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 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.

Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation Act

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, we have to realize just who we were negotiating with. The United States President often changed his position and the Americans were driving a hard bargain. In particular, I would like to know how we agreed to place threshold limits on our dairy exports.

It is important that we send the legislation to the international trade committee where we can hear from witnesses and really start to dissect the process that put us where we are at today. This could be a thing for us to worry about in 16 years' time, which I am led to believe is the correct number. However, that is certainly why the international trade committee has to do its important work, even from the agricultural industry's perspective. A lot of stakeholders have already been knocking on my door, expressing an interest in giving their viewpoint. There is a wide spectrum of opinion depending on which particular industry one is a member of.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence]

Madam Speaker, my colleague has a way of drilling down to the key issues and I appreciate the way he does that.

I am sure he remembers last year when we were talking about the trade deal in the House, CUSMA or NAFTA 2.0, whatever one wanted to call it at the time. The President of the United States said that he would not sign a deal without a sunset clause in it. He was referring to five years. We did not accept that. However, the Conservatives were asking us to sign the deal at that time.

The President also said that he would not sign a deal with supply management included in it. It is still there, and that is important.

Dispute resolution is in the new agreement and even better.

Does the member want to share—

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, The Assistant Deputy Speaker]

The hon. member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, a very quick answer.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I do not know if I have time to answer three separate questions, but what I will say is let us use this to recognize there is an opportunity here to allow Parliament to have a greater role in future negotiations. If we went into these negotiations understanding exactly what our red lines and objectives were, people could have more confidence in the process. In the end, we would have greater buy-in than having a bill presented to us with simply a yes or no answer.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, Health; the hon. member for Edmonton Riverbend, Health; the hon. member for Victoria, The Environment.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, I wish to acknowledge that today's debate is taking place on the traditional territory of the Algonquin people.

When our government was elected in the fall of 2015, the world was a very different place. There was a certain degree of stability. There was a consensus that the principle of multilateralism was the ideal recipe for keeping the peace between nations and supporting free international trade to ensure greater prosperity for as many countries and people as possible.

Needless to say, the world has changed a lot since then. It has moved in the opposite direction. In the new international political context, as a country, we have suddenly been forced to cope with the need to return to the negotiating table to overhaul one of our most important agreements with the two countries that share the North American continent with us. That agreement is NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. We succeeded. We successfully negotiated something that was far from a foregone conclusion. We negotiated as equals with the most powerful economy on the planet, our neighbour and friend, and a tough negotiator, the United States.

I want to congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister, the then minister of foreign affairs, for her perspicacity, her determination, her poise under pressure, her tactful words at critical moments, her dignity and her diplomatic skills throughout the process.

I also want to congratulate the Prime Minister, who stepped in at the right times with firm and focused remarks to make it known that Canada would not capitulate to the United States.

We negotiated hard and successfully in the Canadian way. We were confident and firm but always respectful. We were true to our nature and to our reputation around the world. We were friendly but determined to stand up for Canadians and Canada's economic interests.

Canadians have a right to feel proud of our success in the NAFTA 2.0 negotiations, which were crucial economically, intense and not always linear. I think that is obvious.

In the time I have left, I would like to touch on a few key aspects of the new trade deal that I believe are important to my constituents, because they have written to me on numerous occasions about these issues.

The first is on dispute resolution, which, to my mind, is why we negotiated the original free trade agreement with the United States in the first place. I do not think it was to reduce tariffs so much, as there was already a free flow of goods, but we wanted to make sure, as a middle power with huge trade with the world's largest economy, that we could have a mechanism to objectively and rationally resolve disputes when protectionist pressures might rise south of the border. It was important. The whole idea of the free trade agreement, as far as I am concerned, was to have a dispute resolution mechanism so that we could be trading on a level playing field with a country that is 10 times bigger than we are.

We know that the United States, at the moment, is not fond of dispute settlement. In fact, for two years, the Trump administration has blocked the appointment of new members to the WTO's seven-member dispute resolution panel, claiming that dispute resolution compromises and undermines American sovereignty and latitude in trade. Therefore, the WTO dispute settlement mechanism was effectively paralyzed at a time when Canada was looking forward to having it deal with the United States and resolve the softwood lumber dispute with the United States.

