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.

Canada-United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement Implementation Act

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Minister of Small Business]

moved 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.

Mr. Speaker, I am seeking unanimous consent to split my time with the member of Parliament for Outremont.

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

This being a hybrid sitting of the House, for the sake of clarity I will only ask those who are opposed to the request to express their disagreement.

Accordingly, all those opposed to the hon. minister’s request will please say nay.

Hearing no opposition, I declare the request granted.

Now I will let the minister continue.

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise virtually in the House of Commons today in support of Bill C-18, an act to implement the Agreement on Trade Continuity between Canada and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The United Kingdom is our largest trade market in Europe, and in 2019 it was the third-largest destination for Canadian merchandise exports worldwide. It was also a key source of innovation, science and technology partnerships. Two-way merchandise trade between Canada and the United Kingdom totalled $29 billion in 2019, making it our fifth-largest international trading partner. The U.K. is also Canada's second-largest services trade partner, behind only the United States, amounting to exports of nearly $7.1 billion last year. Finally, the U.K. is Canada's fourth-largest source of foreign direct investment, valued at $62.3 billion in 2019.

It is clear that the Trade Continuity Agreement with the U.K. is critical to Canadian jobs by preserving a key enabler of our strong economic partnership, which is CETA. Because it is based on CETA, this agreement provides familiarity, continuity, predictability and stability for Canadian businesses, exporters, workers and consumers, which is more important than ever today as we grapple with COVID-19.

Once the agreement is fully implemented, it will carry forward CETA's tariff elimination on 99% of Canadian products exported to the United Kingdom. It will fully protect Canadian producers of all supply-managed products. It will maintain priority market access for Canadian service suppliers, including access to the U.K. government's procurement market, which is estimated to be worth approximately $118 billion annually, and it will uphold and preserve CETA's high standard provisions on labour, dispute settlement and the protection of the environment.

Canada has a deep and historic relationship with the United Kingdom, one of our closest allies, from NATO, the G7 and the G20 to the ties of shared history, values and respect for the principles of democracy. When the United Kingdom held a referendum and, guided by the decision of its citizens, decided to leave the European Union, that decision not only affected the U.K.'s trade and economic relations with its largest partner, but it also meant that the United Kingdom would no longer be a part of CETA with Canada. Obviously, this had a potential effect on Canadian companies and businesses. That is why this trade continuity agreement is so important.

Canadian businesses and workers in many sectors rely on our interconnected trade relationship, from farmers and fish harvesters to financial service providers and innovators. They have told us that what they want most at this time is stability. This agreement provides exactly that. The TCA, Trade Continuity Agreement, ensures Canada and the U.K. can both sustain and build upon our important relationship by preserving the benefits of CETA on a bilateral basis while fully protecting our closely integrated supply chains and continued access for our exporters.

This continuity agreement is good for workers, it is good for business and it is good for both Canada and the United Kingdom. Without the TCA in place, Canadian businesses could have faced the uncertainty of new barriers and higher costs of doing business, particularly for our agriculture, fish and seafood industries. With this agreement, we can build a better future for both countries.

International trade is central to Canada's economic success and prosperity, and there is no doubt that trade will play a crucial role in our inclusive and sustainable recovery from COVID-19. It is important for Canada to not only develop new trading relationships, but to also maintain and strengthen our existing ties. The TCA is not just about maintaining the CETA agreement. In fact, it sets the stage for an exciting new chapter in our future trade relations with the United Kingdom.

With the TCA, we will ensure immediate certainty for Canada-U.K. trade by replicating CETA on a bilateral basis, as the U.K. has left the EU. However, Canada has always said that, for the longer term, we are interested in the negotiation of a new, modern and ambitious agreement that can best reflect the Canada-U.K. bilateral relationship going forward.

The TCA includes a commitment for subsequent negotiations to begin within a year of its entry into force. My U.K. counterpart, Secretary Truss, and I have publicly committed to these negotiations. We will see input of Canadians from coast to coast to coast through public consultations on their interests in a new bilateral discussion with the United Kingdom.

I look forward to returning to the negotiating table within one year of the TCA's ratification to work on a new, high-quality, modern, inclusive and comprehensive economic partnership that includes ambitious chapters for small businesses, the environment, labour, digital trade and women's economic empowerment. To those who have pointed out areas where improvements are needed, we hear them, and I am eager to get to work on those issues. We will return to the House when we are ready to table negotiating objectives for this new, ambitious effort.

While we work to ratify this agreement both in Canada and in the United Kingdom, we have signed a memorandum of understanding between both countries so that trade can continue to flow while this agreement makes its way through domestic approvals in both countries. As we have negotiated both through the MOU and the Canada-U.K. TCA, businesses will continue trading at the preferential tariff rates under CETA with no additional paperwork. The TCA will provide stability and remain in place until a new agreement, which we aim to reach within three years, is ready.

With the TCA, we are seeking to ensure continuity. The last thing Canada and the United Kingdom would want to do is create any uncertainty for businesses and workers, particularly as we respond to the pandemic, restart our economies and begin to build back better.

The year 2020 has been incredibly difficult for workers and businesses across the country. For so many sectors, this agreement is exactly the continuity and stability that they have asked for. It is what we need to support Canadian jobs and families, and to grow our economy through trade and export with one of our closest allies at an economically challenging time. While CETA will continue to govern Canada-EU trade, this agreement will provide similar predictability for Canadian businesses that trade with the U.K., ensuring trade between our two countries continues to flow uninterrupted.

I will conclude by saying, as I have said before, that the trade continuity agreement with the U.K. is good for Canadians, it is good for the people of the U.K., and it is good for the strong, mutually beneficial relationship our nations have built over more than 150 years.

Therefore, I urge all hon. members to support Bill C-18 so that Canada can bring the Canada-U.K. trade continuity agreement into force as soon as possible.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is no question that this agreement is very important to Canada and, of course, we need to look at stability and certainty, but could my hon. colleague give us some of the areas that she feels need to be negotiated in the future?

My hon. colleague outlined that there need to be some ambitious broader targets for an agreement with the U.K. in the future, which would be a priority so that we could go beyond this agreement.

Could she share with Canadians what the government's perspective is on the top three areas that need to be included in those ambitious and new modernized areas of this agreement?

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, happy new year to my hon. colleague. We have a commitment through the TCA to get back to the negotiating table. I am very much looking forward to those negotiations with our close ally, the U.K., and to having areas of common interest and common ambition such as the environment, labour, digital trade, which is so important coming out of COVID-19, inclusion for small and medium-sized businesses and women's economic empowerment.

I would also like to say that I think it is really important to hear from Canadians. We are committed to making sure that we talk to Canadians and businesses, that we hear from them about what is really important in this new agreement, and that we take their input into perspective. We of course—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

We will just leave that thought there for a moment. We are going to try and get a couple more questions in.

The hon. member for Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for her speech.

Of course we support this bill that is so important for businesses in Quebec and the rest of Canada since it enables us to continue our trade relations with the United Kingdom. However, we object to the lack of transparency. During negotiations with the United Kingdom, the parties did not have access to the various texts at the Standing Committee on International Trade. That is a rather blatant lack of transparency, and I would like the minister to explain why the various parties did not have access to those documents.

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is an important question. We have been fully transparent with Canadians throughout our trade dialogue with the United Kingdom.

In September of 2017, our Prime Minister met with then U.K. prime minister Theresa May when it was first publicly announced that we were going to ensure a seamless transition of trade with the U.K. as it prepared to exit the EU. During that time, while the EU was still part of CETA, it was not able to undertake any new international negotiations, so our discussions focused on converting the terms of CETA, making it available and creating a bilateral agreement between Canada and the U.K. We are looking forward to getting back to the negotiating table.

Around transparency, I want to reiterate to our colleague that we will adhere to the commitments we have made and fulfill obligations under the amendments to the policy on tabling treaties. We are going to be hearing from Canadians about what they are looking for in the upcoming negotiations—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I will just interrupt the minister. We will get one more question in on this round.

The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. minister about the recent unanimous motions, from both the foreign affairs and international affairs committees, calling on Canada in these trade agreements to ensure that England respects its obligations under the Good Friday Agreement to the people of Ireland, to make sure we have an open border, and to make sure that support is in place for a referendum on Irish unity. There has been a lot of mistrust in the EU about Boris Johnson's attitudes towards Ireland.

Canada has deep roots in this. We have a long-standing history in the Good Friday Agreement, so I am asking the minister what kind of commitment she will make to ensure that England lives up to its obligations on the Good Friday Agreement and the open border with the Irish people.

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very important question. Canada being a supporter and, in fact, a leader with respect to the Good Friday Agreement, I would agree it is good to see that the United Kingdom has agreed to that.

As we go forward with new negotiations, we will have an absolute opportunity to make sure that we are listening to Canadians, and the perspective of Canadians, just like that offered by my hon. colleague on those negotiations. We have also committed, through our amendments to the policy of tabling treaties, to share the objectives of the agreements with our parliamentary colleagues. We will do that. We will respect that.

There certainly will be an opportunity to listen to Canadians and we would agree.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed with great pleasure that I too rise virtually in the House of Commons today in support of our proposed legislation to ratify the agreement on trade continuity between Canada and the United Kingdom. Just as we welcomed the recent signing of this important agreement, the government is also very pleased to take the next step toward ratification so Canadian exporters can take full advantage of the agreement's benefits.

As we know, Canada and the United Kingdom have historically enjoyed advantageous commercial relations, which we have built together over more than 150 years. Two-way merchandise trade between us amounted to $29 billion in 2019, making the U.K. Canada's fifth-largest trading partner after the United States, China, Mexico and Japan. In fact, Canadian exports to the U.K. have increased by over $2 billion since the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, as it is commonly known, was provisionally applied in 2017.

Preserving this trading relationship means businesses will continue to have unprecedented access to the U.K.'s 66 million consumers and $3.68-trillion market. It also means lower prices and more choices for Canadian consumers and either a reduction or complete elimination of customs duties. Because this agreement is based on CETA, an agreement Canadians are already very familiar with, it provides the predictability and stability our businesses have told us they need as they grapple with the uncertainty brought on by this global pandemic.

The agreement on trade continuity brings with it significant, tangible benefits for Canadians. Once the agreement is fully implemented, it will carry forward CETA's tariff elimination on 90% of Canadian products exported to the United Kingdom. It will fully protect Canadian producers of all supply-managed products. It will maintain priority market access for Canadian service suppliers, including access to the U.K. government's procurement market, which is estimated to be worth approximately $118 billion annually. It will continue to balance investor protection with Canada's prerogative to regulate in the public interest, and it will uphold and preserve CETA's high standard provisions on labour and the protection of the environment.

This agreement will also continue to give Canadian companies a leg up on competitors in countries that do not have a free trade agreement with the U.K.

Indeed, Canadians welcomed the news of this agreement and the successful work of our negotiating team. I would like to expand on how critical our successful negotiation of this agreement is for the Canadian agri-food and agriculture industry.

Quebec is the home of the most dairy farmers in the country. It is followed by Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. We know that farmers working hard right across this country wanted and needed the stability that this agreement provides. This is also the case for our beef producers. The first thought that comes to mind for me is the incredible beef exported out of Alberta and Ontario. I had the opportunity to engage directly with our beef producers and cattle feeders prior to the conclusion of the negotiations to hear their needs and interests and make sure that they were taken into account.

I would also like to give much credit to the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, or CAFTA. As Claire Citeau of CAFTA said during her testimony before the international trade committee:

This is an important first step to ensuring that exporters preserve the existing access and benefits that are already in place. The temporary certainty and stability that a transitional agreement provides is welcome news for some of our members and the reason we call on parliamentarians to work together to pass this agreement....

I am urging all members to listen to the call of our agriculture sector to swiftly ratify this agreement. We have some incredible associations representing the interests of our Canadian farmers and producers. They are engaged. They are well informed. They are targeted, and they are in constant contact with us, as they should be. Their engagement has been critical, and I certainly look forward to continuing to work with them in the next phase of the negotiation process toward a comprehensive bilateral trade agreement.

I want to emphasize what a success this agreement is for our dairy farmers. Not one additional ounce of foreign cheese will enter the country under this free trade agreement.

As Daniel Gobeil, president of the Producteurs laitiers du Québec, so aptly said, “The government has granted no additional access to the United Kingdom, in keeping with the commitment made by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture.... I therefore thank the government for keeping its commitment. This clearly shows that it is possible to enter into trade agreements without sacrificing supply management.

Canadian small and medium-sized businesses have also been very vocal. What they told us they needed most at this time, this turbulent time of crisis, is stability, stability in their trading relationships and stability in exporting their products, and this agreement fully delivers.

The agreement on trade continuity will enable many Canadian businesses that have come to depend on their U.K. clients avoid an unnecessary setback. Without this agreement, some Canadian businesses would come up against new obstacles and higher costs when doing business with the U.K.

Let me briefly paint a picture of what would have resulted if our government had not been as successful as it was, and if we had been unable to conclude a transitional trade agreement with the U.K. It is estimated over one billion dollars' worth of Canadian exports to the U.K. would have been subject to tariffs, and these tariffs would disproportionately affect our fish, seafood and agriculture exporters.

In addition to the tariffs placed on Canadian products being exported to the U.K., roughly 25% of all products imported from the U.K. would also be affected, with Canadian importers paying higher prices to bring in those goods, goods that our Canadian companies often need in order to operate, produce and grow.

Once ratified, the Canada-United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement will continue to be in place as we work toward a new bilateral comprehensive free trade agreement with the U.K. Indeed, this continuity agreement stipulates explicitly that within one year of ratification by both countries, the U.K. and Canada must come back to the negotiating table in order to conclude a comprehensive, longer-term trade agreement.

I know the minister and I look forward to leading a broad consultation process with Canadians from right across the country and in different sectors of our economy to ensure these future negotiations are directed in the best interests of Canada and respond to any post-Brexit developments.

With the time I have remaining, I would like to turn to some of the broader implications of our work as a government on international trade. Our Canadian government has been a leader among nations globally in advocating for free trade and stemming the tide of protectionist leanings. Indeed, we believe the contrary. Strong global trade partnerships, like our new agreement with the United Kingdom, are increasingly necessary and important, especially in these uncertain times, especially as other countries are looking to turn inward.

I am therefore asking all members from all parties to support Bill C-18's timely ratification and passage, and in so doing carefully consider not only the importance of this particular agreement for our Canadian farmers and producers, Canadian SMEs and all our exporters big and small, but also the message it sends to the world about the importance of keeping trade open and keeping Canada at the forefront of the advocacy on free trade. History will thank us for it.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the parliamentary secretary. We know this is a transitional agreement and that U.K cheese producers will be looking for a bigger share of the market. It seems to me that this just puts the problem off until next year.

The Bloc Québécois proposed a solution: an exemption for supply management, which would settle this issue once and for all in trade agreement negotiations. If the past is any indication of the future, some questions are in order because supply management has always been a bargaining chip for both the Conservatives and the Liberals.

Does my colleague agree the best solution would probably be to have an exemption for supply management in trade agreement negotiations?

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

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

Personally, I think the Bloc Québécois and all Quebeckers should be celebrating what we have achieved with this transitional agreement. I am very pleased and proud to say that, by preserving supply management, we have protected our dairy producers.

As I said, we discussed this in committee, and I think our producers are happy with the transitional agreement we negotiated.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in the last Parliament, one of the real questions around the timing of the government's adoption of CETA was that, at that time, the Brexit vote was pending. Certainly, New Democrats, and I believe I myself, got up in the House and questioned the wisdom of concluding a trade deal with Europe when our largest trading partner in Europe was about to leave the bloc.

We are now in a position of being asked to rubber stamp a carbon copy of CETA, which was, for all intents and purposes, designed for a European trading bloc. If and when a successor agreement is concluded, 40% of the trade Canada has done with Europe is going to be outside of CETA.

Does the government think this will have any consequences or ramifications for CETA? Is there anything that ought to have been different in CETA, given that the U.K. is no longer going to be part of that trading bloc?

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question coming from my colleague, but, as I am sure he and all parliamentarians understand, when we negotiate a trade agreement with our global allies, we do so on the basis of the history and circumstances as they are at the time.

It was the right move for Canada to conclude CETA at that time. It allowed us to grow our economy. It allowed us to export to a greater degree to our allies in Europe. As I mentioned, since CETA was provisionally applied in 2017, we have increased our trade by $2 billion with the United Kingdom. I do think it was an important step and good move on Canada's part.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance and to the Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, before I ask my question, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for her work to help develop some of the economic measures in response to the COVID-19 emergency.

One of the faults that folks like us who are involved in politics fall into is that we often discuss trade in a way that does not resonate with people who live in our communities. When we talk about GDP growth or export volumes, that is often a step removed from the people who are benefiting from these trade agreements and may not even realize it.

The parliamentary secretary mentioned in her remarks the impact on seafood tariffs. In my community, this will ensure we get a higher price for our seafood products, which will encourage young people to join the industry and continue to work in rural communities.

Could the member give examples of how the trade agreements will lead to having people be better off in her community here in Canada?

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for all of his work on the economic measures and the response to COVID-19.

Certainly, one of the big successes of this continuity agreement is for our seafood producers, our exporters of lobster and seafood, who will benefit greatly. I am very pleased about that.

