately to situations where a surge of imports harmed or could harm Canadian producers and workers.
I want to add that these amendments are intended to be temporary. Our government is proposing that the amendments be in effect only until June 2021. To take this action, further amendments to the Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act are necessary. They are included in this bill.
I want to assure hon. members that the conditions for the application of safeguards would remain unchanged. There are still bars to meet before any safeguard measures are put in place. This legislation would just help us evaluate and act on those standards faster.
I think that all honourable members can agree that these are very interesting and volatile times for international trade. The rules governing international trade and free trade are evolving, sometimes very quickly and often unpredictably. We cannot take anything for granted.
That is why our government has gone to great lengths to try to protect Canadian workers and ensure that Canada's businesses can compete on a level playing field. In fact, when things are unfair and the market distorted, Canadian jobs are at risk.
As the Prime Minister stated, Canada has always been a trading nation. However, we cannot allow this longstanding tradition of openness to threaten or harm Canadian businesses. In the case of the steel industry, we will not let Canada serve as a back door to other markets.
Canada already has the strictest enforcement regime to combat this practice, with 77 trade remedy measures in force for imports of steel and aluminum alone. Last year, we further strengthened the enforcement regime to prevent foreign exporters from avoiding tariffs.
Our enforcement framework includes Canada's trade remedy system, which helps preserve a fair and open trade climate for our producers. It protects Canadian businesses against the effects of foreign goods that are unfairly subsidized or that are sold in Canada at artificially low prices. We currently have trade remedies involving 13 steel products from 25 countries.
In budget 2017, our government went even further to strengthen and modernize our trade remedy system. In April 2018, we increased funding for the Canada Border Services Agency and Global Affairs Canada to keep trade enforcement working for Canadians. This bolstered our efforts to prevent the transshipment and diversion of unfairly priced foreign steel and aluminum into the North American market. The new funding started immediately and amounted to more than $30 million over five years and $6.8 million per year after that. It means more than 40 new officers to investigate trade-related complaints, including those related to steel and aluminum. It means more accurate data on imports so we can better monitor trade trends and better protect our industries and workers against unfair trade.
At the same time, our government made targeted and timely investments to support the Canadian steel and aluminum industry. This includes an investment of $2 billion to defend and protect the interests of the Canadian steel, aluminum and manufacturing industries and their workers. These investments will help companies expand into new markets, increase operational and environmental efficiencies or purchase new technology and equipment.
We know that strong, decisive trade action works, because we have seen it work. As I said earlier, when the United States imposed tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, we stood up for our country's steel and aluminum workers, industries and the communities that rely on their businesses. We imposed reciprocal dollar-for-dollar countermeasures to encourage the full removal of the U.S. tariffs. Canada stood firm and did not back down. As members know, on Friday, May 17, we were proud to announce that these tariffs and countermeasures would be eliminated by the following week.
Therefore, there should be no doubt in the minds of any members here today that our government has protected and will continue to protect Canada's steel and aluminum workers, and all Canadians.
Their success is well earned.
Despite global uncertainty, Canadians created more than one million jobs since fall 2015. Last year, all job gains were in full-time positions. The rate of unemployment and poverty is at its lowest in more than 40 years and salaries are rising faster than the cost of living.
Moreover, employment gains are broadly spread out among groups that are often under-represented in the labour market, such as new immigrants, single mothers, indigenous peoples living off reserve and young Canadians who do not have a high school diploma. This is the type of progress that makes a real difference in the lives of Canadians from one end of the country to the other.
Nevertheless, the reversals in global trends are not the only threat to Canadian jobs. New technologies present both obstacles and opportunities to Canadians seeking to build a career. We are making investments and introducing policies to help workers succeed in the economy of the future. By helping more people gain new skills today, we are creating the necessary conditions for long-term prosperity in every sector of the economy, especially for Canadian workers. In fact, that is the spirit of the bill currently before the House.
