Bill C-79 (Historical)

Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation Act

An Act to implement the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership between Canada, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam

This enactment implements the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, done at Santiago on March 8, 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 13 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 provision.

Bill C-79—Second Reading

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Joliette for his question.

The House voted unanimously in favour of the motion to ensure that any agreements we sign do not open a breach in our supply management system. Unfortunately, unanimous motions do not force the government to take action. That is sad because each new agreement we sign chips away at supply management.

In 2014, I even moved a similar motion calling for financial support and demanding that the government fully protect supply management in the Canada-Europe agreement, but we all know how that turned out.

Benoit Legault represents dairy farmers in the Outaouais-Laurentides region. This is what he had to say:

All countries subsidize their agricultural sectors to ensure food sovereignty. However, our dairy farmers have never needed subsidies because production is tightly controlled. There is no surplus, prices do not go down, and there is no need to subsidize our dairy farmers. Then the government came along with compensation...

He was talking about the investment plan, which never materialized. These farmers do not want subsidies. They do not want money. They just want the government to do its job, keep its promises, and protect our borders like it said it would.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am privileged to stand in the House and speak to this very important issue. I had the privilege of being the New Democratic Party official opposition critic on international trade for four years in the last Parliament.

Of course, the agreement that is the subject of discussion today that was known then as the TPP or trans-Pacific partnership, now renamed the comprehensive and progressive trans-Pacific partnership, was very much in the public domain at that time. I followed the details as that agreement was being negotiated fairly carefully at that time. Essentially, my concern comes down to a number of basic points.

First of all, New Democrats have long been concerned by the secrecy surrounding the TPP and the CPTPP negotiations. Despite direct promises by the Prime Minister during the last election to be transparent on trade deals, the Liberals continue to give Canadians vague updates and mixed messages. Today we faced the shameful action by the government that brought in time allocation to limit debate on this very important subject. The previous government did this almost 100 times and the present Liberal government seems to be trying to match it. That shuts down democratic debate. It prevents us from speaking our minds and representing our constituents, which we were elected to come here to do. I think it is deplorable and it ought to be condemned.

Second, we have to recall that the trade committee held dozens of sessions, heard from more than 400 witnesses and received written comments from more than 60,000 Canadians. The overwhelming consensus was that 95% of those people, those good people who took the time to make their views known, were against this deal. Experts also point out that Canada under the CPTPP would lose 58,000 jobs due to concessions that would damage our automobile industry and our supply management system. I will explore that in a few minutes.

This deal also contains troubling provisions on foreign control of Canadian businesses, rights to privacy and intellectual property. This agreement contains extremely weak labour and environment standards. I would say they are virtually absent. The so-called side letters are almost toothless, not only because they are not in the main agreement but because of the language contained in them.

The New Democrats have, for decades now, been strong proponents of fair trade and fair trade deals that seek to raise the labour standards, improve environmental protection, protect our public services and culture, and increase jobs in the Canadian economy.

I want to stop for a moment because I have heard, unfortunately, from the Liberal side of the House, some words that I think typify a very unfortunate approach to politics. We saw this in the last Conservative government under then Prime Minister Harper where if one was not in agreement with the government, then one was subject to a very simplified wedge politics approach that completely misrepresented one's position. It was repeated endlessly, so for instance if one did not stand with the Conservatives' tough-on-crime legislation, somehow one was on the side of child molesters. That approach to politics is deplorable in this House. I think Canadians reject it. We reject it. It does not do anything to advance informed political debate.

I am hearing the same thing from Liberals in this debate that, because we are not in favour of this agreement or are doing our job as opposition by critiquing this agreement, we are opposed to trade. That is absurd and it is nonsense, yet the Liberals keep saying that. Every Canadian understands the importance of trade. Every Canadian wants Canada to be a positive trading nation. That does not mean that we will sign any piece of paper put in front of us. That does not mean that we will be in favour of any agreement, no matter how many jobs it costs Canada or how harmful it is to the Canadian economy.

I want to state for the record that New Democrats are proud supporters of trade. We are strong supporters of Canadian champions and we want to build a strong trading nation in Canada that protects our environment, that supports labour and human rights and that also supports Canadian champions on the world scene.

The only major change that appears to be positive about this whole deal is that the Liberals put the word “progressive” in the title. This is a cynical and very transparent ploy that progressive Canadians will not accept. There is nothing progressive about this deal.

I want to talk for a few minutes about why this agreement is troubling and will start with the auto sector.

