Bill C-4 (Historical)

Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement Implementation Act

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

This bill is from the 43rd Parliament, 1st session, which ended in September 2020.

Sponsor

Chrystia Freeland  Liberal

Status

This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.

Summary

This is from the published bill.

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, as amended by the Protocol of Amendment to that Agreement, done at Mexico City on December 10, 2019.
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 20 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 the coming into force provisions.

Elsewhere

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.

Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-4s:

C-4 (2025) Law Making Life More Affordable for Canadians Act
C-4 (2021) Law An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conversion therapy)
C-4 (2020) Law COVID-19 Response Measures Act
C-4 (2016) Law An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code, the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act, the Public Service Labour Relations Act and the Income Tax Act

Votes

Feb. 6, 2020 Passed 2nd reading of Bill C-4, An Act to implement the Agreement between Canada, the United States of America and the United Mexican States

Debate Summary

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This is a computer-generated summary of the speeches below. Usually it’s accurate, but every now and then it’ll contain inaccuracies or total fabrications.

Bill C-4 implements the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), modernizing trade relations and ensuring continued access to North American markets while addressing key issues like labor, environment, and digital trade.

Liberal

  • Preserves vital north American trade: The agreement is crucial for Canada's economy, preserving essential tariff-free access to U.S. and Mexican markets, providing stability for businesses and workers.
  • Achieved key Canadian objectives: Canada successfully defends supply management, preserves the cultural exemption, maintains the state-to-state dispute resolution mechanism, and secures future exemptions from U.S. tariffs.
  • Modernizes trade with progressive provisions: CUSMA includes new, enforceable chapters on labour and environment, unprecedented protections against gender-based discrimination, and provisions for Indigenous peoples and small and medium-sized enterprises.
  • Widely supported by Canadians: The government engaged extensively with stakeholders, receiving support from provinces, businesses, unions, and opposition parties, highlighting a Team Canada approach to ratification.

Conservative

  • Supports CUSMA despite significant flaws: The Conservative Party supports the ratification of CUSMA to provide economic certainty, despite considering it a flawed agreement that is worse than the original NAFTA.
  • Criticizes Liberal negotiation strategy: The party criticizes the Liberal government's negotiation strategy, asserting it led to significant concessions, a weaker agreement than NAFTA, and a net loss for Canada.
  • Highlights negative industry impacts and sovereignty concerns: Conservatives express concern over major concessions impacting dairy, aluminum, and auto sectors, alongside unresolved softwood lumber and procurement issues, and a concerning loss of Canadian sovereignty.
  • Foresees significant economic losses: The party points to analyses, including from the C.D. Howe Institute, indicating CUSMA will lead to a $14 billion annual reduction in Canada's GDP and significant declines in exports.

NDP

  • Advocates for transparent trade process: The NDP criticizes corporate free trade but supports trade benefiting all. They leveraged CUSMA's ratification to secure government commitments for a more transparent trade negotiation process.
  • Acknowledges CUSMA's improvements: The NDP notes CUSMA eliminates NAFTA's Chapter 11 and the energy proportionality clause, includes new auto sector content rules, avoids increased biologic drug costs, and introduces labour provisions.
  • Identifies ongoing concerns: Despite improvements, the NDP expresses concerns about CUSMA's restrictions on digital economy policy, increased corporate influence through regulatory cooperation, and the lack of substantive gender and Indigenous rights integration.

Bloc

  • Supports CUSMA with reservations: The Bloc supports CUSMA as an improvement over NAFTA, but expresses reservations about the negotiation's transparency, environmental provisions, and the consistent sacrifice of Quebec's economic interests.
  • Secured aluminum industry protection: The party successfully advocated for Quebec's aluminum industry, securing a government commitment for real-time data on Mexican imports and a review of protections to ensure equal treatment with steel.
  • Opposes dairy sector concessions: The Bloc condemns concessions in the dairy sector, including market share loss and unprecedented U.S. control over Canadian dairy protein exports, demanding full compensation and legal protection for supply management.
  • Criticizes softwood lumber neglect: The party criticizes the government for failing to resolve the long-standing softwood lumber dispute in CUSMA, accusing it of consistently overlooking Quebec's vital forestry sector.