The nature of work is changing around the world, and Canada is no exception. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, estimates that one in six jobs in Canada is at high risk of automation. This means that a number of workers could be forced to change jobs many times throughout their years in the workforce. Many others will have to learn new skills simply to keep their jobs in an ever-changing work environment.
The good news is that, through the new Canada training benefit in budget 2019, we are providing real support to the workers of today and tomorrow.
The Canada training benefit will provide a flexible option for Canadians to find the time and money needed to pursue training, improve their skills and build strong and lasting careers. It does that in a few ways.
First, budget 2019 proposes a new, non-taxable credit to help Canadians pay for a training course or program. Under this new Canada training credit, eligible workers between the ages of 25 and 64 will accumulate a credit balance of $250 each year, up to a lifetime limit of $5,000.
Second, a new employment insurance training support benefit would provide up to four weeks of income support to workers when they take time off to take a training course. It would replace regular earnings so that workers do not have to worry about taking some time off to upgrade their skills.
Third, in addition to these two aspects, the government is proposing that it consult the provinces and territories about amending the labour laws to ensure that workers can take time off work for training without worrying about losing their jobs. This would protect a worker's right to take leave for training and skills development.
Before I wrap up, I want to remind members that this bill is very much in keeping with what I consider to be the three main pillars of government policy.
When we took office in 2015, the Canadian economy was sluggish, and Canada was in a technical recession. In my opinion, Canadians elected us based on three main economic pillars, on which we have founded our achievements these last three years in office.
These pillars kick-started economic growth in Canada. I would define them in the following manner. First, we made major investments in infrastructure to ensure that people and goods can travel efficiently across the country; reduce greenhouse gas emissions; look after our waste water systems; protect the environment; and build modern and effective infrastructure from coast to coast. It goes without saying that these investments also stimulated growth. We are talking about a very ambitious, $180-billion plan over 12 years.
The second pillar was reducing inequality by giving more to those who need it most and giving the middle class some breathing room. The first thing we did was lower taxes for the middle class and raise taxes on the wealthiest one per cent. Simultaneously, we introduced the Canada child benefit, a social policy unlike any other in recent Canadian history. The CCB reduced poverty in this country by 20% in just three years and reduced child poverty dramatically.
Those are just two of a suite of measures targeting the middle class and the most vulnerable Canadians. Seniors, for example, are getting more because we increased the guaranteed income supplement by 10% when we took office. The goal is to reduce inequality. We on this side of the House believe that the more inclusive our prosperity, the stronger our growth and the better off Canada's economy will be. We know we are right about that because in 2017, Canada's growth was the strongest in the G7 and we are still at the head of the pack.
The second pillar was about reducing inequality through measures like taxation and the Canada child benefit. There is also social housing, which the federal government has been withdrawing from for years. Now this government is getting back into it. I could also mention how we helped seniors by rolling back the retirement age from 67 to 65. The Conservatives had raised it, plunging hundreds of thousands of seniors into poverty. Then there is the Canada child benefit, which is putting a lot more money back in families' pockets.
According to available data, which, incidentally, are from the OECD, not from partisan think tanks, the average Canadian family has $2,000 more in its pockets in 2019 than it did in 2015.
Furthermore, according to Statistics Canada, a renowned and completely impartial institution that everyone can be proud of, we have succeeded in reducing poverty in Canada by 20%. We achieved that in just three short years. We are not planning to stop there. As I said, one of the key pillars of our government's efforts and our economic strategy is to reduce inequality.
The last pillar is about maintaining Canada's competitive edge by investing in science, research and innovation. Budget 2018 contained some of the largest investments in science in Canada's history. We are also opening up access to international markets, as we did with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement, or CETA, and with the renegotiated NAFTA. Thanks to these kinds of measures, we are making sure we are here to protect our industries from the threats of today's interconnected economy.
I believe that Bill C-101 is entirely consistent with the government's ambition and action. It will promote growth and prosperity, while protecting our industries and workers to ensure that Canada succeeds.