In my community, I have many innovative tech companies, and I know they are looking to new markets. They were very pleased by the ratification of CUSMA and are looking to export into the United States for the first time now. With this agreement, they will be exporting into the United Kingdom as well. This is of benefit to many different sectors of the economy, from tech and innovation, to manufacturers and agriculture and seafood exporters.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to split my time.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

As is customary now in this hybrid sitting of the House, we will only seek to see if there are any members present or participating who do not wish to grant unanimous consent to the hon. member to share her time. That being the case, I ask all those opposed to her sharing her time to please say no.

Seeing and hearing no opposition, it is so ordered.

The hon. member for Kelowna—Lake Country.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Abbotsford.

I rise today to speak on Bill C-18, which seeks to implement the Canada and United Kingdom trade continuity agreement.

The United Kingdom is Canada’s third-largest export market, our fifth-largest trading partner and our oldest ally, with which we have $29 billion worth of bilateral trade annually.

Businesses want stability right now. I look forward to hearing debate on the bill and to seeing it come to committee so there are no delays for businesses.

How did we get here today, debating this bill after the deadline, when its ratification should have coincided with the United Kingdom no longer being part of the CETA and the European Union?

Unfortunately, the failure of the Prime Minister and his minister to take trade negotiations with the United Kingdom seriously now means that instead of securing a modern trade deal that is even better for Canadian businesses and workers, we are left with an agreement that has few amendments from the previous one with respect to addressing emerging trade issues, has no end date and has no clear dispute resolution process.

The United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union on June 23, 2016, four and half years ago. The government should have reasonably expected that a new trade agreement would need to be negotiated.

Through international trade committee testimony, we learned that negotiations had begun at some point during that time. However, we also learned that in March of 2019, the Minister of International Trade signed off on a decision to leave those negotiations.

I remember being in the House on Friday, March 13, 2020, when Parliament recessed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As one would expect, the focus of this House and of all parliamentarians had to change on a dime. Now the entire focus was on health, the economic crisis and emergency legislation.

As the months progressed, there was still other work to do, and important deadlines were looming. After all, the clock was ticking toward the moment when the U.K. would no longer be part of the CETA, and a Canada-U.K. deal needed to be struck.

In May 2020, when we all met as part of the COVID-19 committee, members of the Conservative official opposition started to question the Minister of International Trade on the status of the trade agreement. Let us remember that this was not Parliament but a committee with no power that was asking questions.

In the May 21 sitting of the COVID committee, my hon. colleague, the member for Abbotsford, questioned the minister on what steps had been taken to engage with the U.K. on a free trade agreement. The minister replied, “...we will continue to work with the U.K. to secure our strong and stable trading relationship”. This relationship was so strong and so stable that with only seven months left to secure an agreement, Canada had still not returned to the negotiating table and was not working with the U.K.

At the COVID committee held on May 27, my colleague, the member for Prince Albert, asked the minister if the government would “commit to having a new trade agreement with the U.K. in place by January 1” of 2021. The minister's response was that they were “monitoring the situation very carefully.” She went on to say, ”They are in discussions right now”, when in fact we were not back at the negotiating table yet.

At the COVID committee meeting held on June 2, my hon. colleague from Regina—Wascana questioned the Minister of International Trade by asking, “The United States, Australia, New Zealand and Japan have all started free trade negotiations with the United Kingdom. Why hasn’t Canada?” The minister responded that “...we will always act in the interests of Canadian businesses” and that “we will make sure that our further work will always take into account the interests of Canadian businesses.”

With just mere months remaining before the U.K. would no longer be part of CETA, affecting $29 billion in bilateral trade, we were still not at the table. Where was the sense of urgency to act in the best interests of Canadian businesses?

The official opposition had been calling for the resumption of all parliamentary committees starting in May 2020. However, this did not occur. The international trade committee could have been doing important work, such as studies and consultations, just as other committees were doing all spring and summer, safely, productively and virtually. However, from March until September, the international trade committee only met once.

The government finally returned to the negotiating table in August 2020, leaving only five months to negotiate a deal, write the text of the legislation, bring it to Parliament for its processes and debate, send it to committee for study and witnesses' opinions, and then go through the Senate processes.

We finally returned to Parliament in late September, after the prorogation of Parliament. This political manoeuvre set all timelines back.

My first question in the House of Commons after prorogation was for the Minister of International Trade on her government’s promise to notify the House within 90 days of negotiations starting on trade agreements, a notification her government promised to provide to win the support of the NDP during the ratification of CUSMA, the new NAFTA. Her response left us with more questions than answers.

The Prime Minister then made patronizing comments about the United Kingdom's government by saying the United Kingdom lacked “the bandwidth” to negotiate a trade agreement and put blame for delays on the United Kingdom. This claim was strongly rejected by the United Kingdom government and its Secretary of State for International Trade. Further to this, one U.K. trade minister stated that the Prime Minister's claims should be taken with a pinch of salt.

These comments made by the Prime Minister about the United Kingdom, one of our oldest and most steadfast allies, certainly could not have been helpful during live negotiations on a trade deal of such importance to our country. After all, the United Kingdom had been able to negotiate secure and signed agreements with dozens of countries already. How is this taking into account the interests of Canadian businesses?

Stakeholders from across many business and labour sectors testified at the international trade committee that the government did not consult with them prior to withdrawing from negotiations to see how this decision might affect them, nor was there a formal or robust outreach process during negotiations. What a lost opportunity.

Conservative Party representatives expressed concerns about the lack of formal consultations as a whole for this trade agreement. I have heard from industries that were looking forward to an updated CETA, including major economic drivers in our country like the cattle industry, which wanted a U.K.-1 trade deal, not a CETA 2.0.

While officials have stated that the agreement ensures that Canada and the United Kingdom will get back to the negotiating table within a year, there are no penalties in the agreement if one side decides not to. The lack of an effective sunset clause makes this transitional agreement no different, really, from a comprehensive or permanent one. Wide-ranging consultations on the original CETA occurred about seven years ago. Situations and challenges evolve with time, especially in this fast-paced world that we now live in with emerging economies.

The government's failure to address concerns raised by stakeholder groups, especially by the agriculture and agri-food industry, such as non-tariff barriers, will unfortunately continue. Those are very concerning, and there is no clear dispute resolution process in the agreement. Supply-managed sectors were happy to hear that there were no concessions made for their industries, and industries overall just want stability, although they would have preferred that trade issues had been addressed.

Canadians expect the government to secure good trade agreements for our exporters, agreements that spur job growth for workers and grow our economy. Many businesses and families are searching for stability, and we need to do whatever we can to ensure that all sectors in our communities can survive and thrive going forward.

A trade deal was first announced with a splashy announcement on November 23. I had a call with the minister shortly afterward, in which I highlighted the importance of the Canada-U.K. trade agreement and the importance of ensuring that Canadians were not left worse off than they were under CETA. We wanted something even better. Canadian businesses needed clarity on the requirements resulting from the new agreement.

One thing that has been clear through this process is the mismanagement and undisciplined management of this file. Only when pressed up against time, at the 11th hour, do we come to a place where resolutions happen. British trade officials were more forthcoming on this 11th hour aspect. They expressed concerns and actually said that if we failed to ratify by the end of the year, this failure might create damage and disruption for businesses. However, we are pleased that a memorandum of understanding came on December 23 and arrived in time to prevent tariffs.

Over the past year, we have been relentless as Conservatives in our pursuit to shed light on what has been transpiring on this file. Really, this was left to the final week of the final month of the final year, and it will be critically important for the Minister of International Trade to work closely with her U.K. counterpart to begin formal negotiations on a truly new and comprehensive free trade agreement. We need agreements that involve and protect Canadian businesses and address non-tariff barriers and other emerging issues, have a clear and functioning dispute resolution system based on accountability, and are even better for our exporters in Canada.

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

Mr. Speaker, it feels like déjà vu in here. It is as though we are talking about the last trade agreement, since it appears that Conservatives are going to just criticize the agreement for the entire time and then eventually vote in favour of it. This agreement and having trade relationships are one of the tools that are going to allow our country to rebound out of the conditions that the pandemic has created for us when we are looking for opportunities to grow our country. Very simply, will the member be supporting this agreement?

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is like déjà vu, because here we have a trade agreement that has come in at the 11th hour with rushed legislation, and then the government is blaming it on other people for it being at the 11th hour. I do agree with the hon. member opposite on that point.

As I mentioned early on in my address, businesses need stability. We want this bill to go to committee and we want resolution so that Canadian businesses do not have to pay tariffs. It is obvious that this is what industries want, and we will be moving this measure forward.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I commend and thank my colleague from the Standing Committee on International Trade for her presentation and for outlining the government's many failures on this file.

I am wondering whether the agreement on trade continuity between Canada and the United Kingdom is a carbon copy of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the European Union.

The provinces, and particularly Quebec, were at the negotiating table for CETA.

Do the Conservatives agree that that formula should be followed again, that it should be regulated so that Quebec is always invited to represent itself in trade negotiations?

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, when we are looking at trade negotiations, it is important that we have many voices at the table. That was one part that was definitely lacking in this process.

We had heard that there was not a formal consultation process. There was very limited outreach to a couple of industries, but on the whole, looking at all of the exporters, there really was no outreach. We heard testimony at the committee from major stakeholder industries representing thousands of companies that there was no consultation with them.

We look forward to the new consultation process that will be undertaken.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that we heard from the minister earlier today was that this is a temporary, transitional deal, and that she looks forward to getting back to the table and working for a more permanent deal.

Given that it is being touted as a temporary and transitional deal, does the member have concerns about the fact that there is no sunset clause to ensure that negotiations lead to a successor agreement?

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we have identified that it is not a transitional agreement because there is no end date and there is no sunset clause.

In fact, it is an agreement until a new agreement is signed. There are some parameters and some timelines in there to get back to the table, but there are really no ties to it. There are no ramifications if one side does not want to participate. This is the agreement until a new agreement is signed. There are no specific deadlines in it other than wanting to get back to the table.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the member's summary of the timeline. The question on everybody's mind right is, how long is it going to be before the vaccinations roll out?

Given the delay in negotiating this agreement and the fact that the U.K. has at least one vaccine that it will be producing, does the member think the delay in negotiating this agreement was a matter of the Prime Minister just enjoying and trying whatever he could to keep Canadians locked down, or was he just so wrapped up in corruption with the WE scandal that there was no time to pay attention to this important issue?

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, when we look at the timeline, we do have to remember that the government had pulled out of negotiations in March 2019, even previous to the pandemic.

We were away from the table for a year before the pandemic came upon us. Here the issue is that other countries were signing agreements and were at the table negotiating, and we were not there. As I mentioned, we did not get back to the table until August, and then the government prorogued Parliament, which set everything back again.

Here we have a government that really was not focusing on this issue, and now we are in a situation with a memorandum of understanding, which is good because it is giving certainty to businesses, but this also has a deadline of the end of March.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to engage in another trade debate. As members know, trade is very close to my heart.

The United Kingdom and Canada have a long and common shared history. We have common values, we are trusted allies and we also have a long history of doing business with each other. In fact, today, the U.K. is Canada's fifth-largest trade partner and that drives prosperity and economic growth in our country and in the U.K. However, to be fair, our exports to the U.K. are primarily minerals, chiefly gold, while imports from the U.K. are comprised mainly of high-end manufactured goods.

The challenge for Canada is to increase the value of the goods we ship abroad, especially to the U.K. Our trade surplus with the U.K. is somewhere around $10 billion, but I would not crow too much about that. There is this imbalance between high-end manufactured goods and minerals, such as gold, that we ship to the U.K.

It would also be a mistake not to mention our services trade, which is very significant. A lot of Canadians do not understand that when we are talking about services trade, we are talking about things like engineering, some of the highest-paid jobs in Canada. When we do business with another country, when we sell engineering services to a place like the U.K., this is about Canada exporting high-value services and driving the growth of the economy in Canada.

Suffice it to say that trade is a key driver of economic growth and long-term prosperity in Canada, and the U.K., as one of our largest trade partners, is a country we have to engage with when it comes formalizing our trade relationship.

What is the challenge as we move forward?

We have always traded with each other, but for decades the U.K. negotiated trade agreements only as a part of the European Union, and much of its former negotiating expertise and power was ceded and vested in the EU's government in Brussels.

In 2009, former prime minister Stephen Harper had the foresight and vision to begin negotiations on a free trade agreement between Canada and the EU. This would take trade between Canada and the EU to a whole new level. I had the honour of leading that effort on behalf of Canada for some four and a half years.

On September 26, 2014, I joined European Commission President Barroso, European Council President Van Rompuy and Prime Minister Harper in Brussels to announce the end of those CETA negotiations, the trade agreement between Canada and the European Union.

One point of note is that our Liberal friends like to claim credit for all the trade successes of the previous Harper government. In the military, they call it stolen valour, something about which the Liberals know a little. They love to take credit for things that rightly were accomplished by others.

Let me be very clear that the CETA agreement with the then 27 countries of the EU was the brainchild of Stephen Harper. It was under his government that negotiations were commenced and substantively completed. Over the last few years, that CETA agreement has governed our relationship not only with the EU but with the U.K. As my colleague just mentioned, our trade with the U.K. is up by about $2 billion a year, again, driving economic growth in Canada.

The CETA agreement that Stephen Harper negotiated was arguably the most comprehensive, progressive and forward-looking 21st century trade agreement in the world. It liberalizes trade through broad tariff elimination. It promotes and protects investments. It opens up government procurement and includes rigorous intellectual property protections, dispute resolution and disciplines on sanitary and phytosanitary standards. It protects culture and our cultural industries. It contains some of the strongest commitments ever included in a free trade agreement to promote labour rights, environmental protections and sustainable development. We had expected that agreement to govern our commercial relationship with the European Union for decades to come, including our relationship with the U.K. Then Brexit happened.

Without trying to divine the exact reasons for the U.K. deciding to leave the EU, the British people freely voted to leave the EU and regain their sovereignty over policy-making, and that included trade policy. In the short term, that meant the U.K. was left with no trade agreements with any of its closest trade partners, including Canada, and the British government had to scramble to find the people necessary to competently negotiate trade agreements. Its top priority was securing a new trade agreement with the European Union to assure its most favoured relationship with Europe. Then there was Canada, with which the U.K. no longer had a trade deal since the U.K. was no longer part of the CETA agreement.

Therefore, what was the fix going forward? The solution was to replace CETA with a bilateral trade agreement, Canada and the U.K., which would preserve its trade with Canada without either side incurring economic harm.

That brings us to the debate we are having today, the Canada-UK Trade Continuity Agreement. As its name implies, it is more about preserving and carrying over our CETA benefits and obligations than carving out new territory on trade liberalization. It was unfortunate that the Liberal government and its trade ministers inexplicably chose to delay these negotiations and refused to engage with the U.K. for over a year. That, in turn, meant there was a last-minute rush by the government to rush through the legislation before the new year. When that did not pan out, the Prime Minister, sadly, turned to blame shifting, as my colleague from Kelowna—Lake Country mentioned. The Prime Minister claimed that the delays in finalizing this deal were because the U.K. did not have the bandwidth to negotiate.

The agreement was finally concluded, with really no substantive changes to the rights that each of our countries have under CETA.

What does this mean?

Someone recently referred to this new agreement with the U.K. as a “nothing burger”, suggesting that because there was nothing new in this agreement, there was little of value to praise. Although it is true that not much new policy ground was plowed, this trade agreement means absolutely everything when it comes to protecting our preferred bilateral relationship with the U.K.

The alternative would have been to leave us with no trade agreement at all, only with a much less advantageous benefits of the floundering World Trade Organization. Essentially, we would be returning to the wild, wild west of trade, and that is certainly not what either party wanted.

With this Canada-UK Trade Continuity Agreement presently before us, we are left with a status quo agreement that preserves our current trade and investment relationship under a clear set of liberalizing rules, and that is good news for the residents of Canada.

What does the future look like beyond this continuity agreement we are debating here today? Both parties have committed to pursuing an even more ambitious trade and investment agreement in the future. That negotiation would reflect the unique characteristics of the Canada-U.K. relationship, including our similar economies and social structures, our common approaches to foreign policy, security and defence and our common shared approach to freer and fairer trade around the world.

We have three options to further our relationship with the U.K. The first is to take this agreement further by negotiating a more ambitious bilateral trade agreement with the U.K., using these unique characteristics to further eliminate trade barriers and expand investment opportunities. This might perhaps include greater regulatory alignment and broader mutual recognition of credentials.

However, what a lot of people do not realize is that Canada is part of the CPTPP and the U.K. has applied, or is in the processing of applying, to join the CPTPP. The U.K. has signalled its intention to join CPTPP because it knows that in the CPTPP it would make common cause with Canada and the other TPP partners in the Asia-Pacific region as a counterweight to China's belligerence and hostility in the region.

The COVID pandemic and China's increasing belligerence on the world stage make it highly advisable for like-minded nations to make common cause to counteract China's efforts to control and manipulate our system of global rules-based trade, and CPTPP is the perfect vehicle for doing so.

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

Mr. Speaker, allow me very clearly and on the record thank the former minister of trade for the work he has done, particularly with respect to CETA, which is a very good agreement, good for Canada and good for Canadian exporters. I hope he agrees.

That is perhaps one of the reasons why I find it perplexing to suggest that successfully transitioning the very favourable provisions of CETA into a transitional agreement with the United Kingdom appears to have disappointed him. CETA is a good agreement and the transitional agreement replicating CETA is good for our Canadian exporters.

Does my colleague agree?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not fully agree with her assertion, but I do agree with her that CETA was a groundbreaking agreement and has benefited Canada and the European Union.