The auto sector in this country is extremely important. Canada is the 10th largest vehicle producer in the world. The auto sector is the largest manufacturing sector in Canada. Over 120,000 employees are directly employed in the auto and auto parts sector and it is responsible for about $100 billion in factory sales and related economic activity.

What will the CPTPP do? Industry and labour groups in the auto and auto parts sectors that will be most affected by this and have been carefully monitoring this agreement over the last number of years are strongly opposed to it.

The auto industry is already in the crosshairs of the NAFTA negotiation and facing punitive U.S. tariffs. The industry does not believe the Liberals' claims that the CPTPP will open up markets in the Asia-Pacific, particularly Japan. In fact, anybody who watches auto industry patterns and trends will realize that by reducing tariffs in this country, we are going to see a flood of automobiles and automotive parts coming in from jurisdictions, and not the other way around. It will only increase the auto trade imbalance and further de-harmonize the Canada-U.S. auto industry. Why? Let us look at the rules of origin.

Under the CPTPP, in order for a vehicle made in a TPP country to come into Canada tariff-free, 35% to 45% of it has to be made within a TPP country. Imagine that. If a car manufacturer sets up, say, in Vietnam or Malaysia, in order for one of its cars to come in tariff-free, only 35% to 45% of it has to be made in Vietnam or Malaysia. The rest of the car can be made outside of either of those countries in low wage jurisdictions like Bangladesh or India, or any other low wage jurisdiction that has no environmental standards and very poor labour and employment standards. Even if 35% to 45% is made in the low wage jurisdictions of Malaysia or Vietnam, 55% to 65% of that vehicle, the rest of it, will be made in an even lower wage jurisdiction.

How on earth are major vehicle manufacturers centred in Canada that pay good wages, that pay workers' compensation benefits, that pay for health and welfare benefits, and that pay good taxes or support social programs in this country supposed to compete with that? Yet the Liberals expect us to believe that under this deal we are going to be making vehicles here and will be sending them to Malaysia. If anyone believes that, we have a bridge for sale.

I want to talk about supply management. Supply management is made up of three pillars: price controls, production controls, and import controls. The Liberals continually say that they stand up for supply management in every trade deal, but what they do not tell Canadians is that in every trade deal they have signed, from CETA to the CPTPP, and probably with NAFTA today, they are chipping away at the import controls and letting each one of those great deals let more and more dairy products come in, 3% for Europe, and another 3.5% for the TPP countries. Who knows what we are going to give Donald Trump?

That means that as they sit here and pretend to support supply management, the Liberals are eroding or sawing off that third pillar of supply management. Eventually it will be 15%, 20%, 25%, 40%, 50% of import controls and by that time supply management will have been killed from within.

We saw what happened with Brexit in England. We saw the election of Donald Trump. What happened? Workers around the world have perceived that over the last 30 or 40 years under so-called globalization business has achieved everything it wanted, such as lower labour costs, deregulation, and liberalized trade so that global capital could move around the world. What has happened? The benefits of that have not been shared equally.

That is why the British and American working class have rebelled against neo-Liberal trade deals, all of which have only done one thing: increased GDP for the top 1% to 10%, while 90% of the rest of us end up having poor jobs while we watch our manufacturing sector get hollowed out and good middle-class, family sustaining jobs sent to low wage jurisdictions.

That is what has happened under the Liberals, it is what happened under the Conservatives, and the New Democrats are the only ones who will stand in the House and fight for Canadian jobs and a strong Canadian economy here at home for everybody. We will stand against these lousy trade deals every time they are put before us in the House. That is what the CPTPP is, a lousy deal, and we will continue to fight against it until we can stop this agreement.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague.

Whenever the New Democrats talk about free trade agreements, the same question always comes to mind: has there ever been one they supported? For two and a half years, I was a member of the Standing Committee on International Trade, and they never supported a single one. Some 500,000 jobs have been created for the middle class in Canada since 2015.

Earlier the member mentioned auto parts. Consultations on the trans-Pacific partnership were held in every town and city in the country. We met with representatives of automakers and auto parts manufacturers associations, not only from the U.S., but also from Japan and Korea. Our government also listened to what Canadian auto sector workers had to say, and we made their concerns a priority. As part of the negotiations, Canada signed bilateral side letters with Australia and Malaysia, but there is also Japan.