To conclude, I want to reiterate our government's commitment to Canadian workers and to our industry. We will continue to carefully monitor the situation, with great vigilance, for distortions in global markets. Make no mistake, if it is determined that a surge of imports is harming or could harm our workers and producers, we want to be able to respond.
It is the right thing to do for our workers, and the right thing to do for our economy. That is why I urge all members to support this legislation so that it can pass without delay.
On that note, I would like to thank the NDP, the Bloc Québécois and the independent members who voted in favour of this ways and means motion. The Conservatives, on the other hand, will have to explain their position on this.
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
Mr. Speaker, I am happy that the government is moving on this.
We in the Conservative Party wanted the government to take action over two years ago. As a matter of fact, when we had the minister in committee, we found out that a year before the Americans put tariffs on our steel and aluminum sector, the Americans asked Canada to come on board and help out. Basically, because of dithering and incompetence, Canadian companies have been suffering with these steel and aluminum tariffs since that time.
The bill is extremely important, especially in my community, where we build automobiles and have Gerdau Ameristeel.
The government has collected over $2 billion in tariffs, and because of the way it is enacting the bill, some companies may be affected negatively. What is the government going to do to dispense, perhaps regionally, this $2 billion, this massive amount of money? The government has collected it and has promised to get it out to the affected companies, but it has really done absolutely nothing. What is the government going to do to address any inadvertent harm from the bill and get money out to the producers and manufacturers that require that support?
Joël Lightbound Liberal Louis-Hébert, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I also thank him for his support for this bill, which is so important for the steel industry in particular. It gives the Government of Canada the ability to respond, should the need arise, by taking a very flexible and agile approach.
However, I am a bit puzzled by my colleague's view of the past two years, given this government's unwavering support for the steel and aluminum industry and its workers as we passed through some very stormy waters last year and over the past few months.
Industry representatives and workers have reiterated, in news release after news release, how satisfied they are with the government's strong response to the American tariffs. We have always considered those tariffs to be completely unacceptable and illegal. We responded very decisively, even though the Conservatives were suggesting, from the very beginning of the NAFTA renegotiation, that we cave in to the Americans and give them everything they wanted.
We stood firm and everyone knows how it all turned out. We managed to have those tariffs lifted, while supporting steel and aluminum workers through this difficult time.
I can attest that, on this side of the House, the government will continue to strongly support steel and aluminum workers across the country.
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Mr. Speaker, I want to give a shout-out to my colleagues from Hamilton Mountain, Essex and Windsor West for standing up for the workers, manufacturers and producers suffering through this debacle.
I also want to reiterate what my colleague said about the government dithering. On this side of the House, we wonder why the government did not put permanent safeguards on all seven steel products that were investigated by the Canadian International Trade Tribunal this spring. However, I will move on.
In the 2018 budget, the government allocated $40 million to the Canada Border Services Agency to supposedly provide more boots on the ground to assist in investigations and stop foreign steel dumping. However, by October, the agency had managed to hire only 10 people to get this work started.
How many additional officers are in place now so that we can stop this from happening?
Joël Lightbound Liberal Louis-Hébert, QC
Mr. Speaker, to answer the hon. member's specific question, I can come back to him with an exact number. As this is not under the purview of the Department of Finance, I do not have all the information about the exact number.
I appreciate the member's acknowledgement of the fact that this government decided to make substantial investments to give the Canada Border Services Agency and Global Affairs Canada the resources they need to conduct assessments and obtain the data as quickly as possible. As a result they will be able to make informed decisions to protect our industries and workers in Canada.
I would also like to acknowledge the work of members on all sides of the House and their efforts during this difficult period in our trade relations with the United States, which imposed tariffs, for example.
I can assure my colleague that our government will always stand behind steel and aluminum workers. That was made clear when we gave them the $2 billion that I mentioned in my speech. This was very well received by the workers in the steel and aluminum sector. Our government also took safeguards that are a testament to our unwavering support for the steel and aluminum industry.
