Bill C-18 (Historical)

Canada—United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement Implementation Act

An Act to implement the Agreement on Trade Continuity between Canada and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

This enactment implements the Agreement on Trade Continuity between Canada and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
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 10 to 15 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 and contains a transitional provision.
Part 3 contains a coordinating amendment and the coming-into-force provision.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-18, An Act to implement the Agreement on Trade Continuity between Canada and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Canada—United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement Implementation Act

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to present. This is the first time I have presented in this format, and it is an interesting way to present a speech, but these are the circumstances we are in, and we will make the best of them.

Usually when I start a speech, I give my perspective on the economic context we are in. Obviously we are in unprecedented times. I was around in 2008 and 2009 during the last economic downturn. The circumstances were completely different from what we are faced with here today, but nonetheless there is pressure from everyone to perform and to deliver for Canadians from coast to coast, so that is where we are. We know where our deficit levels are and we know where our debt is going to roughly be at the end of this pandemic, so we know we have a tremendous burden to lift future generations from under the debt they are in.

I will go back to review some of the past trade agreements, such as the Canada-European free trade agreement, which includes countries like Switzerland, Liechtenstein and others; Canada-Honduras; Canada-Jordan; Canada-Colombia; Canada-South Korea, which was probably one of the best deals and advantageous for Canadian producers and farmers; CETA; and TPP. These were all deals that were negotiated by the previous government.

The former minister spoke, and Gerry Ritz is likely out there listening today as well. He was the agriculture minister for most of it. I thank them for all their efforts, and the current government here today is doing its best to work its way through Bill C-18 and eventually come to a long-term deal between Canada and the U.K.

There are some legitimate criticisms, I think, with some of the negotiations along the way. Was it always going to be a revision and an extension of CETA? Was it going to be something new, such a true free trade agreement between the two countries? Maybe we will get both here. That is the context.

I have some key points from my perspective as someone who lives in a rural riding where there is a pretty heavy agricultural footprint and impact on the Ontario economy, but these points would apply to farmers from coast to coast. One of them is that in a good, quality long-term Canada-U.K. deal, even though we are talking about a transition agreement, it will be very important that we get the edible bean sector right when we look at tariffs and non-tariff barriers and a number of different things with the U.K. In my riding alone, the Hensall Co-op, which is about 40 minutes north of London, Ontario, ships about half of the white beans for the entire United Kingdom, and they are sourced from all over southwestern Ontario. They are short-day beans, and they are some of the highest-quality white beans in the world, so we want to make sure that stakeholders like Hensall and other advocacy groups or industry groups are at the table when the consultations take place to make sure that we get absolutely everything right and improve upon what we have with the CETA deal.

To put it into context, they ship about 15,000 20-foot containers per year of edible white beans, so it is a huge number. I believe it is around 40 or 50 containers a day that they ship. It is a great bean for farmers to grow, because it is a short-day bean, which is good. As well, it also allows for cost savings and cost effectiveness in using the equipment. Farmers can use the same combine they use for traditional GMO soybeans. They would be able to clean it up and put it back out there or use it first and then clean it up, but they can use the same header for both the edible white beans and soybeans. That is a great bean for us to grow, and it is at quite a premium in our area.

Regarding the red meat sector, anybody who is on the trade committee has heard me complain about CETA and its outcome. When CETA was finally ratified or first announced, however members want to look at it, the trade for Canadian beef farmers would eventually end up at about $600 million a year, I believe, just in beef alone, but I think we are at about 1% or 1.5% of where we thought we would be. We thought we would be at least at the tariff rates. All beef cattle have hormones in them, and whether we add or do not add to it, they are going to have hormones.

There needs to be an understanding. Obviously there is an opportunity for beef farmers to grow beef on grasslands and maybe not add some of the different components used in beef farming today. Nevertheless, while the science proves out, it is very costly for farmers. Even if they wanted to grow beef cattle the way Europe and the U.K. are asking, it does not make financial sense. We need to take a close look at this issue. I would call this maybe a non-tariff trade barrier.

In addition to that, on the pork side, the situation has been even worse with the European Union. About $100 million a year in pork is traded between the European Union and Canada, and Europe has almost all of it. We ship about $2 million or $3 million worth of pork to the European Union, and the European Union ships about $97 million to Canada. People in Huron County or Bruce County or anywhere else in southwestern Ontario or across Canada are seriously scratching their heads at how we could have a deal with the European Union or the U.K. and have a trade deficit in beef and pork.