However, the delays caused by the Liberal government meant that we could not negotiate an even more ambitious agreement with the U.K. Circumstances are at play in the Canada-U.K. relationship that make it a perfect opportunity for Canada to expand things like mobility of people, investment opportunities among our countries and regulatory co-operation and the mutual recognition of credentials, something that is much more difficult to do when we are dealing with the 27 countries of the European Union rather than the U.K., with which we share many values and many common social and economic characteristics.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there was a question asked earlier that has remained unanswered. Perhaps my colleague could enlighten me on the matter.

Specifically in the context of CUSMA, we ran into a problem when aluminum was left without any protection. Perhaps the best solution is to ensure that Quebec is at the table during these kinds of negotiations to advocate for its own economic interests—and we will see this next year, since this is a temporary agreement.

Would my colleague agree that the provinces should play a larger role in the negotiation process and that this should be formalized going forward?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree with my colleague that Quebec has a very special interest in Canada's trade negotiations, and I can only speak from my own experience negotiating the trade agreement between Canada and the European Union where Quebec was a key integral part of our negotiating team. In fact, a lot of Canadians do not realize that Quebec is among the most pro-trade-oriented provinces in our federation.

Quebec understands trade and our previous Conservative government always consulted significantly with Quebec. That is why Quebec was always able to support our efforts to negotiate things like CETA, agreements like the TPP, agreements like our trade agreements with Peru, Colombia, Jordan and other countries around the world. The key is collaboration. If we do not get that right, we will get an agreement that does not reflect the best economic interests of Canadians. We want to ensure we always focus on the economic interests of Canadians.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate anything my colleague shares in the House and his incredible work on trade on behalf of Canada.

He spoke about our relationship with the CPTPP and how important it would be to have the U.K. engaged in that well. The government talks about a whole-of-government approach. In this case, when it comes to trade, what I am hearing is that we need a whole-of-the-world approach.

I would like to hear a little more from him with regard to the impact Canada could have on the U.K. participating in that way.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. Because Canada and the U.K. are among the most trusted trade partners in the world, it is absolutely imperative that we find opportunities to promote our trade interests beyond our bilateral agreement. That is why I am very supportive, personally, of the U.K.'s interest in joining the CPTPP.

Sadly, the World Trade Organization has floundered badly. Its adjudicative powers, effectively, were emasculated by the administration of Donald Trump, so we do not have a robust global system of rules-based trade, which is why a lot of countries over the years have resorted to bilateral and plurilateral agreements such as CETA, the agreement we are debating today and the CPTPP.

I very strongly promote opportunities to take our trade agreements and use them as vehicles to promote freer and fairer trade all around the world, because Canada is among the best countries in the world at doing this.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today as the Bloc Québécois critic for international trade and speak about the Canada-U.K. trade continuity agreement, or CUKTCA.

CUKTCA seeks to ensure that the flow of trade between Canada and the United Kingdom remains unimpeded. Let us remember that Canada and the European Union are bound by a free trade agreement, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, and that the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union put an end to the provisions that connected London and Ottawa.

I will divide my speech into three parts. First, I will address the serious problem with the transparency of the negotiation process. Next, I will talk about the agreement itself and, finally, I will close by talking about the real meaning of Brexit from a historical perspective and about the precedent it sets with respect to Quebec.

First, let us talk about transparency. Members of the Standing Committee on International Trade discussed the transitional trade agreement with the parties directly involved without any documents whatsoever. It was truly a theatre of the absurd. We were asked to study the agreement without access to its content. We received witnesses who offered comments and recommendations on the agreement, but we had no real information on the content of the agreement. We were only told that the deadline was fast approaching and that we had to adopt the agreement by December 31.

We might also say that we were asked to give the government carte blanche, even though it sacrificed supply management on three occasions and in the latest free trade negotiations it abandoned Quebec's key sectors, like aluminum and softwood lumber. That is why we are reluctant to blindly trust the government.

In fact, the committee had to submit its report on the transitional agreement on the very day we received the text of the agreement and before we even had a chance to read it. The Bloc Québécois was very clear on the fact that we would not just stamp an agreement without reading it or having the time to study and analyze it, in other words, without being able to do our job as parliamentarians.

The members of the House of Commons are responsible for defending the interests and values of their constituents, but they are being forced to approve agreements at the end of a process in which they have no real say, despite the efforts of the Bloc Québécois, which tabled a number of bills regarding this matter between 2000 and 2004.

Under the 2020 agreement between the Liberal Party and the NDP, the Deputy Prime Minister undertook to provide more information to MPs, and that is a step in the right direction. However, as the recent agreement showed, it is clearly inadequate.

We need mechanisms to involve parliamentarians and the provinces in the next round of talks. It is vital for the government to keep parliamentarians informed every step of the way. Requiring this would reduce the risk of parliamentarians having to voice their opinions on agreements without having all the necessary information to make an informed decision. This would make the negotiation process more transparent.

The Bloc Québécois is calling for Parliament to adopt procedures that would increase democratic control over agreements. The minister responsible for ratifying an agreement should be required to table it in Parliament together with an explanatory memorandum within a reasonable period of time. Parliament's approval should be required before any agreement can be ratified.

Quebec was allowed to send a representative to the negotiations with Europe in the lead-up to the ratification of CETA between Canada and the European Union in 2017. However, it was the European Union, not Canada, that wanted Quebec there. Quebec has not had this opportunity again, but it should.

We believe that Quebec and the provinces must be invited to the bargaining table, since they have official standing to block an agreement that would interfere with their jurisdictions. Quebec's jurisdictions extend beyond its borders, as the Privy Council in London acknowledged decades ago in a decision that led Quebec to adopt the Gérin-Lajoie doctrine.

Of course, it is not a perfect system.

During the CETA negotiations, Quebec's representative said that Quebec's delegation was there to be a cheerleader for the Canadian delegation and its actions essentially amounted to backroom diplomacy. In other words, Quebec's role mattered, but not at the table where decisions were being made.

The only way Quebec will be able to advocate for itself on the world stage is by gaining independence. The Canadian negotiator will always be predisposed to protect Canada's economic sectors at the expense of Quebec's.

Now I want to talk about the agreement. I remind members that international trade has played a huge part in modernizing Quebec's economy. We made a strategic choice that gave SMEs access to new markets, most importantly the U.S. market, of course, which allowed us to break our total dependence on Canada's trade and economic framework.

The Bloc Québécois fully subscribes to the idea that free trade is necessary, but we do not mistake politics for religion. If a free trade agreement threatens Quebec in any way, we will not hold back from pointing out its biggest flaws and speaking out against them. We believe that the environment, public health, agriculture, culture, first nations, workers and social services must never be treated like commercial goods. We also believe that nothing justifies giving up our sovereignty for the benefit of multinationals.

What does this mean for the Canada-United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement, or CUKTCA? I will start with some background. There are already a number of trade agreements and treaties between Canada and the U.K., both with and without the European Union. The United Kingdom is Canada's biggest European trading partner, but let us put things in perspective. Investment and imports and exports of goods and services between Canada and the U.K. actually represent a relatively small percentage of each country's economy. Still, the United Kingdom is an important partner.

Ontario is the most affected province because it exports unwrought gold. That sector accounts for more than 80% of Ontario's exports to the United Kingdom. The U.K. imports a lot of cars and pharmaceuticals from Ontario, but their significance in the U.K. economy is fairly limited.

The United Kingdom is Quebec's second-largest trading partner. However, imports and exports of goods with the United Kingdom have been declining for the past 20 years. The U.K. now accounts for only 1% of Quebec's total exports and 3.5% of Quebec's total imports. In other words, Quebec has a trade deficit with the United Kingdom.

One sector that is really important is the aerospace industry, which provides the most stable trade between Quebec and the United Kingdom. Our aerospace sector is both a customer of and supplier to the United Kingdom, so maintaining that trade relationship is crucial for this strategic industry, which is struggling. Many research partnerships have been established, and the industry welcomes the idea of an agreement. Of course, the aerospace sector needs a proper aerospace policy, and we continue to fight for that in the House. This agreement is good for our aerospace sector, which in itself is a good enough reason for us to support it at this time.

Our personal financial services sector and our engineering firms may also benefit, since investments in infrastructure could explode in a post-Brexit United Kingdom.

Other reasons we welcome this agreement include the fact that the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism will not apply immediately. This mechanism allows a foreign multinational to take a country where it has invested to an arbitration tribunal if a policy or law made by that country impinges on its ability to make a profit. Any law intended to protect the environment or to enhance social justice or worker protections could be targeted. This upends democracy by giving multinationals sovereign powers. We are against that.

Under the CUKTCA, this mechanism would not come into force until at least three years after the agreement has been adopted, on condition that the mechanism is in effect under CETA, which is to say it will not happen. Since Canada and the United Kingdom are supposed to start negotiations this year to conclude a permanent agreement, we can say that it will likely not come into force.

Nevertheless, that should not be one of the items that Canada will defend when negotiating the permanent agreement. The Bloc opposes it and will stand firm against it. I moved a motion to study this mechanism at the Standing Committee on International Trade, and it was adopted. We should be studying it relatively soon. I truly hope that we will never again include this mechanism, which was removed from the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement last year. In this case, Canada and the United Kingdom are western democracies with well-developed legal systems. There is therefore no reason that differences between a foreign investor and a host country cannot be decided within the existing legal system.

There is also the thorny issue of supply management. We support the pure and simple, ironclad protection of supply management, and therefore the preliminary exclusion of agriculture from the negotiating table, except for the sectors that would find it advantageous and would specifically ask to be included. CETA, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, was detrimental to our agricultural model, and it caused real losses to our farmers. We would not have agreed to give up additional market share in the CUKTCA, the Canada-UK Trade Continuity Agreement.

Fortunately CUKTCA does not include such provisions. The United Kingdom was not granted additional market access for cheese or other supply-managed products. However, some testimony during meetings of the Standing Committee on International Trade suggested that British cheese producers were pushing for more exports to Canada. In all likelihood, this problem will be put off until next year, new breaches in our agricultural model will be on the table in final negotiations, and London will put those demands at the top of the list. This is timely, because the Bloc introduced a bill to prohibit any future breaches in supply management. The House needs to walk the talk, so I hope it will pass the bill.

I now want to talk about local products. From the beginning of the pandemic, for several months now, people have been singing the praises of buying local, which is great. We need to practise some degree of economic nationalism, which comes more naturally for Quebec than it does for Canada.

Under CETA, Quebec lost a large share of the Canadian content requirement in the procurement of public transit vehicles. In the past, an agreement between the Government of Quebec and the Société de transport de Montréal required that 60% of the content in the city's subways and buses be Canadian. CETA now stipulates a local content requirement of no more than 25% in Quebec and Ontario, simply because of a grandfather clause. What is more, Quebec can also require that the final assembly take place in Canada. The other provinces are not included in that provision because they do not have any provincial legislation to that effect. The local content requirement of 25% under the grandfather clause is a step backward, but it could have been much worse had Quebec not been at the CETA discussion table.

The same provision is included in CUKTCA simply because it was copied and pasted from CETA. It is pretty clear that this will not be one of Canada's priorities in future rounds of negotiations for the permanent agreement, which once again shows the fundamental importance of inviting Quebec to the negotiating table.

The agreement aside, Quebec and its plan for independence can learn some lessons from the process itself. Of course, the United Kingdom and Quebec are in very different situations. Every U.K. citizen is free to praise or condemn Brexit. They are free to vote as they wish. The fact remains that Brexit is a historical first. We are talking about a state that left a customs union to which it belonged and is therefore no longer part of certain trade agreements. In that regard, the U.K.'s situation is similar to that of Quebec. Opponents to the plan, who have always played on economic fears, say that Quebec would not have enough public funds and that it is better off giving its money to Ottawa or spending it on the monarchy.

As for trade, we were told that Quebec would not automatically be a member of agreements signed by Canada, which would mean a blank slate and starting from scratch with trading partners. However, those trading partners would have no desire to cut ties with Quebec.

What guarantees are there with respect to treaties? Some time ago, a constitutional expert named Daniel Turp, a former member of the House of Commons and the National Assembly of Quebec, explained that countries would presume continuity if the new country expressed its desire to maintain the relationship in a given treaty. Mr. Turp's thesis focused on multilateral agreements, however. The jury was still out on trade agreements.

The only precedent for trade agreements dates back to 1973, when Bangladesh seceded from Pakistan and became independent. Pakistan was bound by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, better known as GATT, and Bangladesh automatically became a member from one day to the next. However, GATT was a multilateral treaty that did not need to be renegotiated to admit a new member. What would happen with a bilateral treaty? That is the question the British are answering now.

To sum up, Canada has already signed an agreement with the European Union, namely CETA. To ensure that the U.K.'s departure from the EU does not leave a void in relations between London and Ottawa, an interim agreement is being reached very quickly between the two countries, one that incorporates the content of CETA and will remain in force in the short term until both partners renegotiate a permanent agreement, thereby ensuring stability until then.

Brexit is showing Quebec the way forward when a trading nation achieves or reclaims its sovereignty. A newly independent Quebec would of course emulate this approach and quickly reach interim agreements to ensure that our businesses have access to markets while waiting for permanent agreements to be renegotiated with our partners.

Far from being caught off guard, the United Kingdom has already signed trade deals with 60 of the 70 countries the EU had deals with. One could say, then, that the U.K. was definitely not caught with its pants down, if you pardon me the expression. It even has an agreement with Japan now, where the EU had no such agreement.

Because they are provisional, transitional arrangements do not preclude newly independent countries from going back to the negotiating table, preferably sooner rather than later. Is there a fundamental problem in renegotiating what someone else has already negotiated for us? That is what the United Kingdom is going to do with Canada this year. If we did that too, we could support sectors that are important to Quebec, such as agriculture, aluminum and lumber. Indeed, there are many more advantages than disadvantages to defending only one's own interests at the negotiating table.

The Brits and Canadians are therefore quite unwittingly overlooking an argument that is often repeated to argue against Quebec independence. When it comes to trade sovereignty, if Brexit has given us a sneak preview of “Québexit”, why not go for it?

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated hearing everything the member said. We have a lot to work through as a country in dealing with trade. I appreciate his concerns; I truly do.

The Liberal government calls this a transitional agreement, yet there is no end date and no penalty for not moving forward with negotiations or not getting a new agreement finalized.

Does the member have any concerns about the misconception of calling this a transitional agreement?

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

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

That just adds to the absurdity of it all. Before the holidays, we were asked to study an agreement without access to the document. We were told that it was just transitional. To say that is to minimize the importance of it. We were told to adopt it before December 31, that it was urgent. Fortunately, that did not happen. We were firm on this. However, there is no firm commitment to go back to the bargaining table. Of course, that is a problem. I share my colleague's concerns on that.

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

Mr. Speaker, unlike my Conservative colleague who just asked a question, I do not appreciate the comments the member made, especially those toward the end of his speech when he talked about reasons for Quebec being its own country. I realize that is one of the main objectives of the Bloc, but the reality of the situation is that Canada is as great as it is because of all the partners here. It is as great as it is because Quebec is part of it. I, for one, certainly never want to see us even talk about going down that road, especially at a time like this when we are getting through a pandemic.

Although the nature of these agreements always puts us in a position where negotiating seems to conflict with our ability to discuss them in the House, this trade agreement is a good thing for all of Canada. It is a good thing for Quebec. It is a good thing for Ontario. It is a good thing for Alberta and B.C. It is good for the entire country. It is an opportunity for us to come out of this pandemic and grow our economy so we can recover in a meaningful way.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my goodness, I do not know where to begin. I was talking about all the benefits of the agreement and I said that it was very good for Quebec. I do not see what more I could add.

Canada is a great country. Quebec will be a very great country as well. I must admit that I do not understand my colleague's arguments at all. I find it funny to hear him note that the Bloc Québécois is in favour of Quebec's independence. It is about time my colleague figured that out. The Bloc Québécois has been around for 30 years. I invite my colleague to consider a career as an investigative journalist.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I would like to say that his last comment made me laugh.

In my opinion, the free trade agreement with the United Kingdom demonstrates that instead of learning from their mistakes, the Liberals are repeating them. The NDP shares the concerns about protecting supply management, which we defended tooth and nail. Former MPs Brigitte Sansoucy and Ruth Ellen Brosseau, in particular, vigorously defended it.

I would like to talk about two other things.

Our dispute resolution mechanism allows investors and large corporations to take advantage of us. It undermines our democracy and the representation of our citizens. Under the free trade agreement with the European Union, Quebeckers and Canadians will pay more for prescription drugs. In my opinion, in a health crisis, it is truly ridiculous to make the same mistake and accept an agreement that will increase the cost of drugs that sick people need.

I would like to hear what he has to say about that.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for his question. I also thank him for his ongoing support of supply management.

If the investor-state dispute settlement system were implemented immediately, I would have been much harsher. However, since the process is fraught with challenges, we might as well say that will not happen with this agreement.

As I mentioned earlier, the CETA countries must absolutely agree on the terms and conditions of a mechanism. That is by no means certain. Since it could take three years, we can imagine that a permanent agreement will be renegotiated before that. The road ahead is fraught with challenges.

With respect to drugs, the price increase will not be immediate. We obviously share my colleague's concern on this matter. When the agreement is implemented in a few years, we will need a compensation program and Ottawa will need a program to compensate those who will bear the brunt of the hike in drug prices. We agree on principle that it makes no sense to hike drug prices in the middle of a pandemic.

[Louise Charbonneau, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his enlightening speech on the CUKTCA. He knows this topic well.