We have heard a lot about softwood lumber in this debate. We have a case in front of the WTO, but because the dispute settlement mechanism has been paralyzed, obviously the WTO is not able to make a decision in that case.

Under NAFTA, there was similarly the potential for what is called “panel blocking”, where a country can block the creation of a dispute resolution panel by refusing to appoint members. That power existed under NAFTA for the United States, for example. Today, we have succeeded against all odds, given the prevailing mindset in the U.S., in having dispute resolution maintained in the new trade deal. Worth noting is that the new agreement is asymmetrical. That means that there is the possibility of dispute resolution between Canada and the U.S., but not between the U.S. and Mexico. Therefore, we clearly have a privileged position in this regard. We have also achieved an end to panel blocking, which is so important in the case of dispute settlement panels. We stood up and we won on that point.

A second issue is investor-state dispute resolution. For many years, there was concern that investor-state dispute resolution compromised Canadian economic and environmental sovereignty by subjugating our domestic policies to the economic interests of multinational corporations. NAFTA's infamous chapter 11 has been removed from the USMCA, or CUSMA, as some people call it, and investor disputes between Canada and the U.S. will no longer be subject to the investor-state dispute resolution process that existed under chapter 11.

It is important to mention that there are still obligations under the new agreement, with respect to expropriation, whether direct or indirect, where charges of indirect expropriation often flow when domestic environmental laws and regulations are seen to negatively impact foreign private interests in Canada. However, the Library of Parliament has stated:

Annex 14-B [of the USMCA] indicates that such actions' adverse effects on the economic value of an investment would not be sufficient to establish that an indirect expropriation has occurred. As well, Annex 14-B notes that whether any such actions constitute indirect expropriation would depend on factors that include the actions' economic impact, object, context, intent, and interference with 'distinct, reasonable investment-backed expectations” that such actions would not occur.

In many environmental cases, we would be able to argue that any rational investor who is well informed would understand that we would want to have policies to protect our environment in a particular area. For example, there was often speculation that chapter 11 would make it easier, hypothetically, for foreign private interests to one day pressure Canada to export its fresh water in bulk to a thirsty southern neighbour, namely, that in the face of domestic policies intended to block such exports, massive financial compensation might need to be paid to foreign private interests seeking to access bulk water as a tradable good. The USMCA makes that an even more remote possibility.

Many constituents wrote to me about dairy. I would like to reiterate that the supply management system has been maintained. There will, indeed, be new higher quotas for dairy imports from the U.S. with Canadian tariffs still being applied on dairy products that exceed these new quotas, tariffs ranging from 200% to 300%. According to reports, the new quotas are expected to give American dairy farmers access to up to 3.5% of Canada's market, from 1%. Therefore, we can see that the defence of the system is still very much in place. Yes, there has been a slight increase, but supply management has been maintained.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member across the aisle gave a well-thought-out and well-researched speech.

Over the past five years under the Liberal government, we have seen foreign direct investment, particularly from the United States into Canada. People are acutely aware of this in Alberta with the loss of investment in the critical oil sands sector. Does the member see any connection between the loss of investor-state dispute settlement systems and the possibility that Canada's foreign direct investment will continue declining in future years?

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, I do not see a connection whatsoever. I was reading up on foreign direct investment flows into Canada. The situation in Alberta with the lower oil price has had an impact on foreign direct investment into Canada and we want to make sure that the Alberta economy can rebound. There is no doubt about that. People are suffering.

Two reasons were given for the drop in foreign direct investment: the slump in the oil industry and the trade uncertainty around the new deal. By coming to a new deal, we have taken some of that uncertainty away and according to a Bloomberg report, foreign direct investment is coming back. What is even more hopeful about the situation is that it is not only coming back in the oil sector, it is coming back in other sectors as well.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to acknowledge my colleague and thank him for his speech. He praised his government's negotiating skills and claimed that government officials stood up to the Americans.

In my earlier remarks, I said that aluminum dumping is happening in Mexico, which is processing the metal and redirecting it to other places in North America. In a way, that jeopardizes Quebec's aluminum production. This new agreement institutionalizes the idea of Mexico taking the aluminum being dumped in its market and using it to manufacture parts for the production of North American vehicles.