What do all these jobs mean for the middle class in my colleague's riding? I hope he knows what this means.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I heard this the other day in the House and I am going to repeat it, that the only thing consistent about the Liberals on trade is their inconsistency. I was carefully following the debate in 1988 when the Liberal Party opposed the free trade agreement with the United States. In 1993, I saw the Liberal Party campaign against NAFTA and say that it would pull out of it if it were elected. It was elected, but what happened? As is often the case with the Liberals, they campaigned from the left and governed from the right. They suddenly forgot that promise. Then they were for NAFTA. In terms of inconsistency, for the Liberals I guess it just depends which way the wind is blowing, and then they will determine their trade policy.

I forgive my hon. colleague for not knowing this as I do not think she was present in the last parliament, but the NDP has supported two agreements. We supported an agreement with South Korea and an agreement with Jordan. We supported those agreements because we analyzed them and determined that the countries we would be trading with would be of benefit to Canada. We read the agreements and made sure that overall they would be of benefit to this country. The Liberals should try to do that sometime.

Finally, on auto and auto parts, if we go back and look at the facts, ever since we signed NAFTA, the auto plants in Canada have gone down and the auto plants in Mexico have gone up almost exactly in proportion. We have lost manufacturing jobs. Everybody who watches knows; it is common sense. If one signs an agreement with a country that pays one-third the wages we do and does not have any of the social programs we do, capital will likely go to that jurisdiction for it to operate its manufacturing plants there and then just ship the goods back to us. That is exactly what was done, and that is what this deal would do too.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I have seen New Democrats perform inside the House of Commons for many years at the provincial level, and one of the things that really strikes me is the fact that they are somewhat consistent. When the member talks about trade and trade agreements, for all intents and purposes they do not support trade agreements, period. They might cite one or two, but when it comes to actually doing the assessment, we know that they do not do one. This very piece of legislation is a good example of it. They opposed this agreement before the details of it were even known. Once they received the actual agreement, then they justified their position. Their position was known before the agreement. Everyone knew that. Thomas Mulcair was going around saying that they opposed the agreement, yet he had no idea what was in it.

The NDP does not support trade or trade agreements, yet Canada's economy and middle class are very dependent on these. Trade realizes real tangible jobs, jobs that Canadians want. When will the NDP take a position in support of Canadian jobs? I was at a Canada Goose factory last week, which is exporting and creating hundreds of jobs. There are over 500,000 jobs—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always interesting to me how the member always confuses volume with logic. I cannot compete with logic like that.

He said that the NDP does not support trade agreements, but that we might support a couple. Of course we support trade agreements. I have cited two that we support. Once again he has repeated that old canard that the NDP does not support trade. I have defied him to find one comment ever made by any New Democrat in the history of our party that indicates we do not support trade, yet he repeats his claim here. That is just misleading Canadians.

Here is an interesting thing. Speaking of suppositions, the present Minister of Foreign Affairs, when she was the critic for international trade, said this when the CETA text finally came out. Members can read it in the newspapers. She said she was looking forward to finally seeing the deal that she has been supporting all along. That is what the Liberals said about CETA. They supported CETA before they actually knew what was in it. Maybe that is why my hon. colleague has such projection on this issue, because what he is accusing the NDP of is really what the Liberals are guilty of.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Order. I should advise the House that there have been more than five hours of debate on this motion during this first round. Consequently, all subsequent interventions shall be limited to ten minutes for speeches and five minutes for questions and comments.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Joliette.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are discussing Bill C-79, a bill to implement the new incarnation of the TPP without the United States.

The Bloc Québécois is sincerely and seriously concerned about supply management and the breaches that are included in this new version of the agreement. The government gave up 3.25% of the dairy market, 2.3% of the egg market, and 2.1% of the poultry market.

The Liberals and Conservatives, who boast about being the great defenders of our farmers and supply management, just voted in favour of time allocation in order to pass this bill quickly. Last spring, they tried to have a motion adopted unanimously to pass the bill immediately. Obviously, we were there and voted against the motion.

There is quite a disconnect between what they say and what they do. They say they want to defend supply management in its entirety, without any breaches. Now that there is a tangible case in front of them, they are changing their tune and cannot pass this new version of the TPP, with all its breaches, soon enough. That does not add up. There is a major lack of credibility here.

On that note, I would remind the House that whenever there is a by-election, big promises are made. During the by-election in Lac-Saint-Jean, the Prime Minister said, "We will not make any concessions when it comes to supply management."

He said this about the TPP on October 19, 2017, in Saint-Félicien, as reported by the Journal de Montréal. I was there too, and I heard it. We were happy at the time, but we now know how much his word is worth.