Could the member talk more specifically about how milk producers will be affected and about how the United Kingdom will continue to be able to send its cheeses here until 2023? I would like to hear his thoughts on that provision in the agreement.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Trois-Rivières.

Current cheese exports are based on quotas given up in the agreement with Europe. After that, there was an agreement between Europe and the U.K. about previously allocated quota. It is a step backward, but that is because of the previous agreement.

There is no additional step backward in this agreement. That is one reason we are supporting it at this stage. Even the slightest step backward would have been grounds for us to oppose it. The agricultural model is much too important to be sacrificed even a little bit. We have been very clear about that.

This is only putting the problem off until later, though. We know British exporters want more, which means the problem will probably surface again in a year. London will fight for it during the next round of negotiations, which is why we need to pass the Bloc's bill banning any further breaches in supply management.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that wonderful speech.

He talked about how important farmers are to Quebec. I know they are important to his region. They are important for mine too. In the Lower St. Lawrence, the dairy industry adds up to about 572 farms, seven plants, 5,895 jobs and a GDP contribution in excess of $400 million.

In light of these facts, I would like my colleague to explain to us why it is important, essential even, that Canada not give up additional quota for cheese or other supply-managed products when negotiating trade agreements like the CUKTCA.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, supply management is a proven system that works. I would rather talk about promoting supply management than about defending it.

Supply management is based on a very simple principle. Agriculture cannot be treated like any other commodity. It is as simple as that. Agriculture is too important. We are talking about our food sovereignty, what we have in our fridges and on our plates. We need farmers three times a day.

Supply management tells us that we cannot treat agriculture like one factory among many, that it cannot be treated the same way as any other product under the laws of supply and demand. We need to wholeheartedly defend supply management and fight for it tooth and nail. This system has prevented overproduction crises. It has prevented farmers from being wiped out financially, even when they are in very precarious situations.

This must be a fundamental battle in every respect. We will continue to wage that battle until the future of supply management is secure.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in the virtual Parliament to speak to the agreement that was signed between Canada and the United Kingdom, what they are calling a “trade continuity agreement”, and the legislation that would implement that here in Canada.

It has been a bit of a rocky road to get here, and there are a number of problems with the way this has unfolded and that do bear description here in the House. However, I want to start by talking a bit about the nature of trade.

This is another agreement in the vein of corporate globalized trade that we in the NDP recognize has not been good for workers. Canada has signed a number of these free trade agreements, whether the original NAFTA or CETA or the TPP, and various reforms at the WTO. All of these have coincided with a period when a lot of well-paying jobs that fed families and provided the kinds of benefits that Canadians expect as part of a good quality of living, whether that is a decent pension, health benefits or other things that come with a good job, left the country. It is not a coincidence that this happened as these agreements were signed which made it easier for big corporations and some of the biggest economic players to move their capital and operations around to find places with the lowest standards for how they treat their workers and the planet. All of that was done in a context where the taxes these folks pay were continually being reduced as well. Therefore, what we saw was a period when working Canadians lost a lot of their good employment that provided them with a good livelihood, while the people at the top were able to move their assets around and keep more and more of the economic pie for themselves.

It has not worked out well for everyday Canadian workers, and it is why we do not like the model. That does not mean we do not like trade.

The NDP is very well aware of all of the opportunities that exist for Canadian businesses, including some of our small businesses, when trade is done right, for them to be able to expand their reach. We just want to see agreements that allow those opportunities to translate not into gross profits for a few Canadians at the top, but into more good-quality jobs for Canadian workers who will produce the things that get traded with other countries. However, if it just means that all of the value-added work goes somewhere else, that is not in the ultimate interests of Canadians, and there is a fair bit of evidence to suggest that that has been the trend over the last 30 years or so.

Why am I talking about that? Trade between Canada and the United King is as old as Canada, and at least with Europeans. We have had a long-standing trade relationship; it is an important one. A lot of the similarities and affinities between Canada and the United Kingdom provide for creating a real gold-standard trade agreement. If we listen even to the conservatives in the United Kingdom, they talk more about climate change and have put more emphasis on putting climate change at the forefront of their new trade agenda than even the Liberals here have done. There is a real opportunity to work with them and others in the United Kingdom to create a gold-standard deal that takes seriously the impacts of globalized trade for climate change and seeks to control and reduce those impacts.

We have an opportunity to create a gold standard deal that takes seriously the rights of workers and human rights and seeks to actually incorporate those into the deal, not in a side letter that is not enforceable but actually into the core of the deal, to ensure that workers will be fairly treated and that if there is additional wealth created by an increase of trade between our two countries, it will find its way to workers and not just to the people at the top.

I would also hope that our good relationship with the United Kingdom will allow for an agreement that recognizes and takes seriously the rights and role of indigenous people in Canada, so that we do not run roughshod over those in the way that an agreement is concluded.

However, we do not have that here with this agreement. What we have, after knowing this was coming for a long, long time, is effectively a carbon copy of CETA, which was agreement in the corporate model that I just described and that we do not agree with. We did not agree with it at the time because we knew that an agreement like CETA and its intellectual property provisions was going to put upward costs on the price of pharmaceutical drugs in Canada when we already pay among the highest price for prescription drugs in the western world.

Why would we conclude an agreement that makes those drugs more expensive? Why then would we carbon copy that agreement when we have an opportunity to do something different with our largest trading partner in the European Union, representing about 40% of our trade with Europe? That does not make sense to New Democrats, who have been elected to Parliament on a mission to reduce the price of prescription drugs for Canadians.

It does not make sense when we think about the integrity of our democratic institutions. These same corporate trade deals have also put serious limits and inhibitions on democratically elected governments to regulate in the public interest. That was also a part of the reasons for our initial opposition to CETA, the investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms. Now, I recognize that those would not be coming into force immediately upon the passage of this legislation, but I find it shocking, frankly, that they are even in there at all, because we have not heard the British government talk about the need for investor-state dispute settlement clauses.

Those are the clauses that have allowed foreign corporations to sue the Canadian government for hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 30 years. Those are the same clauses the Deputy Prime Minister herself said in the House last June were one of the biggest achievements she was most proud of from the CUSMA negotiations. In her words, "the investor-state dispute resolution system, which in the past allowed foreign companies to sue Canada, will be gone.”

Here they are again, not because our trading partner was asking for them. How did they even get into the agreement? If Britain does not want them and Canada does not want them, why are they there and why is possible for them come into effect, which is the default incidentally, after three years if another decision is not taken in the meantime?

We object to these being present at all, and I am interested to know who at the table was concerned to put them in there, given that our government was trying to take credit for having signed an agreement with the United States and Mexico that finally got rid of them, which we thought was a good thing.

The other thing CETA did that we oppose was further attack the supply-managed sectors in Canada. We heard comments earlier that I agree with completely. The way we procure our food and supply our food is not as if it were commodity like any other, and so we want to make sure that our agricultural producers are compensated fairly for what they produce and that we can support those local producers and that our food supply chain is secure.

All of these agreements tend toward a more globalized food supply chain. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that when it comes to the things that really matter and that we cannot do without, we should not be depending on international supply chains. Supply management in Canada is a great tool to ensure that our local producers are paid fairly for the work they do, can stay in business and that Canadian consumers can get the products they need to eat at a fair price reliably.

Those were things we did not like about CETA. We had lots of time, and, frankly, when it came to signing CETA in the first place, it was a mystery to us in the NDP that the government rushed ahead with it. The Conservatives had negotiated this deal, the Liberals came to power, and in the meantime Britain decided to hold a referendum on whether to remain in the European Union. New Democrats thought it might be significant to the nature of trade between Europe and Canada whether the United Kingdom was a part of Europe or not, considering that it represented about 40% of our trade with Europe.

It still strikes me as totally ridiculous that the government decided to go ahead and pen a deal with Europe when we did not know if the United Kingdom was leaving the European Union, which we subsequently found out it was, and that 40% of trade with Europe was not going to be captured by that deal. It does raise problems. We will see what happens as we try to negotiate a successor agreement and what that will mean for the supply-managed sector. New Democrats are very concerned that there are further concessions in the offing. We will believe it when we see that that it is not really on the table for the Liberals, because we have seen them break that promise before.

The other thing that bears mentioning when it comes to CETA is the following quote from a report called “Taking Stock of CETA: Early Impacts of the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement”. It states:

Between September 2017 and May 2019, total Canadian exports to the EU, measured monthly, were essentially flat. Meanwhile, over the same period, total imports from the EU increased by over a third (33.8 per cent). This imbalance has resulted in a doubling of the monthly Canadian trade deficit with the EU, from –1.51 billion dollars in September 2017 to –3.43 billion dollars in May 2019.

In recent decades, the United Kingdom is the only major European country with which Canada has consistently run a trade surplus. But since September 2017, the Canadian merchandise trade surplus with the U.K. has shrunk significantly (falling by two-thirds), with exports declining by 32 per cent while imports rose 14 per cent.

That is an assessment of the deal on whether it is working for Canada. The government did not bother to negotiate a different agreement. It is asking for a carbon copy of an agreement that has seen Canada's trade deficit with Europe increase. Even the empirical evidence on the deal so far suggests that this has not been a wondrous deal for Canada.

I have a lot of sympathy for Canadian businesses that want certainty in an uncertain time. I think the government really let them down in terms of the process, but it did not just let them down in November and December when it failed to get this legislation before the House and passed before December 31. The government let them down a long time ago, when it walked away from the negotiating table and was not even trying to negotiate the kind of gold-standard deal that I spoke about earlier, or any kind of different deal at all.

Here we find ourselves, past the deadline. These businesses have already gone through that jarring uncertainty and what it means for their business models, so I understand their disappointment. I think the government ought to have behaved in a way to try to provide a lot more certainty about what was coming, but I think it is a disappointment that, in addition, all we are getting is the same as we had in CETA with all of the problems that were there, and with all the evidence that shows that this has not been a deal that is working out very well for Canada.

I would say perhaps one of the only redeeming aspects of this entire farce of a process around negotiating our post-Brexit trade relationship with the United Kingdom is that it afforded an opportunity for certain committees of the House to reaffirm our commitment to the Good Friday Agreement, which Canada played an important role in brokering. New Democrats, my colleague from Saint John—Rothesay at the foreign affairs committee and I, presented a motion at the international trade committee and the foreign affairs committee that passed, I am glad to say unanimously, affirming Canada's support for [Technical difficulty—Editor] wants to be part of a trade relationship with the United Kingdom that in no way jeopardizes the Good Friday Agreement and, in fact, seeks to reinforce that peace, which was hard won in the nineties.

That is maybe one of the only silver linings to what otherwise was a terrible process. There was no real meaningful consultation with businesses, with unions or with Canadian civil society on what this trade relationship ought to look like. I stress this again, because the government likes to talk as if the deadline snuck up on us or as if we did not know it was coming. We have known for years that Britain was leaving the EU, and it was incumbent upon the government of the day to do the work so that whenever that deadline came there was actually something in place, yet there was no meaningful public consultation process on this.

The trade committee, on its own initiative, held some hearings in Parliament but, of course, like many things due to the pandemic, these were severely interrupted. It does not explain why there was not some effort by the government, in the years leading up to that, to try to engage people meaningfully on the question of the Canada-U.K. trade agreement or to try to involve Parliament, for that matter.

I would like to add that while we are talking about the abomination of process that is this deal, it bears mentioning that the government will talk about this as a transitional deal. I think that is misleading.

I get that our partner in the United Kingdom and the Canadian government perhaps committed in good faith, and it is in the agreement for all to read that they are going to start negotiating toward a successor deal within a year. I think there is some expectation that within three years the deal will be concluded. A couple of things will get more difficult after that three-year time horizon if a successor deal has not been concluded.

The fact remains that a transitional deal implies a temporary deal. The fact that it is a transitional deal, and the fact that it is essentially a carbon copy of CETA, are the reasons the government is saying that we should not be too concerned that there has not been a great process around it all: “Do not worry, we are going to negotiate another deal and it is really just like what we had.”

However, there were problems with what we had. The NDP is not satisfied with CETA. The NDP does not agree that CETA is the be-all and end-all of a trade agreement anyway, and I can tell members that a lot of Canadian workers across the country feel the same way. That fact notwithstanding, when we talk about a transitional deal it implies a temporary deal, and there is nothing temporary about this deal.

This deal has already been signed. The government has done the deed and the legislation, I gather from the debate today, is going to pass. New Democrats will be voting against it, but it is going to pass, and in a timely way. We all know, after what we just went through with Donald Trump, the pandemic and everything else, that three years is a long time in politics. A lot can change, and good intentions sometimes do not bear the fruit that people thought they would.

If, in three years' time, Canada and the U.K. do not conclude a successor agreement, this is what we are stuck with, and we will have been stuck with it after no meaningful engagement with the Canadian public or the Canadian Parliament except for this debate and whatever process will ensue at committee, which is something we are being asked to hurry up with and rush. The government has created a context where there is a legitimate need to act with some swiftness, because Canadian businesses have not had an opportunity to plan for an alternative, even though I think an alternative could have served Canadians better.

There is no sunset clause in the deal. There is no sunset clause in the legislation before us. In other words, there is nothing that compels Canada and the U.K. in any strong sense to conclude a successor agreement that might realize the potential for that gold standard in trade rather than repeating the same old corporate model that has not been serving Canadians well over the last 30 years. To me, that is a real disappointment, and I caution Canadians that this is not just some kind of transitional thing that is going away any time soon. It will only go away any time soon if it becomes a priority of our government and the government of the U.K., and political circumstances allow them to conclude a deal.

If we think back to where we were three years ago, nobody would have predicted what has happened in the interim. It would be a shame if this is the deal that Canada gets stuck with to define our trading relationship with the United Kingdom, because I think we can do a heck of a lot better.

I think we can do better when it comes to not having any provisions at all, like the investor-state dispute settlement provisions that cost Canadian taxpayers money and limit the ability of their democratically elected governments to regulate in the public interest.

I think it would be a shame if we did not get an agreement with the U.K. that takes climate change seriously and tries to mitigate the effects of globalized trade.

I think it would be a shame if we did not get an agreement with the U.K. that recognizes, in some kind of meaningful and enforceable way, the rights of indigenous people in Canada.

I think it would be a shame if we did not get an agreement that took upward pressure on prescription drug costs seriously. At the very least, if the Liberals are going to continue to sign deals like this, they could get a national pharmacare plan in place and help to do something that would bring those pharmaceutical drug prices down for Canadians, both their out-of-pocket costs and the incredible costs on provincial government ledgers for those pharmacare programs that do not benefit from the purchasing power of the entire country.

I hope we are going to get there, and that is certainly where our emphasis is going to be, but in the meantime, it is hard to say yes to a deal that is unimaginative and part of a broken international trade culture.

[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, Canada is a trading nation. We need international trade. We cannot underestimate the importance of that global trading market.

I am not surprised, but a little disappointed, that the NDP consistently votes against trade agreements. The party seems to be of the opinion that the way we get a trade agreement is to say what we want and then wait for the other country to agree to it, or we do not have an agreement.

My question for my friend and colleague from Winnipeg is this. Would he not recognize the actual value of international trade for Canadian society as a whole, and indicate to those who may be following the debate what trade agreements, historically, the NDP actually stood in this place and voted for?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, it seems to me the hon. member has the memory of a goldfish. The last trade agreement that was before the House, the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, was an agreement that New Democrats voted for. There were tangible wins for Canadian workers. We got rid of the investor-state dispute settlement clause I was just talking about, which somehow reappeared here. It is not because the British government was asking for it, so who was? Presumably, it was the only other partner in the agreement: the Canadian government. Otherwise, I do not see why it would be there.

We also got rid of the energy proportionality clause, which never should have been signed in the first place and was a serious problem when it comes to Canada's energy sovereignty. That is something that has been the subject of a lot of debate in the House recently. Of course, Conservatives did not care a whit about Canadian energy sovereignty when they negotiated NAFTA back then, and I was glad to see that go.

Therefore, yes, when we can point to tangible wins for real Canadians, not just the guys at the top, we are prepared to vote for agreements but, man, do they ever come sparsely. It is because we have both Liberals and Conservatives who are happy to run around the world figuring out how quickly they can sell out everyday Canadians to do a solid for their corporate buddies. The trends are there. One just has to look at the evidence.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Madam Speaker, I enjoyed working with my colleague on international trade, on the very agreement he was speaking about, the CUSMA. He brought forward initiatives for greater transparency in trade agreements, which Conservatives supported him on.

With the CUSMA, we asked to see economic impact studies and the government refused. Even yesterday, I think the Prime Minister was still saying CUSMA was a better agreement than NAFTA even though C.D. Howe said there would be a $10 billion hit to our economy and a $1.5 billion hit to our auto industry. I am wondering, because I am no longer on that committee, if the member has seen any change as far as openness, transparency and engagement of important Canadian stakeholders.

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

We do not have interpretation.

I think that is what the hon. member for Beauport—Limoilou was trying to tell us.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, the sound quality is very poor. Could my colleague bring the microphone closer to his mouth so that the interpreters can hear?

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

He has a headset, but I think it is his Internet connection that is causing the problem, since the sound cut out several times.

I would ask the hon. member for Oshawa to repeat his question.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Madam Speaker, I enjoyed working with my colleague on international trade.

My question was about openness and transparency. He moved different initiatives forward to improve openness and transparency in consultation on trade agreements. I remember, with CUSMA, we found out after the fact that the new CUSMA would be a $10-billion hit to the Canadian economy and a $1.5-billion decrease in auto exports. Even as of yesterday, the Prime Minister was saying it is a better overall agreement for Canada.