The issue with pork is around trichinella, and the way they are dealing with it does not make sense. In our negotiations, using experts and scientists, we have to finally come to a way to agree in order to move forward.

On country of origin labelling on beef and others, during the Obama administration we dealt with this issue for years. Now we are dealing with Italy on the same type of thing with regard to durum wheat. It is just not fair. I do not believe our negotiators are pushovers for one second, and I do not believe any government wants to be pushed around, but the evidence starts to mount after a while that we are in fact getting pushed around and are not being treated fairly.

When we look at some of the successes we have had with TPP, we see that the corn-fed beef program in Ontario has been a huge success. Korea is in the same boat. We are shipping product to Korea. Korea wants it, and it is a good, quality product, but what is happening in Europe is a little disappointing. It is shipping 100% of its tariff rate quota of cheese, while we are shipping 1.3% or 1.5% or 3% in beef, and that is unacceptable. That is the reality of the situation. It will be for the current government or whichever party is elected the next time an election rolls around to push our trade officials to do more and to do better. I will leave it at that.

Around the world, it is tougher times. With the new American administration coming in, immediately we saw Keystone being shut down. The next thing we will see is the buy America provision. We cannot help but be frustrated. I toured the Decast plant in Utopia, near Barrie, Ontario, and the number one complaint after the tour was the buy America provision and what we could do if buy America were not in place in the United States.

When we put it in context, the government recently negotiated the USMCA, and here we are right back at the table again, dealing with issues like buy America and other items like softwood lumber. It goes on and on. Finally and forever, we need these issues dealt with, and I hope we do that.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Small Business]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech and all of his work on the international trade committee, which I very much enjoy working on with him.

I took notes during the member's speech. I look forward to working with him during the consultation process in order to get farmers in his community, particularly the white bean farmers, involved in providing feedback and advice to our government as we negotiate a comprehensive trade agreement.

I would like to ask a question related to an issue that other colleagues in his party and in his caucus have raised: the absence of a sunset clause in the transitional agreement. To my mind, that is an important feature, as it would ensure stability for our exporters to know that at no point in time would there be an absence of an agreement between our two countries.

Could you share your thoughts on that?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I would just remind the parliamentary secretary that she is to address all questions and comments through the Chair.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Madam Speaker, I cannot speak for my colleagues, but I do believe that we have to continue to grind forward and take the U.K. on good faith. Obviously other countries that have similar transitional agreements will be doing the same thing we are trying to do.

We are 98% of the way there anyway, but the parts that we may have gotten wrong in CETA, we have to fight like heck to fix. I do not think we need to do a bad U.K. deal just to say that we have a deal. We just have to continue to grind it out until we feel like we have made everybody happy, or as close to happy as we can get.

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

Madam Speaker, we all want Canada to have a good, mutually beneficial trade agreement and relationship with the U.K.

This transitional deal was penned with hardly any public consultation or parliamentary involvement. We do not want this to be the final agreement between our two countries. We want a deal that has a far better process for negotiating the successor agreement.

A new agreement should not have ISDS provisions. It should address the problems of globalized trade for climate change, protect human rights and respect the rights of indigenous peoples.

Does my colleague agree on those issues that I just highlighted?

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Madam Speaker, I tried not to make a big partisan speech or revisit who was the greatest trading partner or all that.

I just tried to lay out where we could have benefits. I will say there could be some criticism on the part of the government for the lack of consultation, obviously. I think it would admit that as well.

The reality is the government basically took the consultation from CETA and lumped it into the Canada-U.K. deal. It has to do a better job of consulting going forward. The public service and negotiators are going to have to do that as well.

Just as I mentioned with the Hensall Co-op, companies like that, white bean growers and the different commodity groups have to be consulted, because there are some areas where CETA has not worked for producers. We have to make sure we have it fixed for Canada-U.K.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member for Huron—Bruce rightly spent some time talking about agriculture. He mentioned former agriculture minister Gerry Ritz, who did so much to open up global markets for Canadian agriculture.

One of the forward-looking agreements that the member mentioned was South Korea, which was a trade agreement that very shrewdly opened up the South Korean market to Canadian beef.