My question is simple. If federal officials stood up to the Americans, why did they capitulate to Mexico?

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, as the Deputy Prime Minister explained to the House repeatedly during several oral question periods, the aluminum sector is in a better position now and is better served by the new agreement than it was by the old one.

Under the new agreement, vehicles will have to contain a certain percentage of North American steel and aluminum, which was not the case before. I believe the requirement is now 70%, whereas it used to be zero. I think 70% is better than zero.

Moreover, we must not forget that transportation costs are a factor in this market. If aluminum is produced near its markets, customers will naturally choose a product that costs less because it does not have to be transported as far.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board and to the Minister of Digital Government]

Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague, a veteran MP, on his analysis of this agreement.

My question is very simple. We have been hearing a lot of outrage and concern about aluminum even though we know international trade rules have anti-dumping provisions that apply in Canada.

Would the member tell us a bit more about that aspect of the new NAFTA?

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, we are talking about dumping as though it were acceptable practice and commonplace. However, in international trade, the rules of the game prohibit dumping and that does not change in the least under the new agreement. There is no need to spend too much time dwelling on this practice.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to address the matter at hand, the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement. I hope the Speaker will indulge me for a few moments as this is my first speech in this new Parliament and I want to thank a few people who are crucial for me being here today.

First and foremost, I would not be here without my wife Raechel. She has always been my rock. She has always supported me in all my political endeavours, so I thank her.

I thank my family. I will admit some of them did not vote Conservative in the last election. However, they stood beside me and supported me the entire way. In particular, I would like to thank my mother Rebecca and my grandparents Cindy Lou and Graham.

I would also like to thank my hard-working campaign team, Imelda Maclaren, Tom Cox, Barb Costache, Jesse Furber, Julia Roy, Luke lnberg and Kris Alex, under the leadership of Cherise Geisbrecht, along with all those who poured countless hours into door knocking, constructing signs and fundraising. I am also indebted to my board president Susan Evans and my financial agent Dennis Francis.

I would like to thank some others, Murray Kulak, Ben and Josh Sawatzky, Jody Dahrouge, Ed Basaraba, Tim and Julie Milligan, Fran and Ander Wolthuis, and Mark and Melissa Haarsma. Without their support, I would not be here today.

Finally, I want to thank my constituents in Sturgeon River—Parkland, who gave me a resounding 77.5% of the vote. Over 53,000 people have sent me here to Ottawa. That is 10,000 more than the previous record set in my riding.

With that strong mandate, I come to speak before this House on an issue that is of great importance to the people of my riding: our relationship with our largest trading partners, the United States and Mexico.

Sturgeon River—Parkland is composed of the counties of Sturgeon, Parkland and Lac Ste. Anne, as well as the major centres of Spruce Grove, Stony Plain and Morinville, all of which lie to the north and west of Edmonton. This constituency has many charming small towns like Onaway, Legal, Gibbons, Bon Accord and Redwater. We are proud to be a part of Treaty 6 territory and we include the communities of Alexander and Enoch, which are members of the Cree Nation. The people of all these communities have been watching the trade negotiations with interest and great concern.

There is a growing value-added plastics industry in the Alberta industrial heartland in my riding. There is a groundbreaking new oil refinery in Redwater. There are thousands of farmers across our riding who are growing potatoes, canola and lentils. As well, there are cattle, dairy and chicken farmers. We are home to Canada's top value-added pet food producers, and a lumber industry that has suffered under high tariffs from the United States. We also have the largest privately held steel fabricator in not just Canada but North America.

All of these important industries provide thousands of jobs for Canadians in my riding and across Canada, but we have seen very little from the Liberal government to address their challenges. I am going to delve a little deeper into those challenges.

The government is repeatedly claiming that all is well and that there is nothing to see here when we look at this trade agreement. However, Canadians are watching as our trade position in this world, and particularly with the United States, grows more and more precarious. I will mention a few examples of the concerns of those in my community that I am hoping the government will address.

On January 24, just a couple of weeks ago, the United States announced further trade action against our fabricated steel industry. A year ago the Americans initiated trade action against our fabricated steel industry. On September 4 of last year, the Department of Commerce found there was little to no evidence to show that our fabricated steel industry was impacting that industry in the United States.