Just before the last election, on October 4, 2015, the Prime Minister gave an interview to Radio-Canada, which is still available online, in which he said that the Liberal government would not make any concessions on supply management in the TPP. There was even a unanimous motion passed on February 7, 2018. The motion stated:

That the House call on the government to ensure that there is no breach in supply management as part of the new Trans-Pacific Partnership.

My colleague from Mirabel moved this motion, which passed unanimously. The two Liberal international trade ministers were in the House, and they agreed.

I remind members that we, as legislators and elected officials, are the government's boss. We asked the government, including all of the Liberals and all of the Conservatives, to ensure that there was no breach in supply management in the new version of the trans-Pacific partnership. We ended up with a significant breach nonetheless. I repeat that his word and his promise are worthless in my eyes.

I would remind members that we are talking about 3.25% for milk, 2.3% for eggs, and 2.1% for poultry. These are all supposedly protected by a quota system that is very costly for farmers. In total, to have a protected market, we are talking about approximately $33 billion in quotas, including $20 billion just for the dairy sector. That is not peanuts. We should respect that.

This is the current explanation for the breach. The Americans wanted concessions with respect to supply management. As they no longer want to be part of the new TPP, they are being enticed with concessions to come back to the table. So what do President Donald Trump and the Americans do? They say they do not want the new TPP, but they want these types of concessions in NAFTA renegotiations. Since we made them in the TPP, we can make them to the Americans, as well. That makes a breach in two agreements for our farmers, who are paying for absolutely nothing.

I will draw a parallel to NAFTA. On June 7, the Prime Minister stated in a Radio-Canada article that if Donald Trump wants to attack supply management, there would be no NAFTA, that they would not sign NAFTA. Given that the government's credibility and the worth of its word have been seriously tainted, there may be some doubt about that.

On September 26 of last year, we were proactive and passed a unanimous motion:

That the House reiterate its desire to fully preserve supply management during the NAFTA renegotiations.

There is an election campaign underway in Quebec. All party leaders are asking that supply management remain intact in NAFTA. However, it seems that this is not as important given the comments made by Simon Beauchemin, the Prime Minister's advisor in NAFTA renegotiations, who wrote an open letter in La Presse calling for the abolition of supply management.

On that topic, last winter I asked him if he wanted to abolish supply management and how he planned to reimburse the $33 billion worth of quota once supply management is abolished. Farmers are borrowing from financial institutions to cover that. All he did was chortle at me before taking off.

I would remind the House that back when the majority of seats in Quebec were held by Bloc Québécois members, supply management was respected, and those sectors were automatically excluded from the 10 trade agreements signed by Canada, including NAFTA.

At the time, Quebec had more of a voice and Canada listened. Since 2011, that has no longer been the case. Consider the Canada-EU agreement. The bargaining chip that Canada gave up was a new breach for the dairy and cheese sector.

The Harper government had not only promised but even budgeted $4.3 billion in compensation for our dairy producers. The Liberals came to power and tore up that agreement, and instead created a mini program worth $250 million. The first part was gone in a matter of minutes. It was heavily criticized and not suited to our farmers. That is unacceptable. Our farmers were used as a bargaining chip in the Canada-EU agreement. The same thing happened with the TPP and now the CPTPP.

The government has not announced any compensation for our farmers. Once again, farmers are being used as bargaining chips. We are worried about the NAFTA renegotiation because the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs have changed their tune. We get silence, or they talk around the issue. We have real concerns that there could be another breach in supply management.

This is in addition to all of the tricks, which I consider illegal, that American producers use to try to break into our market and that take an awful lot of time to address. I am talking about milk proteins, diafiltered milk, and misuse of the duty deferral program. There is also the spent fowl scandal, or the distributors that throw in a couple packets of sauce to bring in chicken wings and bypass supply management. Another example is how pizza kits are used bring in grated cheese, and I could go on.

Up until 2011, the government made its position clear to other countries. If they wanted us to make changes to supply management, they would have to eliminate their subsidies and other protectionist mechanisms. That used to be a prerequisite for negotiation, but not anymore. The government gave an inch, and now it is open season.

A C.D. Howe Institute study showed that, in its first year, the TPP's impact on the GDP would be 0.01%. That is negligible. Any benefit will go mainly to Ontario and the west. Quebec is too far from the Pacific nations to benefit much at all. Nevertheless, the things Canada gave up in order to join the partnership are things that matter to Quebec. That is deplorable and unacceptable.