We know that the past few months were not easy. However, these industries have no doubt whatsoever about this government's firm commitment to always support them and to support the workers who are the pride of this country.
Mark Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Hope, BC
Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about the regional disparities in this country when it comes to steel and aluminum producers. In the central part of Canada, safeguards are welcomed as a way to protect the big, central Canadian steel mills and those jobs. As a member of Parliament from British Columbia, I have heard from steel and aluminum producers there who have never sourced their steel from central Canada, because that is not the way the supply chain is set up to work. They have always sourced their steel from the offshore markets. They do not transship. This is what they use to produce the goods that employ people all across western Canada.
Are the jobs in manufacturing facilities in British Columbia being sacrificed? Are there any regional considerations at play? What is being done to protect the jobs of companies that have always used offshore steel and are now going to be put at a competitive disadvantage in not being able to get the supply? I am really worried about the jobs in British Columbia, and I want to hear what the government is doing specifically for western Canadian jobs.
Joël Lightbound Liberal Louis-Hébert, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
Bill C-101 provides the government with another tool and greater flexibility to respond to a market distortion or an increase in the amount of steel entering the North American market. However, the bill does not impose any safeguards, per se. It is important to remind our opposition colleagues of this.
Everyone knows how trade relationships work today. Things can change very quickly and we need to respond quickly. It is important that the government have greater flexibility to be able to act, as needed. This is a measure that is generally supported by the House.
As for my colleague's specific question, I would like to remind him of the investments made in budget 2018 and budget 2017 to give Global Affairs Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency sufficient resources to obtain more information and better understand the market and how it is changing in real time, with a view to making decisions that take into account Canada's different regional realities. My goodness, there are so many, and they all operate differently and have a different reality. It is important we have this information and to obtain it, we need to make these investments. That is what the government has done in the past to be able to support each region of the country in the most appropriate way.
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.
I would like to ask him a simple question because the steel sector has been a priority for the NDP for a long time. We are supportive of this step forward, but we are under the impression that it is a temporary measure.
Why did the Liberal government not follow the European Union's lead and implement permanent safeguard measures for seven steel products subject to dumping on the international market?
Joël Lightbound Liberal Louis-Hébert, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank the NDP for supporting this important bill, which gives the government the ability to act quickly when necessary. I believe that is why it is an indispensable legislative tool that will protect the steel and aluminum industry.
Erin O'Toole Conservative Durham, ON
Mr. Speaker, I need to start my remarks by recognizing that today is the 75th anniversary of D-Day. I have the ability to stand in this House, in our parliamentary democracy, because of the sacrifice of the 359 Canadians who died on D-Day, the 14,000 who landed on Juno Beach, and the 25,000 involved in the operation with our allies. I would be remiss if I did not start my remarks with this, because we are fortunate to have democracy based on that.
The parliamentary secretary said that this bill is a reflection of the Liberal government's values when it comes to trade. He is either reading a speech that was provided for him, or he does not realize it is actually a very high-profile abandonment of the values that Liberals projected on trade for several years. The parliamentary secretary has heard the foreign minister talk countless times about the international rules-based order. With the trading order and security order, the international rules-based order has probably been one of the foreign minister's most common refrains. In fact, in her famous speech in Washington, in June 2018, she said:
One answer is to give up on the rules-based international order, to give up on the Western alliance and to seek to survive in a Metternichian world defined not by common values, mutually agreed-upon rules and shared prosperity, but rather by a ruthless struggle between great powers governed solely by the narrow, short-term and mercantilist pursuit of self-interest.
“The ruthless, short-term, mercantilist pursuit of self-interest” should be the preamble to Bill C-101. It is an abandonment of WTO rules with respect to international trade, the rules on which the minister would like to lecture not only us but also the Americans in Washington.
It is not just my opinion that it is a WTO violation. As noted trade lawyer Mark Warner tweeted about Bill C-101, the Canadian government has been proclaiming its adherence to the rule of law at every turn, and now is suspending parts of the WTO safeguards agreement for two years.