Green

  • Supports the CUSMA agreement: The Green Party supports the new CUSMA, believing in fair and equitable trade that improves health, safety, labour, and environmental standards, and acknowledges things could have been much worse.
  • Highlights significant wins: The party notes significant wins in CUSMA, including removal of the energy proportionality clause, improved labour and environmental standards, and protection for supply management and cultural industries.
  • Opposes investor-state dispute settlement: The biggest win is removing investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) from CUSMA. The party advocates for its removal from all trade agreements, calling it anti-democratic and costly to taxpayers.
  • Identifies agreement deficiencies: Despite supporting the deal, the party identifies deficiencies like the absence of climate change, unresolved softwood lumber issues, problematic regulatory practices, and negative impacts on the dairy industry.
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Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

March 11th, 2020 / 6:20 p.m.

The Assistant Deputy Speaker Carol Hughes

Again, I would remind the member for Jonquière to address his comments and questions to the Chair.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Niagara Centre.

Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

March 11th, 2020 / 6:20 p.m.

Liberal

Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure this evening to rise in the House to speak to the modernized NAFTA, specifically to the important outcomes contained in the labour chapter.

The Canada-United States-Mexico agreement preserves, as well as modernizes, the North American Free Trade Agreement, or as we know it NAFTA, by carrying forward key existing elements and improving outcomes in areas that will enhance our most important trading relationship. Moreover, the amendments agreed to in December 2019 strengthen enforceability provisions in this agreement, including new mechanisms specific to the implementation of labour obligations, which make a good deal even better.

Through the new labour chapter, the agreement seeks to protect and enhance workers' rights and improve working conditions and living standards across North America. Canada's practice is to negotiate comprehensive labour provisions in the context of its free trade agreements in order to promote and uphold strong labour standards.

Trade and labour protections are mutually supportive. Canada strives to demonstrate internationally that a competitive economy includes safe, healthy and co-operative workplaces. The original NAFTA includes a side agreement on labour called the North American Agreement on Labour Co-operation. The new NAFTA includes a comprehensive and robust labour chapter that is fully enforceable and represents a significant improvement over the original NAFTA, its side agreement and other language.

In particular, the new labour chapter includes commitments to protect and promote internationally recognized labour principles and rights as set out in the International Labour Organization's 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, including the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining. The chapter also includes a non-derogation clause that prevents parties from deviating from their domestic labour laws in order to encourage trade or investment.

These commitments are all subject to the state-to-state dispute settlement mechanism that is contained within this agreement. Importantly, the new labour chapter has a number of key provisions to ensure that trade does not come at the expense of workers' labour rights. For instance, it includes enforceable obligations to address issues related to migrant workers, forced or compulsory labour, and violence against union members. To address labour rights violations in Mexico, it also includes an annex with specific requirements on worker representation and collective bargaining.

The terrible practice of forced or compulsory labour still exists in many countries. The International Labour Organization estimates that in 2016 approximately 25 million people worldwide were subjected to forced labour, and a disproportionate number of them were women and young girls.

The new NAFTA is a landmark deal, because it is the very first free trade agreement to include an obligation that commits parties to prohibit the importation of goods produced by forced labour. This is a milestone provision that will support workers' rights and human rights around the globe.

While these inclusive trade provisions will largely help workers outside of Canada, the modernized agreement will also help workers here at home. North American free trade has been an enormous benefit to Canadian businesses, workers and the overall economy. It means more good-quality jobs here at home and more affordable goods and services available domestically as well as internationally.

I will give an example of how the agreement will protect Canadian interests and help to curb the outflow of jobs. The rules of origin chapter addresses automotive manufacturing wages in North America by including a labour value content requirement.

Basically, this means that 40% of the value of a vehicle must come from a plant where the workers earn an average of at least $16 U.S. per hour in order for the vehicle to be considered as originating from a NAFTA country. The provision, together with the labour chapter provisions on collective bargaining rights, may create upward pressure on wages in Mexico and help to level the playing field for Canadian workers, as well as businesses throughout our great nation.

It is also important to note that the labour chapter is subject to the dispute settlement chapter in instances of non-compliance to ensure that all labour obligations are well respected. The agreement provides an opportunity for parties to take the necessary actions and measures to enforce the agreement's obligations if prior attempts to resolve the matter through consultations prove ineffective.

Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

March 11th, 2020 / 6:30 p.m.

The Assistant Deputy Speaker Carol Hughes

Unfortunately, I have to interrupt the member, but he will have four minutes to complete his speech the next time this matter is before the House.