The supply management system works. The United States has a number of protected sectors such as cotton and sugar, but also dairy, eggs and poultry, same as here. All of the agreements that have been signed include very high tariffs to protect domestic markets. Most, if not all, industrialized nations have mechanisms to protect agriculture. Agriculture is an important sector, one vital to any country's national security and to feeding its people.

Apparently Canada's government is the only one prepared to sell out its farmers time after time. That is unacceptable.

We do not want to see the kinds of megafarms that have been popping up in the United States in recent years. Some of those farms have 10,000 cows. Megafarms account for 30% of milk production. Here, farms typically have about 50 cows. I am talking about a family farm land use model. If we did things here like they do in the United States, my entire riding would have a single producer. That is unacceptable, and we want nothing to do with it. An American magazine called Quartz reported that the suicide rate on American family farms is one a week.

That is not what we want, so we will vote against this agreement because of the major breach it creates in supply management.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to my colleague's speech. He represents a riding in Quebec. My riding is also in Quebec, in a suburb north of Montreal.

As far as the TPP is concerned, I had the opportunity to sit on the Standing Committee on International Trade for two and a half years and we held consultations across the country. We heard from labour unions, civil society, auto parts manufacturers and automakers.

My colleague did not touch on the cultural exemption. There are side letters and that is very important for Quebec's cultural industry, but he did not mention that. I did not hear him talk about the increased number of job opportunities for the middle class in his riding. I would like him to say a few words about that.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.

I hope nothing will happen to the cultural exemption. I would remind the hon. member that we already had trade agreements that included a cultural exemption with 80% of the signatory countries of the TPP. Before the TPP, there was talk of negotiating an agreement with Japan. If we add that to the list of countries with which we already had an agreement, we would not be far from 100%. Every agreement already included a cultural exemption, so I hope that the government is not going back on that. That would be the last straw, because the government is already going back on supply management.

What is more, since we already had agreements, this one does not really benefit the middle class and Quebec businesses. So says the C.D. Howe Institute. Instead, this is a major setback for our farmers and our land use model, a system that works. It is a clear setback for Quebec since our farmers are being sacrificed for next to nothing in return.

[Simon Marcil, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my esteemed colleague for his speech. We are all familiar with this government's tendency to get involved in conflicts of interest, much like its predecessor. That is why I suspect it has other reasons for wanting the ratify the TPP quickly. I have a two-part question for my colleague.

First, does he really think that adding the word “progressive” to the name of the agreement is a sign of social progress?

Second, who does he think stands to benefit financially when the Liberals rush passage of this agreement, as they did with cannabis legalization?

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before I answer my colleague's questions, I have more to say to the member opposite. The U.S. is the cultural threat here. Vietnam is not a threat to Quebec's culture and identity. The Americans are the reason for the cultural exemption.

Who is lining their pockets? Not us. The C.D. Howe Institute says we will not benefit much. Ontario and the western provinces will, but not us. Once again, English Canada's interests take precedence in the House of Commons. The two big parties think this is a good deal for their gang, so they are running with it. Too bad for Quebeckers and what they want. That is what happens when we let our neighbours make decisions for us: we keep losing ground. That needs to change now.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we are hearing concerns from indigenous peoples around the lack of consultation on the CPTPP. I just received a message from Brenda Sayers of the Hupacasath First Nation on the west coast of Vancouver Island. She says:

It is disheartening that the CPTPP is being fast-tracked without consideration for, or consultation with First Nations whose rights will be grossly undermined under several different chapters of the trade agreement. The Liberal government has promised reconciliation with First Nations and yet when presented with real opportunities, they have not only failed to follow through on this promise, but having given hope to a people whose only request is justice and fair treatment; they have made a mockery of a long broken relationship.

Maybe my friend could speak about his feelings on whether the government has really taken a path to reconciliation in this trade agreement.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague.

My colleague from Mirabel will support the amendment. I am sure of it.

I would like to propose the following amendment to the amendment, which I am sure will be seconded by my colleague from Mirabel: That the amendment be amended by adding after the words “jobs in Canada” the following: especially in the agricultural sector, as this agreement creates a significant breach in supply management by offering 3.25% of the dairy market to foreign producers, despite the unanimous motion adopted in the House on February 7, 2018, that this House call on the government to ensure that there is no breach in supply management in the new Trans-Pacific Partnership.

That is my amendment to the amendment.

I fully agree with my colleague's comments on our relationship and reconciliation with first nations.