This is an example of an abandonment of a rules-based approach to trade, and our trading partners and friends around the world notice that.
Now, there is a real politic to trade that the government avoided and ignored for its first several years. That is why Canadians should be shocked that in the final weeks of this Parliament and with no collaboration from the opposition, Liberals have tabled a ways and means motion on the new NAFTA, on safeguard provisions. In fact, they are changing the law, not to allow safeguards not to have their two-year suspension after being applied, but to have the ability to have permanent safeguards. The Liberals are doing this in the final days of the House and will likely use time allocation to rush it through.
The Conservatives are going to use this time to try to suggest some ways to mitigate the impacts of Bill C-101 with regard to issues that the government should have thought of and should have brought for debate. We are going to stand up for the interests of the wider group of employers and employees in the fabrication of steel products, particularly the western steel and construction industries, and recommend ways to help them through the disruption this bill will cause.
Hopefully, the government will address some of our concerns and make this better. Hopefully, it will deal with the companies and employees in western Canada, in Quebec and in Newfoundland and Labrador who will be impacted. In my remarks, I am going to use some time to recommend that. We want to, and may, support this bill, but it is up to the government, rushing it through in the last few days, to address the real issues that will affect small and medium-sized businesses, and to allocate some of the $2 billion it has already collected in retaliatory tariffs. The government promised this would help small and medium-sized enterprises, but it has not.
We want to hear a plan. The government has lurched from crisis to crisis on trade, tariffs, NAFTA, canola with China and pork with China. Enough with the crises. We want a plan. As an effective opposition, that is what we will do.
I have already said that this violates WTO safeguard regulation, but it also violates the ruling of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal from April, our own rules-based order. I would refer to the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The trade tribunal did say that there was “serious injury” with respect to the dumping or import of heavy plate and stainless steel wire. However, it clearly said that on rebar, energy tubular products, hot-rolled sheet, pre-painted steel and wire rod, there was no serious injury and therefore no need for safeguards.
These may seem like obscure terms to Canadians, but our recommendations today will actually show how we can go with the spirit of the safeguards and also safeguard the jobs and economic activity that depend on these steel products.
I will bring it home for Canadians. Energy tubular products are used in our oil sands, the energy industry in western Canada. There is steel plate that, if we do not have specific imports, will raise the cost of the Champlain Bridge in Quebec by $1 billion, putting at risk critical public infrastructure. There is also the Muskrat Falls project in Newfoundland and Labrador. I would like to shake out of their slumber the Maritimes and Atlantic members of the Liberal caucus. Do they realize that this project, which is already in huge cost overruns, will potentially be made worse unless there are geographic or steel-specific exemptions? The LNG Canada project, which I believe the Prime Minister took some photos at the launch of, is at risk unless some exemptions or specific regional quota is provided. There is also the Site C dam in British Columbia.
Therefore, critical jobs, economic development and public infrastructure, like the Champlain Bridge, are all potentially at risk economically because of steel that needs to be imported.
We do not make enough of these types of products, such as rebar. We already know of the affordability crisis in Vancouver, the Lower Mainland and Toronto. The construction industry needs rebar for commercial and residential building, and 40% of it in western Canada has been imported from Asia, Taiwan mainly. It will be cut off, and the producers, construction companies and fabricators that use a lot of these types of steel will see their prices go up by more than one quarter. There are real impacts here.
The government cannot rush in all of these bills at the end of Parliament because it messed up its trade strategy for four years. Therefore, we are going to have some recommendations that we want the government to take seriously, because there are thousands of jobs. Let us have a win for the steel producers, fabricators and construction companies by being smart with safeguards and having regional provisions, regional protections and quota allocations.
Let us review the history. The Liberal government came in knowing that the U.S. had issues with the Chinese oversupply and transshipment of steel. In fact, the Obama administration, in 2016, applied tariffs when it introduced the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act and brought up steel duties by 500% on some steel products. We know that the Prime Minister got together with President Obama for another photo-op the other day. We know that bromance. Why did they not start coordinating concerns about transshipment then? In fact, they did not. Some of the members are waking up now, and I am happy to see that.