Has the member seen any changes in the new agreement as compared to the CUSMA? Has anything been put in place to improve the process?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, the answer is that the process around this deal has been very bad. For me, the frustration is that the justification for the fact that there was not a lot of public consultation or engagement about the deal was that we were maintaining the status quo for now, and were going to get a new deal. That, to me, suggested all along that it really would be a temporary deal, and I was shocked to see that there was no sunset clause.

I have heard Liberals at committee say a hard deadline creates drama, but they could have set the timeline at whatever they wanted. It could have been three years or five years. If they are confident that they are going to conclude a deal, then ending this deal automatically should not have been an issue, and that provides the real incentive that one needs to get a successor agreement. I am concerned that we have had a very bad process now for what could end up being a permanent agreement. I want to see the government acting soon on the changes that the NDP negotiated to our trade process and giving notice to Parliament so we can get that process under way.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question about transparency for my colleague. I recall that we were the only ones to vote against CUSMA because of the unacceptable status of aluminum.

The NDP abandoned us along the way because it supposedly had a deal with the Deputy Prime Minister to be notified of the government's intent to enter into new negotiations 90 days in advance and to be informed of the objectives for negotiations 30 days in advance.

I am wondering if my colleague now feels that he was taken for a ride with the deal he made with the Deputy Prime Minister.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I think the proof of whether the government was negotiating in good faith or not on this agreement is going to be in the pudding. To come back to the frustration I was referring to earlier, the Liberals would say the process for this was not very good and they were already negotiating long before, which was true. However, they suspended negotiations. It is not clear whether a new negotiation was started in August of last year or they were resuming a previous negotiation that was already under way. The waters are muddy there.

It is important that the government begin to follow the process from early on with respect to this new agreement. It is also important that this agreement be a temporary agreement. If all those other things are true that this was not a great process and was just about maintaining the status quo until we get a successor agreement, the government should not be signing what is for all intents and purposes a permanent agreement. To me, that is the real—

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

The hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona is a very important voice in international trade, and I want to thank him for his work and expertise and for mentoring me on this file.

He started his intervention today by describing the deal as bad for workers and said that this deal allows for a race to the bottom that creates increased inequality that benefits big corporations but hurts Canadian workers.

How would the member propose we better protect workers in Canada? How would this trade deal be improved if the government had done what it promised and consulted extensively with Canadians, Canadian workers and the opposition parties, like the NDP?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, one thing I will zero in on is CETA. What is true of CETA, which will therefore also be true of the current agreement, is the way it opened up local government procurement at the provincial and municipal levels to essentially say that when projects are over a certain threshold, local governments are not able to have local content requirements or to prefer local contractors. That is one of the tools that subnational governments use in order to make sure that Canadian tax dollars spent in Canada generate work for Canadian workers. This agreement makes that harder to do. CETA was unprecedented in drilling down past the national level and making it harder for other governments to have that kind of localized spending as part of their infrastructure programs, for example. This is something we absolutely should have been looking at again.

I come from the construction industry. I have heard a lot of stories about workers being brought in from Europe to do construction projects in Winnipeg—

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

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Humber River—Black Creek.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Vaughan—Woodbridge.

It is great to have an opportunity to speak to Bill C-18. As the chair of the international trade committee, I think we have a great group of colleagues to continue working on a variety of things. Of course, Bill C-18 is one of them.

For the information of my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona, I had the pleasure of tabling the report yesterday on the Good Friday Agreement, which I know was so important to him. In case he missed it, I wanted to make sure he and the other committee members know that we got that done yesterday. I agree with it totally. It is very important.

Now we are dealing with this transitional continuity agreement between Canada and the United Kingdom and export promotion efforts behind Canada's free trade agreement. As we all know, Canada is very much a trading nation. As a medium-sized economy competing internationally, Canada relies on free trade and a transparent rules-based system to take advantage of global commercial opportunities and create economic prosperity at home.

Canada is one of the most open G7 countries, ranking second for both trade and foreign direct investment as shares of GDP, so members can appreciate how vital trade is to Canada's economy. The negotiation and ratification of free trade agreements reflect this government's commitment to international trade and to levelling the playing field for Canadian businesses, especially our small and medium-sized businesses, so they are able to compete and succeed in markets abroad. Allow me to elaborate a bit on this point.

Under the rules and protections of free trade agreements, Canadian goods and services benefit from a reduction or elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade, such as quotas or other protectionist obstacles. These barriers make exporting to another country costlier and time consuming for businesses.

If we take the trade continuity agreement before us today as an example, without this agreement in place, some of our Canadian businesses would face new barriers and higher costs of doing business, because the U.K. is no longer covered by the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, the CETA. Overall, after Brexit, it is estimated that 1.04 billion dollars' worth of Canadian exports to the U.K. would have been subject to tariffs. These tariffs would disproportionately affect fish, seafood and agricultural exporters. In addition to the tariffs placed on Canadian products being exported to the U.K., roughly 25% of all products imported from the U.K. would also be affected, with Canadian importers paying higher prices to bring in these goods.

While each trade agreement reflects a specific set of Canadian interests, their primary objective is to create a more open and competitive marketplace that improves access to foreign markets for the vast majority of Canadian exports, thereby supporting economic growth and creating opportunities and new jobs for Canadians. These objectives were top of mind when we signed CETA in 2016 with the European Union, when we brought into force the CPTPP with 10 Asia-Pacific partners in 2018 and of course when the new NAFTA came into force last year. We can add to that the trade continuity agreement with the U.K. once it comes into force.

We have already heard from a number of industry stakeholders, as well as the provinces and territories, about the importance of maintaining a preferential trading relationship with the U.K. However, this agreement is not just about maintaining the status quo, although that is important enough for our businesses and most Canadians. It is also about setting the stage for our future bilateral relations with the U.K.

Having said that, all the benefits of free trade agreements do not matter if Canadian businesses are not aware of how to take advantage of them. For these agreements to be fully realized, Canadian businesses need to be made fully aware of them and the benefits they offer, which is a job that I think falls upon all committee members and in particular those of the international trade committee.

As hon. members present know, most Canadian exporters are small and medium enterprises, or SMEs, as we call them. Many do not have the luxury of time or the resources to remain fully informed of game-changing international business developments like free trade agreements, much less fully digest their implications. As a result, many have not been in a position to take full advantage of the access provided by these agreements to increase their presence in international markets.

The government recognizes the need to encourage SMEs to pursue free trade opportunities and to support them in their efforts to do so, which the minister has been very aggressive in doing. Accordingly, the Prime Minister has prioritized export promotion and development, particularly for small businesses to take advantage of the opportunities that flow from trade.

In this regard, our ambitious export diversification strategy seeks to maximize opportunities for Canadians created by our existing trade agreements while pursuing new ones. That means continuing to attract and support Canadian companies doing business with the U.K. through the team Canada approach that we often talk about. This includes the trade commissioner service network; Export Development Canada, or EDC; the Business Development Bank of Canada; the Canadian Commercial Corporation; and Invest in Canada. These organizations are all working together, along with our provincial and territorial partners, to help Canadian businesses navigate the implications of Brexit. They remain committed to continuing to assist Canadian companies doing business with and in the U.K. and the E.U.

These relationships are critical in supporting prosperity through the economic recovery from COVID-19 and beyond. For all of us, the economic recovery from COVID-19 cannot come quickly enough.

I urge all hon. members to support Bill C-18, which would allow the government to implement the trade continuity agreement, without undue delay, to support Canadian companies as they seek to take advantage of the benefits of this agreement.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Humber River—Black Creek for her speech.

My colleague just mentioned that often because of their size, SMEs have not been able to take advantage of certain agreements and have not had access to information, tools and so forth.

What solutions have been proposed to better inform and equip our Quebec and Canadian SMEs?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, I wish a happy new year to everyone who is watching.

Small businesses throughout Canada, as I had indicated in my comments, are critically important. Small companies, whether in manufacturing or elsewhere, have a desire to grow but are struggling every day to find different ways to access funds and get help navigating international opportunities. I find an awful lot of them are unaware of this, whether we are talking about the Business Development Bank or others.

I have met with many small businesses and walked them through the process. They needed capital or access to funds, and I was to able to connect them with BDC or others to help them. That is a big part of a member of Parliament's job. They do not have time to look up what the Government of Canada is trying to do. They are busy trying to make a living, survive and grow their businesses, and I think it is part of our role as parliamentarians to do outreach.

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

Madam Speaker, the member hit the nail on the head when she talked about the notion that small businesses are not always aware of what is available to them so that they can be part of these agreements and explore opportunities for trade. There are so many entrepreneurs who are really good at what they do and have passion, but they are not aware of some of the opportunities. It is important for the government to make them aware and help promote trade when possible.

Could the member comment on how important she thinks it is going to be to help small and medium-sized businesses grow as we come out of this pandemic and are looking for opportunities to get our economy to rebound and grow so we can tackle some of the challenges that our economy has faced during the pandemic?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, it was important before COVID-19 for us to provide opportunities through trade agreements such as CETA and the trade continuity agreement. These were really important before COVID-19, but since that has hit, and it has taken such a big hit on our businesses, it is even more important for us to be personally reaching out to everyone and letting them know the opportunities that are there.

The government has certainly put forth a variety of programs to help our businesses. The latest one, which came out this week, allows companies to borrow up to $1 million. We need to keep our companies moving forward, and this trade continuity agreement is going to help those businesses keep their doors open. Somehow we always seem to be doing things in a rush at trade committee, but this is another one that is important for us to pass, so we can make sure we are protecting our businesses and opening the doors again for more trade.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue]

Madam Speaker, it is with great pleasure to rise in the House today in support of Bill C-18, an act to implement the Agreement on Trade Continuity between Canada and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Just as we welcome the recent signing of this important agreement, the government is very pleased to take the next step in Canada's domestic ratification process, so Canadians can take advantage of the agreement's benefits. I am proud to say that despite the turns in the road to Brexit, and the uniqueness of the Canada-U.K. replication exercise, we were able to secure a deal that is good for Canada, works for Canadian business and fully protects our supply-managed products.

Our strong trading relationship with the U.K. has grown rapidly under the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA. In fact, Canadian exports to the U.K. have increased by over $2 billion since CETA came into force.

The U.K. remains the second-highest-value destination for Canadian direct investment abroad and the third-largest destination for Canadian merchandise exports. Two-way merchandise trade between Canada and the U.K. amounted to $29 billion in 2019, making it Canada's fifth-largest trading partner after the U.S., China, Mexico and Japan. Once in force, the trade continuity agreement would preserve Canada's important trade relationship with the U.K.

Before I go further, I will elaborate on how this continuity agreement between Canada and the U.K. came to be over the past three and a half years and why preserving preferential access to the U.K. is a key priority for our government.

Following the U.K.'s decision to leave the EU, including the single market, the customs union and the free trade area, Canada engaged its partner in earnest to maintain our strong partnership post-Brexit and to mitigate potential disruptions in trade for businesses on both sides of the Atlantic.

In September 2017, Prime Minister Trudeau and then U.K. prime minister Theresa May pledged to seek a seamless transition for our trade relations.

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

I remind the member not to refer to names of current members of the House of Commons.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, thank you for that intervention.

Soon thereafter, our government undertook a trade dialogue to substantively replicate CETA on a bilateral basis as an interim measure in response to Brexit. I am happy to say the agreement before all hon. members today, including the member for Papineau, meets the commitment made by the Prime Minister in 2017.

Brexit posed a unique challenge for partners, such as Canada, that already had trade agreements in place with the European Union. Canada has shown adaptability and resilience in this unique challenge by achieving an agreement that mitigates potential disruptions for businesses due to the U.K.'s decision to leave the EU and CETA.

The agreement before us today ensures that Canada and the U.K. can sustain and build upon our very important relationship. This means businesses will continue to have an unprecedented access to the U.K.'s vibrant economy, which includes 66 million consumers and a $3.68-trillion market. It also means the continuation of lower prices, more choices for Canadian consumers, and a reduction or elimination of customs duties.

Since this agreement is based on CETA, an agreement Canadians are already familiar with, it provides the predictability and stability our businesses need, and have told us they need, as they grapple with the economic effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Once the trade continuity agreement is fully implemented, it will carry forward CETA's tariff elimination on 99% of Canadian products exported to the U.K.; maintain priority market access for Canadian service suppliers, including access to the U.K. government's procurement market, which is estimated to be worth approximately $118 billion Canadian annually; and uphold and preserve CETA's high standard provisions on labour, the protection of the environment and dispute settlement.

I am proud to say that this agreement fully protects our supply management system. In other words, there will be no additional foreign cheeses entering this country if this agreement is ratified.

Critically, this agreement will also continue to give Canadian companies a leg-up on competitors in countries that do not have a free trade agreement with the U.K. These are crucial advantages we can look forward to preserving with one of our most important trading partners once this agreement is in place.

This government knows that Canada's trade relationships are critical in supporting our prosperity through the economic recovery in a post-COVID global landscape. It is important for the government to remain engaged with Canadians throughout the negotiation to understand and address specific interests.

I will reassure my colleagues that the government maintained an open dialogue with businesses over the course of the negotiation of this trade continuity agreement. Prior to and throughout the negotiation process officials engaged with interested businesses through direct consultations. Furthermore, as the trade continuity agreement replicates CETA, it also relies upon the extensive consultations with Canadians that took place throughout the CETA negotiations. Throughout those consultations we received valuable feedback that enabled the government to negotiate with a comprehensive knowledge of Canadian interests and seek an agreement that was of benefit to Canada.

Once ratified, the trade continuity agreement will continue to be in place as we work toward a new bilateral comprehensive free trade agreement with the U.K., which can be best tailored to meet our mutual interests at that time. Input from Canadians will help to ensure those future negotiations are in the best interests of Canada, our future trade agreement is tailored to our relationship with the U.K. and that it will be able to respond to any post-Brexit developments.

This government recognizes the need to encourage businesses to pursue free trade opportunities and to support them in their efforts to do so. This trade continuity agreement maintains crucial ties and preferential trade terms with one of Canada's key trade partners and ensures that Canadian businesses will not face yet another disruption or challenge at this time. Indeed, if this agreement were not put in place, this would be another setback that Canadian businesses frankly cannot afford.

For these agreements to be fully realized, Canadian businesses need to be made aware of them and the benefits they offer. The goal of our ambitious export diversification strategy is to maximize opportunities for Canadians created by our existing trade agreements while pursuing new ones. That means continuing to attract and support Canadian companies doing business with the U.K. through a team Canada approach to trade.

This approach includes Canada's trade toolbox, which is made up of the Trade Commissioner Service network, Export Development Canada, the Business Development Bank of Canada, the Canadian Commercial Corporation and the investing in Canada plan. These organizations are all working together, alongside our provincial and territorial partners, to help Canadian businesses navigate the aftermath of Brexit. They remain committed to continuing to assist Canadian companies, doing business with, and in, the U.K. and the European Union.

Finally, we have heard over and over again from Canadian stakeholders about the importance of maintaining a preferential trading relationship with the U.K. This government wants to ensure that Canadian businesses have the confidence and stability they need to continue to do business with the U.K. We can do that by ensuring that the crucial commercial relationship we have with the U.K. continues to flourish unimpeded. Our government looks to working with all members of Parliament to ratify Bill C-18 in the interest of our economy and Canadian businesses.

I believe I have about a minute or so left, but I do wish to thank our trade negotiators, who, over the last several years, have dealt with very intense negotiations, whether it was completing CETA when we first came into office in 2015; the renegotiation of NAFTA into CUSMA, where our negotiators faced long and intense negotiations with much uncertainty, but were steadfast and came out with a great deal and a great free trade relationship, maintaining stability and predictability with our largest trading partner; or the trade continuity agreement with the United Kingdom. I do wish to thank all those trade negotiators. They are unsung heroes for our country, our businesses and our workers.

[Louise Charbonneau, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois supports the bill to implement the trade continuity agreement between Canada and the United Kingdom because we understand that it is important for Quebec businesses to ensure continuity in relationships. The negotiations began on November 21, 2020, whereas CETA was set to expire at the end of 2020.

Next time we negotiate with the United Kingdom, could we possibly have more notice?

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Trois-Rivières for the question.

I would like to say first that it is great to have support from the Bloc Québécois in having this trade continuity agreement move forward in Parliament, as it recognizes the interests of Quebec's businesses and Quebec's workers, and maintains a very important trading relationship for all Canadian workers and all Canadian businesses. I look forward to ensuring that Canadian businesses have continuity, predictability and stability in this trading relationship. It is very important.

I also look forward to our government's pursuing a strengthened bilateral free trade agreement that looks upon issues such as women in the workforce and digitalization, and that provides a long runway for these negotiations to take place.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am proud of our NDP position that opposes Bill C-18 based on some very clear grounds, including the fact that it replicates much of CETA, which cedes Canadian sovereignty and capacity with respect to the pharmaceutical industry and will certainly deal more pain to certain key sectors in our own economy.

I wonder if the member does not see a need to take a hard look at the approach to trade in his government, and recent governments' approach to trade, where free trade deals seek to benefit corporations as opposed to average Canadians and people across our country.

Is it not the time to do trade differently? Is it not the time to make sure that we are increasing capacity in our own country? Right now, we are struggling with the fact that we do not have the capacity to create our own vaccines and our—

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

I am sorry; I have to give the member the opportunity to answer.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, free trade benefits Canada. We have seen it over and over again.

