This bill is from 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 has also written a full legislative summary of the bill.
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 Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Customs TariffGovernment Orders
The Assistant Deputy Speaker Anthony Rota
I am going to interrupt the hon. member for Abbotsford. I am having a hard time hearing him because the members from both sides are shouting at each other so I cannot hear. I am sure everyone wants to hear what the hon. member for Abbotsford has to say.
I will let the hon. member for Abbotsford continue.
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Mr. Speaker, this whole catastrophe, starting with the section 232 tariffs that Donald Trump imposed on Canada under the auspices of national security concerns and all that entailed, the casualties along the way and the companies that went under because of these tariffs, all of that has to be laid at the feet of the current Liberal government and our virtue-signalling Prime Minister, who cannot keep simple promises.
As members know, we are heading into election season, the silly season, and each one of these Liberals will be held to account. However, we can bet our boots the current Prime Minister is already—
Customs TariffGovernment Orders
The Assistant Deputy Speaker Anthony Rota
Order. I want to remind the hon. members that there is a speech being given and shouting across the floor is not going to allow us to hear it. I want to point out that it is coming from both sides. One side is not being blamed over the other.
The hon. member for Abbotsford can continue, so we can hear what he has to say.
Customs TariffGovernment Orders
The Assistant Deputy Speaker Anthony Rota
The hon. member has about four minutes left. Then he will have just over four minutes and 20 seconds left when we return to the debate, as well as 10 minutes of questions.
The hon. member for Abbotsford.
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Mr. Speaker, I am thankful that you reminded my Liberal colleagues across the way that they should not be heckling something that is a serious matter. I think you, Mr. Speaker, will acknowledge that most of the noise is coming from over there, because they do not want to hear the truth.
The Liberals moved forward with disastrous economic policies that are laying waste to many of our industries. Companies are going under, across Canada, because of tariffs that have been imposed by our largest trading partner.
I started off by talking about Canada's foreign policy, and I said that the story of these tariffs is about a failed Liberal foreign policy and a failed Liberal trade policy. I mentioned the fact that The Conservatives left our trade relationships around the world in excellent shape. I could call any of my counterparts around the world and say that we have a trade irritant, a trade problem we need to resolve, and, invariably, we could get those issues resolved. Today, no matter where we look, it is a disaster. It is a wasteland of broken trade relationships and burned bridges.
We talked about China earlier. Can the Prime Minister even pick up the phone and call the President of China to try to address the issue of the two Canadians who are held there? He cannot even get him on the phone. Our foreign affairs minister cannot get the Chinese on the phone.
If we look at the Philippines, can the Prime Minister travel to the Philippines today, after sending it garbage and not taking it back on time? If we look at India, do members remember the disaster with the India relationship because our Prime Minister travelled there? We have no diplomatic relationship with Saudi Arabia at all. It is a wasteland of trade relationships.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It was Stephen Harper's garbage that went to the Philippines. We are the government that cleaned it up.
Customs TariffGovernment Orders
The Assistant Deputy Speaker Anthony Rota
Order. The debate will continue with the hon. member for Abbotsford, who will have five minutes and 34 seconds when we come back, and we can come back to a fresh Parliament.
The House resumed from June 6 consideration of the motion 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, and of the amendment.
Second ReadingCustoms TariffGovernment Orders
The Assistant Deputy Speaker Carol Hughes
The hon. member for Abbotsford has five and a half minutes left from his original speech.
The hon. member for Abbotsford.
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to speak again to Bill C-101, which is effectively a story of failed foreign policy, a story of failed Liberal trade policy and a story of abandonment of our western industries and our manufacturers.
This bill, in short, is really reflective of the Prime Minister's failure to recognize how important the relationship between Canada and the United States is. That relationship is with our largest trading partner. Our bilateral trade is somewhere in the order of $850 billion a year.
What happened was that, for a number of years, the United States has been asking Canada to address a serious trade challenge. That trade challenge is the issue of steel and aluminum imports coming into North America, coming into Canada, effectively being dumped in Canada by countries that sell it at prices that are below the actual cost. It is about illegal imports of steel coming through Canada and then being transshipped into the United States.
The challenge here is that, even though the United States was asking Canada to implement some legislation that would address this very serious trade challenge, our Prime Minister did not listen. He thought that Donald Trump was bluffing, and he did not do anything about it.
A year ago, our American cousins became frustrated and said that if Canadians were not going to listen to their concerns, they were simply going to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum. That is exactly what happened. It took over a year for this Prime Minister to actually take that message seriously.
Today, we are debating the legislation that should have come forward over a year ago. We did not have to go through this period when the United States was imposing tariffs under the guise of national security concerns. We can just imagine Canada, one of the most trusted partners of the United States, security partner, trade partner, foreign policy partner, and the United States becoming so frustrated that it said it would have to use section 232, the national security exemption, to impose these tariffs on Canadians. It might be illegal at the World Trade Organization, but the U.S. was going to do it anyway because it was so frustrated with Canada's intransigence.
That has to be laid at the feet of the Prime Minister. It is symptomatic of a broader malaise in Canada's trade agenda and policy that started back in 2015. Canadians have a right to ask what the playing field was like back in 2015 when the Conservatives left government and the Liberals came in.
Over the preceding 10 years—
Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Since my colleague started his speech, we have been hearing a lot of noise. If some conversations could be taken outside the chamber, that would be best. Could the conversations be calmed down?
Second ReadingCustoms TariffGovernment Orders
The Assistant Deputy Speaker Carol Hughes
I do agree with the member for Edmonton Manning that there is still a lot of noise in the chamber, and there was also some heckling. I would just ask those who have thoughts, instead of talking about them out loud, to hold on to them. There will be a period for questions and comments coming up.
The hon. member for Abbotsford.
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Madam Speaker, thank you for your consideration. There was a lot of heckling coming from over there. They have very thin skins over there because they do not want to hear the truth about their reckless trade policy.
What did 2015 look like? The Conservative government under Stephen Harper had just completed free trade agreements with 46 different countries around the world: trade agreements with the European Union, with the Trans-Pacific Partnership partners, with South Korea, with Jordan, with Peru, with Colombia and with Ukraine. We also modernized trade agreements with countries like Chile and Israel. We had the most aggressive, successful trade agenda this country had ever seen.
For 2015, the tableau had been set. Our diplomatic relationships and trade relationships around the world were as good as they had ever been. We then had a Liberal government come in. Here we are four years later, and what does that agenda look like? Can our Prime Minister travel to China and talk about trade policy? He absolutely cannot. The Prime Minister went to the Philippines and he embarrassed the president of the Philippines in his own country when our Prime Minister was the president's guest at the East Asia Summit.
It has been a disaster of a trade policy. We can think about India. We can think about the tweet about Saudi Arabia—