Perhaps the member could expand on the opportunities that properly negotiated trade agreements can open up all around the world as we look for markets for our agricultural products.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Madam Speaker, probably in time TPP will be the best deal, but I think for South Korea, country-to-country is likely the best deal all the time. When we look at the benefits it has brought to my area and western Canadian farmers, it is likely the best now.

There is a big responsibility that agriculture and the ag minister have this year with the certification, and the screw-up they had a couple of years ago, so they need to fix that permanently so that we do not have any issues shipping beef to the U.S. and then having it processed and shipped to Korea.

However, yes, South Korea has to be the best deal ever country-to-country.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time today with the member for Ottawa West—Nepean.

It is an honour to rise today to speak to this continuation agreement that has been set up with the U.K. as it relates to trade.

I am going to talk about why I think it is so important to have continuation right now in our trade agreements, particularly with this trade agreement, especially in the context of COVID-19 with everything that is gong on in the world and the uncertainty. I will mention a couple of businesses in my riding of Kingston and the Islands that depend on trade, and I know they would want to know that there was stability in the marketplace right now related to trade.

Over the last year, there has been a great degree of change. With that change comes uncertainty, and that makes entrepreneurs and people who run businesses nervous. I would argue that probably the most nervous are the small and medium-sized businesses we all have in our communities. They are genuinely worried. They do not know what the world is going to look like in a week, four weeks, two months or even a year from now.

When we have trade agreements and trade relationships with other parts of the world that we have to negotiate, it is extremely beneficial to make sure, if we can put off those negotiations in order to maintain stability right now, that it is in the best interests of people, because they will know what to expect. It is one less thing business owners will have to worry about when they think about what is around the corner and what is going to happen two weeks or a year from now. As long as they know that certain markets are going to continue to move and operate in the same way that they have been, that provides stability to them.

I have been listening to members speak today on this topic, and I have been thinking about businesses in my riding that depend so much on trade.

The first I would mention is INVISTA, formerly DuPont, and it is one of the larger manufacturers in my riding. INVISTA makes nylon that is literally moved around the world. A lot of people probably do not realize that in order to make an air bag, for example, the nylon used in it needs to be moved to various parts of the world. The raw materials come from one area, I think in the United States, to Kingston where they get transformed into nylon. The nylon then goes to another part of the world where it is manufactured into material and probably goes somewhere else to be made into air bags. People usually find it surprising when I tell them that roughly 80% of the air bags in vehicles sold in North America come from nylon that is created and manufactured in my riding. When we think of large businesses that employ a lot of people in my community, we can think of why a business that operates on that scale would want stability in the marketplace right now as it relates to trade agreements.

However, I do not want to just focus on big business, because that is not what this is all about. There are many other businesses.

I think of Tom, who started MetalCraft Marine in my riding. When he was 25 years old, he built a boat, pretty much self-taught, and eventually turned his business into a boat-building company. He now builds specialized, custom boats that are shipped all around the world. He primarily builds fire boats, but other rescue boats as well, and then sends them to Panama, Europe and other parts of the world. The boats are built at a dock in downtown Kingston where he employs 60 to 70 people, such as electricians and welders, and are sent to fire departments and emergency services throughout the world. Someone like Tom wants to know that there is continuity in our trade relationships right now. I would imagine that Tom does not want any surprises or changes right now when it comes to a trade relationship, and he most likely does not want the anxiety of having to worry about what a different impact might mean to him.

I can think of an even smaller company, Tri-Art paint, in Kingston. This company started in the eighties in the back of a paint supply store making custom paint for artists: artisan paints. This has blown up into a worldwide company now, located on a small street in an old industrial area in Kingston where it is manufacturing artisan paints that are being sent all around the world.

I remember talking to the folks at Tri-Art when there was a lot of discussion about what Donald Trump was going to do with the old NAFTA, and the concerns they had. At that time, I talked to them about the new free trade agreements that were opening up in Europe. They were thrilled, because they were already selling so much of their product to Europe, and knowing that they could expand on that business and sell to markets in Europe was really rewarding for them. This is a small, family-run business. It is another great success story that developed into basically a worldwide distributor of art paint. I think of the folks at Tri-Art and what they are going through right now. People are worried about what their relationships are going to be like with the United Kingdom moving forward. They do not want the anxiety of having to worry about changes that may affect them. They want stability right now.