In 2017, the U.S. president expressed a direct concern about oversupply and transshipment, and said he would use section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum. What was our response? Absolutely nothing. We know that because of the admission of failure from the finance minister that came on May 30, 2018, when he quietly introduced country-of-origin labelling rules for Chinese steel tracing, which is part of transshipment investigation, hours before section 232 tariffs were applied on Canada. I would remind the member for Malpeque of that.
The U.S. had been asking for this. In fact, the Commerce Secretary has acknowledged that Canada did not work with the U.S. on transshipment concerns; therefore, section 232 tariffs were applied.
Despite the fact that, in 2018, the Prime Minister went to Sault Ste. Marie and a number of other communities and said he had their back because he had a one-month exemption, the Conservatives who were going down to Washington knew that Canada had not made the moves. It had not put in tracing measures, country-of-origin labelling, to take American concerns on transshipments seriously. Therefore, the tariffs were applied. We could have avoided that.
I laugh at the friends who used to call the current Prime Minister the “Trump whisperer”. We have been in a one-sided, bad-outcome relationship with the United States under the Prime Minister, going back to Obama, because transshipment concerns could have taken place back in the Obama administration. I will remind the members that, in June of last year, over a year ago, I asked the minister about this at the trade committee. I referred to the section 232 tariffs and the need for country-of-origin marking and transshipment concerns. The minister dodged my questions for six minutes.
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member opposite is clearly using a prop. He is waving a white flag. The Conservatives are prepared to surrender and he seems to be trying to surrender again. Captain Capitulation can have the floor back.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker Liberal Anthony Rota
I did not see a white flag. I am not sure what the hon. member is referring to.
We will go back to the hon. member for Durham.
Erin O'Toole Conservative Durham, ON
Mr. Speaker, there is a transcript from a year ago, when I questioned the minister on Liberal delays on safeguards. I will send this package to the member from Toronto and to the rest of the Liberal caucus, because they have been asleep. How do I know that? None of them showed up to their own government's briefing on this bill last night. In fact, I found out about it when the Minister of Finance asked me and said there was a briefing. The Liberals did not invite the opposition to the briefing. That is how they have played this from day one.
The minister avoided all my questions on why Canada waited over a year to take U.S. concerns over transshipments seriously. We could have avoided section 232 tariffs. We could have been having this debate on safeguards a year and a half ago, when the Conservatives asked for it, at a time when we could have mitigated some of the impacts of safeguards.
I am going to go through those impacts now, because they are real. They affect jobs in Winnipeg, Sault Ste. Marie, Hamilton, Toronto, Prince Edward Island and wherever that guy is from. They are real because there are fabricators in all communities.
I toured a great fabrication plant, one of the largest employers on Prince Edward Island. It works with Quebec steel companies to bid on and build stairways and parts of construction in Manhattan high-rises. I know the member for Malpeque is proud of those jobs, as am I. These are all affected by poor Liberal decisions on trade policy and will be impacted by Bill C-101.
What the Conservatives want to see is mitigating the impact. We want to see western Canadian fabricators and critical public infrastructure projects like Muskrat Falls, Site C, LNG Canada and the Champlain Bridge protected by regional allocation of quota. We want to make sure that the Champlain Bridge does not cost $1 billion or $2 billion more as a result of this bill. That can be done, and it can be WTO-compliant through TRQs, regional allocation of quota for critical industry, because western Canada cannot get steel from Hamilton to Sault Ste-Marie. It is uneconomical to ship it there. We do not make enough rebar and other critical elements of plate that we need. They need to import, so let us give tariff allocation where it is needed, for example in Newfoundland and Quebec. We are going to recommend that.