Despite that positive ruling, our fabricated steel industry continues to face an unrelenting attack from American competitors. Just a few short days ago, the Department of Commerce made its decision to impose a 6.7% tariff on Canadian fabricated steel imports. A final appeal is yet to be heard, but I have seen little from the government to show it is considering the challenges of our fabricated steel industry.

We are debating the ratification of a trade agreement. As we speak, our competitors are attempting to kneecap our industry. Does this sound like a successful free trade agreement? Thousands of jobs across Canada are at stake. Hundreds of jobs in my riding are at risk, yet the Liberals are doing nothing to stand up for our steel fabricators, an essential value-added industry.

The government is so desperate to ram this agreement through that it is ignoring the erosion of our domestic industry. To add insult to injury, we are further opening up the procurement market in Canada to foreign competitors in the U.S., the very same competitors that are seeking to put tariffs on their Canadian competitors.

I ask the government how the new trade agreement will prevent the United States from discriminating against our steel industry at will. How are we going to make sure we have a fair and level playing field for our steel fabricators, among others?

Aside from our steel industry, we have an industry that has suffered even more severe damage over the past few years. Our softwood lumber industry remains at the mercy of our American competitors. We need certainty, rules and a vision for the prosperous future our hard-working men and women in the lumber industry deserve.

In the United States over eight million homes were constructed last year. These are homes that needed Canadian wood products. At the same time, Canada saw the closure of nine mills and reduced production in dozens of others. As of October 2019, over two billion board feet in production had been curtailed in Canada. Meanwhile, the price of lumber in the United States has skyrocketed by 33%.

It does not take an economist to see that the laws of supply and demand are not being followed. The price of a product is going up significantly, but here in Canada we are cutting production and facing mill closures. The reason is that the Liberal government has failed to take this opportunity to act and achieve a deal for our softwood lumber producers that would ensure sustainability and prosperity for years to come.

Ultimately, we need to delve deeper into the details of this trade agreement. However, the government has refused to share its internal economic analysis with us. What does it have to hide? There are clearly areas in which Canada is continuing to get a raw deal, and this must be addressed immediately. Canadians want to see transparency and accountability from the government.

What will the impact on our supply-managed agri-food sector be? How will Canada continue to diversify its trade when the United States can withhold its signature on our agreements? How can we ensure that Canadian companies, and the Canadian shareholders who trust their retirement savings to these companies, will be treated fairly by foreign governments? All of these are important areas where Canada has relinquished control and is vulnerable.

In the end, we need to ask ourselves if this deal will protect and grow a sustainable industrial base in Canada, the kind of base that we can depend upon to provide the middle-class jobs and prosperity previous generations have enjoyed as their birthright. We continue to see the hollowing out of our industry to low-cost jurisdictions. We see an American economic tiger cutting taxes, and we see regulations aimed at enticing Canadian job creators to America.

Canada only seems to be moving in the opposite direction. The only companies we can get to invest in Canada are ones the government has to write a big taxpayer cheque to.

Without a clear economic analysis provided by the government, the one thing I can conclude is that this trade deal does little to move our country forward. Rather, it maintains a status quo, a status quo that we see quickly eroding under our very feet.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, we have heard a number of Conservatives say that they want a clear understanding and they want an economic impact study completed. In part, they need to realize that this was not just two people sitting in a room who came up with an agreement. It has taken a couple of years to hit the point where we are today.

Thousands of discussions have taken place. Provinces and different stakeholders, whether it is labour or business, have recognized that the agreement we are debating today will further advance the interests of Canada well into the future. That is something we need to recognize. It is not something that should be new to any caucus. Even the current Conservative caucus was provided the opportunity to have more details.

Would the member not agree that this has been a topic for discussion for well over two years?

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Madam Speaker, if I could summarize the hon. parliamentary secretary's question, it is, “Just trust us. It's a great deal, but you do not have to see any of the details, because we cannot trust you with those details.”

I do not need to be lectured by the parliamentary secretary, because I had the honour of working for the member for Abbotsford when he served as Canada's minister of international trade. Under his Conservative leadership, we achieved the Canada-South Korea Free Trade Agreement and the Canada-European trade agreement, and those are trade agreements that we can be very proud of for our country.