I was glad to see when we ratified and finished CUSMA how Unifor and several private sector unions came out and said that we had done a great job for Canadian workers. We have seen the benefits of those trade deals with the recent announcement by General Motors to maintain and expand investments in Canada. I would love for the hon. member to speak to those union members and see how happy they are for those ongoing investments by corporations, which are creating jobs, both direct and indirect, and are a very big multiplier here in the Ontario economy.

That is a win for Canada, a win for Ontario and a win for Canadian workers. I will always be at the table supporting them.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Madam Speaker, I always find this member's comments on issues like this to be particularly insightful, and today was no exception.

We have heard from a number of people in the chamber with comments suggesting that this deal was rushed, perhaps too much so. First, I would like the member's comments on that suggestion. Second, I would like him to tell us why it was so important to get this deal done quickly.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, first, we needed to have a goal where the trade continuity agreement provided predictability and stability for Canadian workers and businesses, and we did that.

Second, the CETA process was a very long process. This deal replicates the CETA agreement, which was done over a very long time, so it was very applicable to the U.K., which was a member of the European Union for a very long period of time. Therefore, we could put that in place—

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

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Edmonton Manning.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Langley—Aldergrove.

Just before Christmas, we finally saw the text of the Canada-U.K. transitional trade agreement. This deal has the goal of implementing a copy and paste of CETA until a comprehensive agreement can be implemented. This is happening as the government said it needs more time to negotiate a full deal that reflects on Canada and on the United Kingdom.

My question is this. Why did we not aim for a comprehensive agreement from the get-go? It is a question we always ask ourselves. Japan, for example, already has a full deal with the United Kingdom, and had the same amount of time to accomplish this as our negotiators. Just like USMCA, this is another last-minute attempt by the government to save face after insulting one of our oldest and closest allies with some “bandwidth” talk. We need long-term goals and targets for the sake of business continuity and stability.

Stakeholders are thankful for the current arrangement of a transitional agreement, but also signal the concern this deal may turn into a permanent one that will not reflect economic realities. Throughout the international trade committee’s study of this deal, many stakeholders had serious concerns on the status of consultations or that it would be done at the very last minute.

While at committee, the hon. minister could not even say how many pages were in the final document. I personally asked that question and the minister was unable to tell us how many pages the agreement was. That is of course a concern coming from the top negotiator on behalf of Canada and the government.

That was also after much fanfare from an announcement through Zoom that the deal was finished. We need to get this right. In the age of pandemic disruption, we need our small businesses to be able to survive through the storm for which a predictable market is the only lighthouse left.

To make matters worse, the Liberals kept being dead set on the deal being implemented by December 31, which means being passed through the House by the deadline. Here we are on January 26, 27 and 28 and the deal is not in the House of Commons. The deal is not implemented. At committee, we were told that it would be passed and that mitigation measures could be in place. Once again, here we are on January 28 and there are no details from the government on this last-minute trade deal.

It almost seems like Liberals cannot multi-task and get more than one thing done at a time. We just need to look at the vaccine rollout, for example, on that front. After popping out the confetti on hoarding the most vaccine orders, we are now drastically falling behind. Provincial health care systems are now scraping the bottom of the freezer for more vaccines. Second doses are being cancelled for nurses and seniors. All this after Canadians were told we were ahead of the game.

On the other side, how can businesses feel safe with their investments in trade when the government over-promises and under-delivers? Could there be more scenarios as examples of the government’s failures on trade? We can just look south of the border with Buy American. Ever since the Liberal government came into office, it has been crisis after crisis on securing exports to our neighbour and closest ally. It always hits the snooze button on trade until it is too late for a reasonable outcome. Whether a Democrat or a Republican is in office, the Prime Minister cannot even secure assurances for our industries.

For example, where is Keystone now? The Prime Minister simply said that he was disappointed and walked away from my constituents, from Albertans and from western Canada. This is not acceptable. Now the government is asking us to trust it on a last-minute trade deal.

When will the Prime Minister stop defending the government’s incompetence and reset its trade policy? It is either simply not working or the wrong people are in charge and delays are causing us to overlook key issues that stakeholders have been voicing concerns about even before negotiations began. It is time to stop these last-minute trade deals and get stability for Canada’s businesses. We all need stability as we recover from the pandemic.

At this time, after seeing this agreement, or not seeing the agreement and the absence of information, we must ask the government and ourselves as parliamentarians the following: How can we continue debating the implementation of this trade agreement and how can we respond to stakeholders and Canadians?

First, how much will delaying this implementation cost the federal treasury in mitigation measures? We are still looking for that number. We hope that by the end of this debate we will be able to get to the bottom of it. It is very important to know what the cost will be in mitigation measures. That question was put to the minister directly at committee and in the House of Commons.

Second, how much would the global tariffs enacted by the U.K. government cost Canadian businesses as we continue to give this legislation a full review? As we know, time costs money. Until we get to those numbers and the full ratification of the agreement, we will still be paying money from the treasury, taxpayer money, to bridge those gaps. That is the wrong way to do it.

Third, what is the overall value in economic disruption after December 31, the deadline? It is a logical and reasonable question. Again, any interruption in trade due to the lack of availability of a trade agreement will cause disruption and that disruption, again, costs money.

Fourth, what will be the effects of a transitional agreement on our economy and trade with the United Kingdom? Does the government already feel there are any shortcomings from the CETA that need to be addressed? We all understand that this agreement was cut and pasted from the CETA, but there are certain specifics regarding a certain market within Europe. The United Kingdom is one of those specific markets, which we may imagine could be the full cut and paste. Again, we need that clarity.

Fifth, can the government still pass the ratification in time before the end of the memorandum of understanding with full parliamentary scrutiny?

Sixth, had the government and hon. minister paid more attention and initiative, we could have probably had an agreement that included a comprehensive trade deal and avoided the mess we are going through.

I strongly believe we need to give this bill full scrutiny, especially given the nature in which it was prepared at the very last minute. This is in the interest of Canadians.

I wish we had a full agreement in front of us today, but, nevertheless, I look forward to seeing the bill in the House and at committee.

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

Madam Speaker, it is amusing to watch the opposition dance around this all day long. Earlier we heard members from the Conservative Party talk about how little time they had to review this, to get into the details of this. Now suddenly the member is talking about why it is taking so long to get us to this point and we should have done this earlier.

The reality of the situation is that they are dancing around this because they support it. They are going to vote for it, but they are just looking for any possible fault they can potentially drum up in order to make the government look bad. This is a good deal for Canada, it is a good deal for all provinces, it is a good deal for our economy and it is a good thing to help us get out of the economic circumstance this pandemic has created.

Will the member not recognize and realize that this is very important for the economic success and growth of Canada moving forward?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member mentioned dancing. If anyone is dancing, endless dancing, it is the government. This is not the first time the government is dancing around without coming up with a better deal.

We always have to aim for perfection. We have to aim for better. If we try to say that we are not going to aim for that perfection or for getting a better deal, then we are not doing our job. If the government is complaining about the opposition, it is because it wants us to not do our job, and that is wrong. We must ask for a better agreement, we must aim for a better agreement and we must emphasize to the government that it needs to get its act together to get a better deal for Canadian industries.

We are the international trade party in the House of Commons. Throughout history, we always aimed for better deals. If we are to ask for a better deal—

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

The hon. member for Repentigny.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Edmonton Manning for his speech.

He noted that members did not know how many pages were in the agreement and that some details are still missing today, January 28. I see that transparency is important to him. The Bloc Québécois thinks that not only members, but also representatives from Quebec and the provinces should also be involved.

Can my colleague explain why the motion moved by my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, calling for consultation with the provinces, was defeated at the Standing Committee on International Trade?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is a very good question. We talked about that. I personally asked the minister how many pages were in the agreement. It is a simple question that anyone would ask at the beginning, but she was not able to answer it.

Throughout the committee hearings and in the House of Commons, we were faced with these uncertainties, with no direct answers. Usually in the House of Commons, we probably do not get them, but at least at committee we should have been able to get those answers and some clarity so we could transfer it to those in the industry. They are looking for stability in order to put plans in place and commit to trade throughout. However, those factors were not there, unfortunately.

We cannot afford that. The government should change course in order to be more transparent and commit to tell the truth about what is happening, especially when there is a negotiation such as this.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, the intervention of my neighbour from Edmonton was very interesting.

Knowing that we are in a global health pandemic, and that is the overarching theme with which we find ourselves, I wonder if the member could speak a little about any concerns he may have that this agreement, like the one before it, would put upward pressure on the price of pharmaceutical drugs for Canadians.

The NDP has been pushing for national pharmacare for a very long time, but knowing that this is the context we are getting this information, how does the member feel about the cost of pharmaceuticals for Canadians?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, as much as I would like to answer the question from my colleague and neighbour for Edmonton Strathcona, we still do not have the text in front of us. In order to answer that question, we at least need that text. This brings us back to what we were asking for, which is to have transparency and clarity in front of us so parliamentarians are able to examine what went into the document and are at least able to access—

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

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Langley—Aldergrove.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Madam Speaker, today we have a rare opportunity in this parliamentary session to advance freer trade between age-old friends, two democratic nations, two advanced societies, that share so much history, culture, legal and parliamentary structures, and also language.

Some years ago, President Kennedy said this with respect to another great friendship, the one between Canada and the U.S.:

Geography has made us neighbours. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies. Those whom nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder.

That is a great quote from a great president about the relationship between the two greatest free trading partners the modern world has known.

However, today we are talking about Canada's trade with the U.K., another nation with whom we have a shared history, economic partnership and an alliance borne of necessity. Until recently, we also had a free trade agreement with the United Kingdom, not directly, but through their partnership in the European Union. I might add that free trade agreement was brought about by a vision of Canada's previous Conservative government. I am proud to be associated with a vision that brought Canada into a position of being an equal partner with the great trading nations of the European continent, nations with whom we share values, history and institutions.

Compare that with a much more complicated trading relationship we have with the Communist Party in China. Our government would be much further ahead if we remembered these three rules for doing business in that country, as cited by an academic: one, never impose our own values; two, never interpret acknowledgement during a meeting as agreement; and, three, never assume the people we are meeting with have the authority to do the deal.

I am happy to say that in dealing with the United Kingdom, there is no such ambiguity. First, there is no incongruity in values between our two nations. Both countries value fundamental human rights and the rule of law. Second, our negotiating styles and contract-formation rules are similar, having their roots in the centuries-old English common-law tradition. Third, in English contract law, a person's word is his or her bond. Of course, any commercial lawyer would advise those involved to get it in writing, but at least during the negotiations if they feel like they are making progress they probably are.

I like doing business with people who understand the common law and the rules about contract formation. We need to do more trading with people like that. We want to trade more with countries that understand and respect our values, values that are intuitive among western nations. I am talking about the protection of intellectual property rights, physical and economic protections for workers, protection of children against forced labour, protection of the environment and protection against discrimination of all sorts. These values are as fundamental to the U.K. as they are to Canada. These are exactly the people with whom we should be doing business. Let us get on with it.

What is taking us so long? There has been a lot of debate about that. The government has known about Brexit for a long time. The only surprise is that we did not have a deal before the end of December last year. It is not as if we needed to start at square one; we already had the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement, CETA, with the U.K. by virtue of its being a member of the European Union trading bloc. The template was already there in the form of that international agreement. We just needed to make some tweaks and to make it U.K.-specific, making it bilateral instead of multilateral. That is what is happening, but later than it should have and could have been done. However, trade, commerce and standing up for small business has never been the current government's strong suit.

Canada is a trading nation. There is no stronger champion in Canada of free trade than the Conservative Party. We have always known that lower tariffs lead to healthier competition among businesses and nations, and ultimately lead to better products and services to consumers at lower costs. What is good for consumers must be good for the nation.

World trade has increased by an average of 7% annually since the end of the Second World War, bringing much prosperity to the world, and Canada needs to be part of that economic growth and prosperity.

I am going to take the principle of free trade a step further. If free trade brings wealth to trading nations, then surely it must also bring wealth to trading provinces within a nation. We preach free trade, but we do not always practise it. There is too much senseless, myopic and harmful protectionism going on inside Canada, and the federal government has a central role to play in bringing the parties together. There was a free trade agreement of sorts initiated by the former Conservative government that did not go far enough and, unfortunately, very little progress has been made during the now five intervening years.

Eliminating interprovincial trade barriers will improve Canada's competitiveness internationally, putting us on a better footing to deal with the United States and countries like the U.K. and the European nations. It will boost our economy internally by tens of billions of dollars. The government was late to the show on free trade agreement negotiations with the United Kingdom. Will it now pick up the challenge of facilitating a broader free trade agreement among the provinces?

When I was first elected to Parliament in the fall of 2019 and came to Ottawa to check things out, I was surprised that people living in Ottawa have the distinct disadvantage of not being able to purchase Okanagan Valley wine in their LCBO stores. That needs to be corrected. British Columbians are a caring and sharing people and want all Canadians to experience great wine. Bring on free trade.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member spoke about time lines. We know that the government had removed itself from the negotiations earlier last year and then restarted them later in the year, which led to delays. Could the member speak to how that has affected where we are at right now in needing this memorandum of understanding for three months so that we do not have tariffs charged to our Canadian businesses?

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Madam Speaker, as I said in my intervention, free trade has never been the government's strong suit. Liberals knew about Brexit just like the rest of the world knew about Brexit. These negotiations could have started much earlier, but that does not seem to have been the government's emphasis. Indeed, by the end of December, the U.K. had negotiated its Brexit deal with the European Union. Why could we not have negotiated a free trade agreement with the United Kingdom by then? Both sides knew that it has to happen. It is pushing against an open door, yet the delays are hurting Canada. There is uncertainty in the marketplace, and certainly among countries that trade with the United Kingdom. This is something that should have been done a long time ago to bring more certainty into the marketplace, which is so important for a trading nation like Canada to survive.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, one of the things that really held up Brexit was the refusal of the Boris Johnson government to deal with the issue of the Irish border. The EU was very clear that it needed to keep the open border. The foreign affairs committee and the international trade committee have called on the government to ensure that Canada plays a role in protecting the Good Friday Agreement. Canada had a huge role to play in bringing peace to Ireland. General de Chastelain was a huge player in that, as was Justice Cory and former minister Warren Allmand.

Are the Conservatives going to support the NDP call to make sure that as we move forward with trade with the U.K., Britain maintains its obligations under the Good Friday Agreement to keep that Irish border open and to work for peace within Ireland?

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Madam Speaker, we have not seen the text of the agreement yet, due to the delays in getting the negotiations started even though we all knew that Brexit was a reality.

As for Ireland, it is a good friend of Canada, a member of the international community, and I would of course support freedoms and prosperity for those people. However, until we see the text of the agreement, I would reserve any further comment and to see how negotiations will go.

[Louise Charbonneau, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his excellent speech.

I would like to know if he agrees with the idea of parliamentarians and provincial representatives being more involved in the next rounds of talks on free trade agreements with other countries.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Madam Speaker, international trade comes under the jurisdiction of the federal government, but, that said, for negotiations to be successful and for there to be broad acceptance of any international agreement or treaty, there needs to be broad consultation with provinces, stakeholders, unions and everyone who might be involved and might be affected by that agreement. Yes, I would say that the broader the consultations, the better. We are looking to the government to ensure that there is broad consultation and thus broad buy-in of the final text of the agreement.

[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, it is always a pleasure to address the House of Commons either on the floor or virtually.

I want to pick up on something the member said in one of his answers. He said that free trade was not a strong suit of this party or this government. The member needs a strong reality check. I would challenge that member to indicate another prime minister who has signed off on more trade agreements with countries than the current Prime Minister. The Prime Minister and the government have signed off on more agreements than Stephen Harper did, and any other prime minister, from what I can recall.

Members of the Conservative Party talk about the importance of trade and try to give that false impression that theirs is the party that negotiates and is capable of getting trade agreements when history does not necessarily reflect that.

The Liberal Party has always recognized the importance of international trade. Trade does matter. It means good, solid middle-class jobs for Canadians. We will continue to look at ways to build that relationship between Canada and other countries around the world in order to continue to strengthen Canada's economy and our middle class. It has been about that virtually since day one.

When we took government in 2015, initiatives that might have been started by the Conservative government were picked up and carried over the goal line. It is all about trying to recognize how important and valuable it is to have policies directed at Canada's middle class and those aspiring to be a part of it, whether it is budget actions, legislative actions or agreements such as the debate we are having today on Bill C-18.

When we talk about trade, I like to try to put it in a way that most people can relate to. I am very proud of one of the industries in the province of Manitoba, the pork industry. It is symbolic and embodies so many reasons why it is important the government pursue international trade.

Manitoba's pork industry would not be what it is today, by a long shot, without trade. If I were to guess, 90% of it would disappear if we did not have trade, whether within Canada or internationally. Manitoba has a population of 1.3 million people. At any point in time, we have double that number of hogs in our province. We are not consuming them. Those hogs are up for trade. We sell them.

The community of Neepawa in rural Manitoba is thriving today, in good part, because of the hog industry. HyLife is a healthy, growing company today because of international exports. Over 90% of what is being processed there is being exported.

Let us think of the ramifications of that. Each one of those hundreds of employees working out of Neepawa now require a place to live, a place to do their grocery shopping. They have vehicles. There are indirect spinoff jobs, not to mention the hundreds of jobs that are there today because of that.

That is just one aspect of the pork industry in the province of Manitoba.