We also have recommendations about the $2 billion the Liberals have collected through tariff-like taxes, through retaliatory tariffs. They said it would go as relief to small and medium-sized businesses impacted by trade disruptions, by section 232. They have not given the money. They have given some loan guarantees to the large steel players. We want to see a commitment to allocate some of those funds to the small and medium players and to address geographic concerns. If so, they will see the Conservatives work with them on Bill C-101, work with them on NAFTA, even though we are not happy with the fact that we are seeing these in the final weeks of Parliament, when the Conservatives have been asking for this for over a year.
Let us review. President Trump was not even inaugurated when the Prime Minister volunteered to renegotiate NAFTA. That was a risk we did not need to take, but when it was taken, the Conservatives put forward suggestions to the government. Let us remember that 98% of Canada's trade access was negotiated by Conservative governments, including NAFTA, including U.S. free trade. We said, let us put auto forward. Let us put softwood and key agricultural sectors forward as our priorities, because the U.S. trade representative Ambassador Lighthizer and his team had already prepared a list of priorities where the U.S. wanted to go.
The minister's speech at the University of Ottawa addressed none of the issues the U.S. wanted to talk about. The Liberals launched their much-vaunted progressive agenda and they talked about issues related to the Prime Minister's brand, but that had no relation to trade whatsoever. In fact, they did not mention auto and auto part calculation for six months. When they did, we praised them for that and there was progress finally made in the NAFTA discussions.
Mexico took the talks seriously and had 80-plus meetings with White House officials. It had a deal done before Canada did. That should trouble Canadians. The government virtue-signalled, as I call it, and put its own electoral ambitions ahead of the national interest. That should trouble Canadians.
That is why, in the final days of Parliament, we have the two most substantive economic pieces of this Parliament being rushed through in ways and means motions. It is because of incompetence. The section 232 tariffs were completely avoidable if, going back to President Obama, we had taken concerns about Chinese transshipments seriously. They were avoidable if we had taken NAFTA seriously and had put forward the auto sector, which was always going to be critical, and if we had put in softwood lumber and tried to deal with that constant generational issue that is now hurting our western producers, and if we had put in agriculture and started punching back at the administration's claims about subsidies through our supply management system. The U.S. spends more on agricultural subsidies than we do on our military. I did not hear the government pushing back on that.
The Liberals were talking about the progressive agenda with a president who they know was not quite progressive. They totally misaligned our interests. That is why Mexico, which had a weaker position going in, got a deal before Canada did. We had to scramble to try to be an add-on to that deal.
The same thing happened with tariffs. Mexico was ahead. That is why I am happy that the Conservatives collaborated. We told the ambassador that we were going down. The member for Prince Albert and I, in one day, were invited to a caucus meeting and met more members of Congress than the government did in the previous year to talk about section 232 relief.
I have talked about some of the ways we can work with the government on Bill C-101. To fix the issues that are missed, to mitigate, we are proposing an amendment to make this bill better.
I move, seconded by the member for Oshawa:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:
the House decline to give second reading to Bill C-101, An Act to amend the Customs Tariff and the Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act, because it fails to:
a. take into consideration regional disparities in industry needs, specifically, that domestic producers only minimally supply certain steel products to British Columbia, Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador;
b. add a geographic exclusion, either exempting British Columbia, Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador from the proposed safeguards or allocating a dedicated share of the regional quota to British Columbia, Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador;
c. stipulate specific tariff and trade disruption relief to steel fabricators;
d. mandate that the funds collected through retaliatory tariffs on the United States go to support small and medium-sized Canadian steel and aluminum fabricators and retailers impacted by the application of the retaliatory tariffs; and
e. grant specific product exclusions for certain steel products that are not produced in commercial quantities in Canada to avoid the negative economic impact of safeguards on critical public infrastructure projects like the Champlain Bridge, the Muskrat Falls Hydroelectric Dam, the Site C Dam, and projects of national economic importance like LNG Canada.
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I wonder if you could direct the Sergeant-at-Arms to have whoever is having conversations outside the chamber to quiet down, because they are extremely loud at this point. We cannot hear anything on the floor.