When I think of these businesses, I think of the stability that this agreement offers. It offers a time period almost like an extension of the trading relationship with the U.K. we had before Brexit. It gives them an opportunity to get through this time of uncertainty with the pandemic. Once we are out of it, our economy starts to come back and we start to see growth and pick up on new opportunities again, we can go back and more thoroughly get into the details to make sure that we finely critique and go back and forth in the negotiations with the U.K. That is how I see this agreement and why I see it as being so important right now, given the time that we are in.

I want to take the last couple of minutes I have to address some of what I have heard today in the House. In particular, as I said earlier, I heard Conservatives dancing around the issue. One Conservative in the House was talking about how there was not enough time to negotiate and look at the details of this. Another Conservative gave a virtual speech asking why this was not happening fast enough, saying that it needed to happen back in December and now we are still waiting. I found it interesting that they just seemed to be all over the place. We know at the end of the day that Conservatives are going to support a free trade deal. They are going to support this.

I think it is in the best interests of everybody to make sure that we give confidence to our businesses and to that trading relationship, so that it does not affect our market and the interconnected economy we have, but I also took note of a comment that a Conservative made earlier about how, until 2006, Canada had very few trading partners and if it had not been for the incredible Conservative government that came along, we would not have had any of the great trade relationships that we do now. The reality of the situation is that the global market started opening around that time. Lots of developing countries were removing and slashing tariffs, looking for agreements and looking for opportunities to work with other countries.

I think that globalization has really shown itself within the last 20 years in terms of making that interconnection happen. Of course, we are going to have struggles with that when we compare the ways the different economies work and the ways that they value things. That is why I think waiting until later, once we can get through this continuation agreement, to finalize and ratify something more comprehensive is the right way to go.

I am thrilled to support this today. I want to see this go to committee. I want to see this passed, so that we can get moving and make sure that confidence is with our businesses throughout Canada.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Madam Speaker, let me begin by reiterating to our colleague that the Bloc Québécois is in favour of this agreement between the United Kingdom and Canada.

However, I also want to reiterate what we said some time ago about how the way the agreement was analyzed and studied by the Standing Committee on International Trade is completely unacceptable in a democracy like ours. The fact that committee members did not have access to either a paper or electronic version of the document so that they could analyze and study it is unacceptable. That needs to be said.

I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about one of the concerns of the Bloc Québécois. In the past, the government promised not to make any concessions in the dairy sector, which is already operating at a disadvantage because of previous agreements. I would like to know what my colleague thinks about the agreements when it comes to the dairy sector.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have been sitting here all day and am definitely aware that the Bloc members are supporting this. I am glad to see that. It shows that they value the need to have these relationships continue when it comes to our trade with the U.K.

When it comes to dairy, I have heard members of the Bloc talk a lot today about supply management specifically and how they will defend it to the end. All I would say to that is it was the Liberal Party that brought in supply management. The Liberal Party has been there from day one with respect to supply management.

Will we maintain the integrity of that system? Yes, absolutely.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, one of the key provisions in this trade deal is noted as problematic in CETA as well. The Minister of Finance, when she was the foreign affairs minister, actually opposed it. It is about the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism. It is a hugely problematic provision, but there are no changes with respect to it in this trade deal.

Could the member advise me on why we would want to include this clause in the trade deal when it is an issue that even the government and the Deputy Prime Minister had acknowledged was a major concern?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, as I said, this agreement is a continuation. It will provide stability over the short term. A comprehensive agreement will come later on, and the member can validly start to discuss those points then. We can have that discussion.

I am going to go back to something the parliamentary secretary to the House leader said earlier. He said, with all due respect, that the NDP wants to have it all ways. By the very nature of the definition, coming to an agreement in a deal with another country means there are going to be concessions from both sides to find a middle ground somewhere. When the time comes, I think NDP members will have to realize that on some things they will have to move a little in order to get something else they want. That is the whole point of negotiating.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I always enjoy sparring with the member for Kingston and the Islands. He has acknowledged we are debating a continuity agreement, so there is really no new market access and investment relaxation taking place here.

Both the U.K. and Canada have signalled that they want to move toward further negotiations on a more ambitious agreement. What areas of market access might the government be planning? What areas of investment liberalization has the government signalled it wants to explore as it now moves toward negotiating a more ambitious agreement with the U.K.?