We could go to Burns Meats in Brandon. My colleague from Brandon would be able to tell us how that plant adds so much value to Brandon's economy and society as a whole. That industry processes over 10,000 hogs every day, which is one number I heard, and this is somewhat dated. There are well over 1,000 jobs, good rural Manitoba jobs. We could go to the city of Winnipeg and see the same industry. I think Burns there employs over 1,500 people. The best pork in the world comes from the province of Manitoba.

Let us think about the farming communities and the impact that has for our farmers, not to mention the others who feed into our farms, to have those hogs produced.

When we think of trade, we can quickly understand the value of that trade when we look at an example of an industry.

I just finished talking glowingly about the hog industry. I could go on forever talking about Manitoba's bus manufacturing industry or other manufacturing industries, in the City of Winnipeg in particular. We might have one of the largest bus manufacturers located in the city of Winnipeg, which exports all over the place. Again, it is providing those valuable jobs.

The government and the Prime Minister understand the value of those jobs. That is why a mandate has come from the Prime Minister to pursue these agreements. Even though the Conservatives did not sign off on CETA, they like to take credit for it. The Conservatives might have started it, but they did not sign off on it.

I remember Deputy Prime Minister travelling to Europe. People were saying that the deal was on the rocks, that it looked like it was falling off the tracks. It was not because of Canada. All sorts of things were happening in Europe. It took a concentrated effort by this government in particular and today's Deputy Prime Minister, the minister of trade back then, to put it back on track. On behalf of Canadians, they were able to get it across the goal line so we would have that CETA agreement. Hundreds of millions of additional dollars have been realized through trade, generated in part because of that agreement.

That is not the only agreement we have had to deal with in a very short period of time. We could talk about Asia or our neighbours to the south, whether it is Mexico or the United States. The United States is our biggest trading partner. We need to trade. I would remind my neighbours in the south that many of their states' exports come to Canada. Both countries benefit.

It is absolutely critical that Canada has trading relations with countries around the world. In fact, Canada is probably further ahead on trade agreements than any other G20 country. In good part it is because of the mandate Canadians gave the Liberal government five years ago. The driving force has been that we want to build Canada's middle class and those aspiring to become a part of the middle class. One of the ways we do that is by looking beyond our borders.

Let us think about the last year and the economic cost and impact the coronavirus has had on our country. It has been devastating. As a government, we have done whatever we can to support businesses, whether with the wage subsidy program or the rent assistance program or helping Canadians directly through the CERB program. Why are we doing this? In part, because we recognize how important it is for small and medium-sized businesses so that once we have fully dealt with this, we will be up and running.

It is a lot easier for us to recover in a better way if we have fewer bankruptcies and have more companies that did not have to lay off employees because of the pandemic. We want the population, as a whole, to have a larger disposable income as a direct result of not being able to work in order to protect and keep our society safer or because of demands for their services or products.

As much as the government was there for Canadians and continues to be there for them during this pandemic to ensure we minimize the negative damages of the coronavirus, we are also there to ensure we continue to grow. This means Bill C-18, the agreement with the U.K.

When the U.K. decided to leave the European Union, we had a responsibility and we took that responsibility very seriously. That is the reason we have this legislation right now. We want to ensure that a trading partner we have valued for over a century will always have a strong, healthy relationship with Canada. In good part, this legislation is all about that. At the end of the day, Canadian companies, businesses and Canadians as a whole, in all regions of our country, will be better served by the passage of the legislation.

I want to remind my Conservative friends of something. Other countries have acknowledged that we have some incredible civil servants on the trade file. One of the reasons for that is we have been so successful at negotiating agreements and working on these types of deals for a long time now.

The bureaucrats and civil servants are diligently putting in the effort to ensure our ministers and government as a whole, parliamentarians and politicians, have details we can go into the deals with, negotiate and try to bargain back and forth.

We listen to New Democrats and to the Bloc also. When I listen to the Bloc members speak, everything is what about this or that, or we did not get this or that. What do people think a negotiation is all about? For the NDP and the Bloc, they need a better appreciation for the fact that when we hit an agreement, it means there have been give and take.

The NDP traditionally does not support trade agreements. When I posed a question, a member mentioned “goldfish” memory and said that the NDP had supported CUSMA. However, the New Democrats did not support previous trade agreements with the U.S. and Mexico, but they were shamed into supporting this one.

Let us look at the number of trade agreements with the dozens of countries on which the New Democrats voted. They will say that it is because we did not get this or that, and they will have their list of things we did not get.

When we sit down and negotiate, we cannot expect to have everything. It is not like we ask for everything we want, put it on the table and then walk away and ask to be told when it is agreed to. It does not work that way.

When my New Democrat friends told me, as they did earlier today, that they are not supporting this legislation, I was not surprised. I was a little disappointed, but not surprised. I want to challenge the New Democrat members of the House of Commons to really think through the issue of trade. Earlier, I commented on why trade is so critically important to us as a nation. If members agree in principle with trade, I would suggest that the NDP members need to be more open-minded, and if they are not prepared to be more open-minded on it, then we could question how consistent they are with regard to the ethics of it.

They say that because of human rights not being protected in a trade agreement, we should not sign off on that trade agreement. We have had this discussion in the past. There are human rights issues in other nations with whom we have a considerable amount of trade. I do not see the NDP saying that we should stop all trade with China, though we have issues with China. I think that the NDP members do need to look at ways they can support progressive agreements. That is what this is, a progressive agreement, and they will have other opportunities to do so.

Members say that in this debate today, we do not have enough time or that there was not enough consultation. They should remember what the bill itself says. It is Bill C-18, an act to implement the Agreement on Trade Continuity between Canada and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is actually what the bill says. It is not a permanent agreement. In fact, within a year after royal assent, from what i understand, we will be meeting our partners across the ocean, having ongoing dialogue and looking at ways we could even improve upon this agreement.

There is the opportunity for members to make speeches, now or into the future, or to write letters when they have opposition days. There are many opposition days coming up. They should have one of their opposition days about the content of trade agreements. They can say that they would like to see X, Y or Z as a part of a trade agreement and discuss that as part of an opposition day motion. There are all sorts of ways that members on all sides of the House, even members of the government, can do that. Many of my Liberal colleagues have continuing discussions with ministers or within caucus about issues that are important, including the issue of trade. I must say that the issue of the coronavirus is dominating these discussions, as it should, but there are many different avenues for people to have direct input on trade agreements.

I want to focus some thoughts on my friends in the Bloc. I have said in the past that I, for one, am a very proud Canadian. I think that we live in the best country in the world. All of our regions that make up our great nation are so critically important to how we evolve as a nation. For instance, I care about the aerospace industry in Quebec and the forestry industry. There are some things that we have in common, such as hydro as green energy—

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

I will have to ask the hon. member to pursue those thoughts during questions and comments.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Abbotsford.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I had to chuckle as the member for Winnipeg North tried to rewrite the history of free trade. Now, he is entitled to his own opinion, but certainly not his own facts.

I would remind the member that his Liberals have now had this sudden conversion on the road to Damascus, because in 1984, it was John turner and the Liberals who fought an election opposing free trade with the United States. In 1993, the Liberals fought an election opposing NAFTA when we brought Mexico into that relationship.

When the previous Conservative government came to power, Canada had free trade agreements with five countries. When it left power 10 years later, we had free trade agreements with 51 different countries around the world, and so it is pretty rich for the member to now claim that the Liberals are the great champions of free trade.

Would the member agree that his claims that, historically, the Liberal Party has been supportive of free trade ring hollow when we look at the facts? When we talk to stakeholders, they understand that in Canada there is one party that actually is the champion of free trade, namely our Conservative Party.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, truth be known, the member is wrong, and it is as clear as that. The member is inaccurate. The facts cannot change.

If we listen to what the facts are, when the member said that Harper had signed off on 51 trade agreements, it is not true. It is not a fact. It is misleading. This government has signed off on more trade agreements than Stephen Harper signed off on, and that is a fact.

If the member wants to say that there is only one free-trade type of party, I would disagree and say that there are at least two. However, if we had to say that there was one, it would have to be the Liberal Party of Canada, because it has achieved more agreements than the Conservative Party. I would say that there are two parties that understand the value of international trade: the Liberals and the Conservatives.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, I admit that I am extremely surprised by what I am hearing. It makes no sense.

This debate is getting emotional. Some members lack ethics or are voting no, as though they are not entitled to take a position of their own, and the Conservatives are in no position to talk either. However, this is a parliamentary debate. We have every right to denounce, criticize or seek to improve an agreement.

Then there was the hon. member's lovely little speech about Canada being the best country in the world where every region is represented. When the hon. member is in Quebec, he feels at home. He even tried to make us laugh by saying that aerospace was important to him and his government.

I have a very simple question that he might be able to answer quickly. If Quebec is really a part of Canada, where is its signature on the Canadian Constitution?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member said that, “If Quebec is part of Canada”, but it is a part of Canada, and a beautiful part of Canada.

When we talk about international trade, I can assure the member that the representations by Quebec to Ottawa are very much listened to, just as those of other regions are listened to. Everything is taken together collectively, and we advocate for what is in the best interest of our nation. All regions of our country are fairly represented in the trade agreements. I can tell the member that I would not support any sort of an agreement that would single out a particular province in any sort of a negative way.

I believe in our confederation, and I will do what I can to build upon the strengths of our confederation. I have no reservations in saying that, because I care for the province of Quebec as I care for the province of Saskatchewan or Manitoba. I see the value of a strong, healthy nation, and a nation—

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

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Madam Speaker, one of the things I heard this morning from the minister was that the government is hoping to continue negotiations in a year from now, and that its aim is to reach an agreement in three years to finish this off, but my hon. friend said in his speech that the NDP opposes trade. He is misleading the House when he says that, because New Democrats do not oppose trade. What we do oppose is trade agreements in which we give too much away. We want fair trade. That is what we are asking for.

We see so many flaws in this agreement that I have to ask the member this. When the minister said this morning that the aim is to reach an agreement within three years, and with all the hype the government has been giving us about how good this interim agreement is, why is there no sunset clause? What is the reasoning for that and why should we believe that the government's aim is to do it in three years when it has failed to meet a lot of the promises it made in the election campaign, especially with pharmacare since 1997?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I do not think the NDP can have it both ways. I can appreciate that New Democrats seem to recognize the reality that international trade is important, but they do not seem to support Canadian businesses and society as a whole by entering into trade agreements that benefit Canadians in international trade.

I'm not 100% sure of the numbers, but I suspect there may be 60-plus countries that we have formal trade agreements with, and the NDP has supported only two, or maybe three, of them. I do not think New Democrats can have it both ways. We try to reach the best deals we can, which is why I emphasized earlier that we have an elite negotiating team when it comes to trade. We should be very proud of them and send them out more often, as often as we can in the world and—

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

The hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith.

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to talk about the record of free trade in this country. It has hollowed out our manufacturing base as we have turned to ripping and shipping raw resources out of this country: raw bitumen, raw logs, raw minerals. A recent study shows that the trade deficit between Canada and the EU grew under CETA. That means we are exporting more oil and gas and raw minerals to the EU and getting back more manufactured products.

Right now, we are seeing that the EU is wanting to block vaccines from coming to Canada. We have hollowed out our manufacturing base, we have hollowed out our pharmaceutical industry and it is not helping Canadians.

What does the hon. member think about the EU talking about blocking the export of Pfizer vaccines to Canada during the pandemic?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister and the government have been very clear. We will have six million vaccine doses, as a minimum, by the end of the first quarter. Nothing has changed and we will ensure that it does happen.

With regard to trade, the Green Party is definitely more consistent than the New Democrats. In our first four years in government, by working with Canadians, we generated over one million-plus jobs, the vast majority of which were full-time jobs. That was at a time when we had the greatest expansion in signed-off free trade agreements.

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

Madam Speaker, I got a real kick out of the back and forth between the parliamentary secretary and the member for Abbotsford, who had to go all the way back to 1984 to justify his point. I was nine years old in 1984. It was quite a while ago, but I think the parliamentary secretary hit the nail on the head when he said that the Liberal Party has been a strong advocate of trade, at least in the last 30-plus years.

Could the member comment on how he sees this trade deal as part of our coming out of this pandemic and growing our economy so that we can get things rolling again for all Canadians?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is absolutely critical.

I think we are on the right track; it is about building better. We have hope, with vaccination doses around the corner. We are going to maintain that commitment and then we are going to work diligently on building our economy and supporting Canada's middle class and those aspiring to be a part of it. All Canadians need a proactive government, and they have that in this government.

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

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Oshawa.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Huron—Bruce.

I am pleased to rise today to speak to the Canada–United Kingdom trade continuity agreement.

While I support this agreement for the purpose of guaranteeing Canadian producers access to a critical market, it is unquestionable that the strength of this agreement has been impacted significantly by the government's dithering during the process.

Throughout the Liberals' time in power, they have repeatedly shown their lack of competence on issues of international trade and in relations with key allies, and this is no exception. From the Prime Minister's well-documented screw-up of the trans-Pacific partnership to being largely left out of the renegotiation of NAFTA, it should come as no surprise that the government has managed to dither away yet another opportunity to form a permanent and lasting relationship with the now fully independent United Kingdom.

Since the Brexit vote almost five years ago, the government has had every opportunity to be a world leader in the effort to form permanent and close trade relations with the United Kingdom. As a member of the Commonwealth and a close ally, the U.K. should have been one of the government's top priorities since Brexit, along with the renegotiation of NAFTA.

Over the years, the government has had a horrendous track record of misleading Canadians about the economic impacts of its trade deals, hoping no one would check its work. This has created doubt within Canadian industry and especially within my community. This has been best exemplified by the government's promise that a Canada-United States-Mexico agreement would be a win for the Canadian auto industry.

The Liberals promised the people of Oshawa and other automotive manufacturing communities across the country before the 2019 election that the agreement would benefit the auto industry even more than NAFTA did. After months of stalling the release of Global Affairs Canada's economic impact study, we came to find out the Prime Minister willingly misled many in my community.

Page 61 of Global Affairs Canada's impact assessment of the CUSMA deal states:

...the economic model projects that Canada’s exports of motor vehicles to the United States would decline by US$1.5 billion relative to the current trade regime under NAFTA, and imports from the United States would decrease by US$1.2 billion. At the same time, automotive imports from non-North American countries could increase, resulting in a decline of the Canadian automobile production of 1.7%.

As well, an economic impact study of CUSMA by the C.D. Howe Institute released even before the government discovered that fact states that “Canada’s real GDP stands to shrink by -0.4 percent and economic welfare to fall by over US$10 billion.”

The government over-promised and under-delivered, to put it politely. Needless to say, this has given workers in my community every reason to doubt the sincerity of the government. When the Liberals say to trust them, that they are securing a good trade agreement and that we need not worry about accountability or transparency, and then come back with a significantly weakened trade agreement, workers in my community take that to mean the government's word means absolutely nothing. Why would they trust the Liberals?

It is obviously critically important we make sure our producers have access to our third-largest customer for Canadian goods, but the government has a tremendous knack for instilling a sense of fear instead of a sense of confidence in those directly affected by the government's actions. Not only has the government once again given people in my community anything but confidence, but the Prime Minister managed to simultaneously alienate one of our closest allies again.

In March 2019, after months of negotiations and reports of a deal close to being struck with the U.K., the government walked away from the negotiating table. While continuing to negotiate would have been preferred, even a short break would have been better than waiting over a year to re-engage with the U.K. By waiting so long, the government has now hamstrung our domestic producers with the uncertainty of not knowing what the future trade agreement will actually look like.

Under the previous Conservative government, Canadian producers had the certainty that their government would work with them and consult them. We proved this by signing trade deals with 51 countries while we were in government, while before the 2006 election, there were only five. Canadian producers and workers knew that when it came to accessing new international markets, their Conservative government was going to be there every step of the way, using the influence of a strong, powerful country like Canada to make sure they had every opportunity to grow and succeed.

In a competitive global economy, a government working to open new markets is critical to the competitive advantage of our private industry and critical for job creation right here at home. However, it seems as though the government has put Canada in a situation of taking two steps forward under the previous Conservative government just to take three steps back with the current Liberal government. Now we are here today debating an agreement that has had very limited consultation from stakeholders, which the government promised would never happen again after rushing the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement through the House.

Because the government chose to watch the clock tick instead of negotiating a deal for over a year, we are now in the position of debating an agreement that has very little industry and labour consultation and still does not provide the long-term certainty producers are looking for in the post-Brexit era.

However, let us be honest here: Consultation has never been the government's strong suit. Take the example of when the government first stepped away from the negotiating table in March of 2019. Even if the government tries to justify doing so, what cannot be justified is the complete bombshell it dropped on our producers here in Canada. In fact, following the pullout from negotiations, the Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters Inc. stated that it was not consulted whatsoever on the decision. How could a government be so incompetent and lazy as to not even think about consulting with such an important stakeholder?

Our producers expected their government to stop negotiating when a deal had been reached. Instead, without notice, they were blindsided with the government's sudden decision. Perhaps just as disturbing is the agreement's lack of a sunset clause. While the deal does provide a goal of reaching a new permanent agreement by the end of the year, how are Canadians supposed to trust the government when the Liberals have done nothing but repeatedly drop the ball over and over again on the issue of trade? Are they going to wait for over a year again to re-engage? Are we just supposed to accept that this is a new permanent trade agreement?

How are Canadians and our producers supposed to trust that the government will work on their behalf when it spent years insisting that the Canada-U.K. deal was getting done, only to step away from the table and come back a year later, when it was already too late? The government procrastinated and instead of achieving a head start, it dithered away all its time. Instead of debating a bill ringing in a new era between Canada and the United Kingdom, we are forced to debate a temporary agreement that just kicks the can way down the road. Our producers need access to markets, but they also need certainty. The deal provides the access, but again there is no certainty here.

Throwing another wrench into the entire process, the Prime Minister proved once again why the most important foreign leaders in the world and our key strategic allies have little respect for his abilities. In November, only a couple of months ago, he declared that the U.K. lacked “the bandwidth” to finalize the agreement, yet in the time between when his government stepped away from the negotiating table in March of 2019 and the time when the Prime Minister made this uneducated statement, the U.K. signed trade agreements with over a dozen countries, including one with Japan that was signed literally 17 days before the Prime Minister made that uneducated remark. It is another example of the Prime Minister alienating our trade allies. If he is not careful, he is going to have another world leader publicly criticizing him on how he acts when he is supposed to be representing our great country.

The former Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, tore off this Prime Minister's mask of respectability when he criticized him for being “flaky” for humiliating other world leaders during the trans-Pacific partnership talks and being more focused on his colourful socks than on securing a trade deal. In fact, Turnbull said that the world leaders negotiating TPP were even ready to leave Canada out of the deal—

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

We are out of time. We have to go to questions and comments.

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

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

Madam Speaker, I get a real kick out of this member when he says that there were barely any deals before 2006, and then suddenly the Conservatives came along and deals were opening up everywhere and they were making new trade deals. There is also the fact that the world economy was opening around the same time, and many nations, in particular developing nations, were dropping tariffs throughout the world and opening up their economies to these trade deals. That is probably the reality of why that happened. It is the equivalent of saying that in 2006 there were only five million people on Facebook but by the time they left office there were 50 million, and they are responsible for all of that.

Would this member not agree that a good trade deal now, one that provides continuity for Canadians when we move through this global pandemic, is what we need for stability of our economy right now, so that we can work out the deal long term down the road, but right now we need continuity for Canadian businesses?

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Absolutely, Madam Speaker, that is exactly what we need and exactly what we do not have. We are debating a continuity agreement instead of the real agreement that the Liberals have had five years to put together.

I would like to talk a bit about correcting the facts for this member. I would like the next Liberal speaker to just name one occasion on which the Liberals actually started a negotiation, completed the negotiation, and signed it. Every single one of the positive accomplishments they have made were treaties negotiated under our government, primarily under the member for Abbotsford.

The CUSMA, which the Liberals claim is so wonderful, is an agreement that, according to the C.D. Howe Institute and Global Affairs, and not Conservatives, is a worse agreement than the previous NAFTA. Canadian industries rely on their government to open doors and improve the economy, not make it worse, and the Liberal record is steadfast on worse agreements, if they even get one signed.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I noticed the member for Kingston and the Islands criticizing the Conservative record on trade. In fact, Conservatives are the leaders on trade.

I would ask this member to perhaps expand on the Liberal failures on trade, going back to when John Turner opposed free trade with the United States when he ran in an election. Can he imagine that? Later on, when NAFTA was being debated, the Liberals were against NAFTA. Of course, later on they had a conversion and they supported NAFTA, but all the way along it was always Conservatives who took the lead. Perhaps my colleague could expand on those comments that he just made.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Absolutely, Madam Speaker, one of the things that we can count on is for the Liberals to be inconsistent and incompetent when dealing with the trade file. As the member quite rightly pointed out, going back to John Turner, the Liberals fought an election against the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and again when Mexico was brought into the agreement.

However, we do not have to look very far back. In 2015, for example, the original trans-Pacific partnership negotiations were actually completed during that election. Our current Prime Minister, on his first international trade junket, went down and managed to screw it up. This was Mr. Obama's deal that included the United States, and even Mr. Obama was saying that our Prime Minister would be a signatory. When our Prime Minister embarrassed us and backed out of that deal, it was not long afterward that the nails were in the coffin of the Keystone XL when his best buddy, Mr. Obama, made sure that this deal did not go through and there were repercussions because of, to use former prime minister Turnbull's words, our Prime Minister's flakiness.

Our Prime Minister, unfortunately, needs to get to work—

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

There is time for one more question.

The hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith.

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, I get a kick out of the Conservatives talking about this great record on trade when they have hollowed out our manufacturing base and put us in this position. We need to export raw resources from this country, to the point where when we cannot get a pipeline, we have to have an emergency debate about shipping raw resources out of this country because our economy is so badly affected.

We needed to protect workers in this country. We needed to protect our manufacturing base. We needed to protect our pharmaceutical industries. We needed to protect Canadian jobs. The free trade agreements have not done that.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Madam Speaker, I love to answer questions from the Green Party, the party that is against development of any kind.

The member brought up pipelines. That is an incredibly serious failure of the current government, whether with respect to Keystone or Line 5. I am sure Canadians were counting on the member to be cheering, like his leader said, when that announcement was made, but it is shameful.

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, 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 country-to-country deal ever.

[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 going 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 airbags. 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.?

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

Madam Speaker, I also enjoy speaking with the member for Abbotsford.

I think he knows that I am not able to answer that question directly, but by the very nature of the suggestion that we want to be more ambitious, we can go after things that perhaps were not considered before or fix things, as the NDP said before. That is what we mean when we talk about being more ambitious.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to be here in this chamber today, as a local member of Parliament from Ottawa, to give my colleagues the flexibility to follow public health measures and participate virtually.

I am speaking today about the importance of the agreement on trade continuity between Canada and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Government of Canada's trade negotiators have successfully concluded negotiations on this agreement, which is also referred to as the Canada-U.K. Trade Continuity Agreement, or what I will call the TCA.

For centuries, Canada and the U.K. have long benefited from strong transatlantic ties. As maritime nations, we understand the value and importance of the ocean, not only for our livelihoods but as a vital route for trade and commerce.

For the Canadian fish and seafood sector, the United Kingdom was the number one destination for exports to Europe, and many of the benefits of the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement were associated with preferential trade with the United Kingdom.

As we know, the winds have shifted across the Atlantic, and we have also had to shift sails and chart new courses. The Canada-U.K. TCA is critical in this regard, as it not only seeks to maintain this important trading relationship with the U.K. on the beneficial course we set under in CETA 2017, but also enables us to look to new trading horizons with the U.K.

Last year, in 2019, the United Kingdom was Canada's largest fish and seafood export market by value to the European Union, with an annual average of over $100 million in exports. The U.K. was our sixth-largest export destination globally. Our transatlantic trading ties matter and will continue to matter. The Canada-U.K. TCA reflects this.

For fish and seafood, Canada's top exports to the U.K. from 2017 to 2019, the average annual export value included prepared shrimp at $81.3 million, live lobster at $22.7 million and prepared salmon at $22.3 million. Ensuring the stability of this trade and preferential market access to the U.K. is important for Canada's fish and seafood exporters. The TCA seeks to maintain these benefits until Canada and the U.K. can negotiate a permanent agreement, in keeping with the special bilateral trading relationship we have with the U.K.

I would also like to highlight some of the additional key benefits of the TCA.

From a trade and environment perspective, both Canada and the U.K. have agreed to pursue high levels of environmental protection. In doing so, we also recognize that products traded from sustainably managed fisheries and aquaculture operations—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Order. The member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue on a point of order.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is important to point out that there are problems with the interpretation. The interpreter just said that it is hard to hear the speech because the member is wearing her mask in the House. I completely understand the health measures, but this debate is so important that I think members need to speak clearly. There are also Internet connection problems, so I think that the least we can do is to speak clearly to make the work of our interpreters easier.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Regarding the interpreters, there did not seem to be a problem previously, but I will look into it. We must first ensure that the microphones are working.

Obviously we have to take certain precautions, and that includes wearing a mask. Some hon. members prefer not to wear a mask while others prefer to keep their mask on. We will try to turn on more microphones and check with the interpreters to see if there are other problems. If that is the case, we will address those as well.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, I prefer to wear a mask for the sake of my health. However, I will speak more slowly and hope that will improve things.

I would like to highlight some of the additional key benefits of the TCA.

From a trade and environment perspective, both Canada and the U.K. have agreed to pursue high levels of environmental protection. In doing so, we also recognize that products traded from sustainably managed fisheries and aquaculture operations underpin the vitality and economies of many of our coastal and maritime communities. Implementing the TCA reflects our commitment to linking economic and environmental collaboration with our trading partners. Further, the implementation of the TCA will provide predictability and stability for Canada's fish and seafood sector to grow and develop in the U.K. market post-Brexit.

In addition to replicating the preferential tariff provisions under CETA, the TCA includes meaningful transitional tariff rate quotas for Canadian exports of processed shrimp and frozen cod to the U.K. Like CETA, under the TCA these two products will be duty free and quota free by January 1, 2024.

In the meantime, and with the implementation of the TCA, these Canadian products will benefit from meaningful duty-free TRQ volumes to the U.K. in addition to the annual duty-free TRQ volumes we currently enjoy under CETA. This means that up to 12,400 metric tons of Canadian processed shrimp will be able to enter the U.K. annually duty-free, while Canadian exporters will still maintain access to the 23,000 metric-ton annual duty-free TRQ volume to the EU under CETA. Further, Canadian exporters will enjoy an annual duty-free volume of frozen cod to the U.K. of 791 metric tons, while continuing to have access to the 1,000 metric-ton annual duty-free volume of the same to the EU under CETA.

This trade continuity agreement is important. Not only does it provide room to grow the volume of duty-free exports before 2024, but it also preserves Canada's capacity to export a constant volume of its products to the United Kingdom and the European Union without disruption.

We are all familiar with disruption. We have all been living through unprecedented disruption amid COVID-19, including having to adapt here in the House. The timely implementation of the TCA, however, represents a chance to avoid disruption. Accordingly, I would like to emphasize that implementing the tariff-related provisions of the TCA is of utmost importance to Canada's fish and seafood sector.

In May 2020, the U.K. announced its United Kingdom global tariff duty rates, or UKGT. The UKGT outlines the most favoured nation tariff duty rates on imports into the U.K. for those that do not have a preferential trade agreement with the United Kingdom. What this means is that if the TCA cannot enter into force, bilateral trade would return to a pre-CETA MFN basis and Canadian exports would face the UKGT duty rates.

For fish and seafood, this would be particularly disruptive and result in a substantial increase in tariffs applied to U.K. imports from Canada. This bill, to implement the TCA, includes measures that would enable us to steer clear of such disruptions.

From 2017 to 2019, U.K. fish and seafood imports from Canada covered 51 tariff lines. Under the UKGT scheme, all but six of these would immediately become subject to incremental tariff increases of up to 20%. Under the UKGT and based on historical import patterns, Canadian fish and seafood exports could be faced with over $23 million in levied tariffs in 2021.

Without the tariff relief of the TCA, Canadian exports to the U.K., including shrimp, lobster and salmon, will face incremental tariffs estimated to be roughly $1.5 million per month. By comparison, under a fully implemented TCA, tariffs in 2021 would be expected to fall below $0.2 million for the year.

The implementation of tariff relief measures under the trade continuity agreement will help minimize trade disruptions for the Canadian fish and seafood sector.

In doing so, this agreement will help maintain jobs and opportunities in Canada's coastal and rural communities and pave the way for future trade growth in our important fish and seafood export sector.

As the winds continue to shift, we also need to be mindful that key competitors, such as the U.S. and China, do not yet have preferential access to the U.K. market. As the U.K. is a mature seafood market that demands high-quality fish and seafood products, Canada has benefited from its trading relationship with the U.K. under CETA. It is, however, important that we move quickly to maintain our competitive position within the U.K. market when CETA ceases to apply to our trading relationship.

There is strong interest among fish and seafood stakeholders to maintain preferential access to the U.K. and they have expressed satisfaction with the outcomes negotiated in the TCA. It is thus important that we move quickly on the TCA to ensure continued support for Canadian prosperity and for Canadian business to access and succeed in international markets.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am glad to see that our work is drawing so much attention. I feel as though I am in the George Orwell novel 1984. We know the government is here somewhere, but it is not here in Parliament.

I would argue that anything having to do with international relations and borders is complicated. With all the international flights, the government simply cannot close the borders. We saw Brexit coming four or five years ago. It was not a surprise. It was made official in January 2020. The government finally reached a deal on November 21 and tabled it on December 9, yet it prorogued the House in September.

My question is simple: Why does the government take so long to introduce its bills when it comes to international issues?

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, as the minister mentioned this morning, this is something that we have been working on from the beginning. As the member can see, there has been no disruption or pause in our trade with the U.K. This is, of course, a continuity agreement. We will be able to provide assurance and predictability for businesses, aquaculture and agriculture while we negotiate a bilateral comprehensive agreement, which, as the minister mentioned this morning, is expected within three years. In fact, in the agreement it says that we must negotiate starting, at most, one year from now.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, building on my colleague's comments about this Orwellian atmosphere we find ourselves in and listening to Liberal members tell us that two plus two equals five, I would like to know, given the fact that we are getting zero vaccines this week and that the U.K. is one of the potential providers, whether the delay in sending vaccines to Canada that has so concerned my colleague has anything to do with our depending on some of our vaccines from Canada? With the delay in the tabling of this legislation, was there something going on behind the scenes with respect to vaccines?

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would debate the premise of that question. As my hon. colleague knows, there has been no disruption in our trade with the U.K. This is a continuity agreement. We will continue and negotiate a permanent bilateral comprehensive agreement and, in fact, our supply chains have not been impacted. The supply chains continue with the U.K., and that is exactly what this agreement is about today.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I have heard members of the government say many times, both today and before when it was discussed at the trade committee, that this is what they used to call a “transitional agreement”. I am glad they are not really calling it that anymore. Now the emphasis is on trade continuity. All of this is emphasized as a reason for why it is okay for there to have been such a bad process in reaching the agreement that is before us today.

I have put this question to many people from the government over the time we have been discussing this, including the Minister of International Trade herself, but have not been able to get a good answer to it. What is the difference between a so-called transitional agreement that has all the same features as a permanent comprehensive trade agreement like CETA, which has no expiry date, and a permanent comprehensive trade agreement? The emphasis is on continuity and transition, but what we are really dealing with here is a permanent comprehensive trade agreement. If there is a difference between the two, perhaps the member could enlighten us all as to what that difference is.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to remind my hon. colleague that because of this agreement Canada is ahead of China and the U.S. right now in having preferential market access to the U.K. When we modernize the agreement, we will be looking at including more for small businesses, for women, for the environment and on digital trade. That is the purpose of modernizing the agreement, and that takes time. This agreement would provide the stability that our sector needs.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Before we resume debate, I would like to come back to the point of order raised by the hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue regarding the difficulties with the interpretation.

I would ask members who have a paper copy of their speech to submit it to the interpreters. This would make it easier for them to follow along and ensure that everyone understands what is being said in the House.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Prince Albert.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is great to be here in 2021 in my office here in Prince Albert. It is nice to see everybody online. I am glad we are able to participate and speak to this important piece of legislation.

I will be sharing my time with the member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill. She is a wonderful member of Parliament, and I look forward to listening to her speak after me. She will do a wonderful job.

The unfortunate part of this whole situation that we are dealing with here today in regard to Bill C-18 is the fact that it has only happened today. This should have been done last September. It should have been tabled in Parliament last September so that it could have gone to committee, been properly reviewed and been implemented before January 1.

Right now, it is correct that Canadian businesses are selling into the U.K., but not based on any trade agreement that is negotiated and finalized through Parliament, either here or in the U.K. It is based on goodwill, and goodwill is only as good as one comment by the Prime Minister to maintain goodwill, who has a history of not making good choices in his comments about some of our trading partners. Therefore, there is huge risk, and we have been trying to tell the government, going back two years, that this needed to get done.

As we look at the timelines and go back to this agreement, I want to highlight some of the things that have gone on here. We all understand the importance of trade. I live in Saskatchewan, where we build and grow more things that we could ever consume and thus have to trade those things around the world. We want preferential market access and fair trade deals. We want deals in which countries recognize each other as fair trading partners. We are all in favour of—

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Sorry, I have a point of order.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, the interpreters are having connection problems again. They are having a hard time hearing my hon. colleague's speech and following what he is saying.

The House of Commons interpreters are doing amazing work. Connection problems and the fact that some members wear masks complicate things and make it impossible for the interpreters to do their work properly, so this is a major problem. Francophone members of the House of Commons have a right to understand the debates, as do anglophone members. That is democracy.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I can see that the member is not wearing a mask right now, so that is not the cause of the interpretation problem. I do not know how good the connection is at the moment, but we are certainly experiencing some difficulties. I recognize the right of all members to understand what is being said.

I will look into this issue, see what can be done to solve the problem and get back to the House. In the meantime, I will allow the member to continue in hopes that the interpretation will work as it should.

The hon. member for Prince Albert.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely correct. I want people in both English and French to hear what I have to say, because they need to understand the bad job done on this agreement. As I said, coming from Saskatchewan, we are a trading province. We sell and export, whether it is potash, grain and oilseeds, forestry products—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I will ask the hon. member for Prince Albert to disconnect and reconnect his microphone to see if that fixes the problem. If that does not work, we might try one more thing.

The hon. member for Prince Albert.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, Saskatchewan is a trading province. We sell potash, forestry goods, grains and oilseeds all around the world. Trade is very important to us. What is frustrating for us is the instability. What is also frustrating for us is when we see a problem coming on the horizon and no action is taken to deal with that problem.

I will go through the timelines to show what was going on.

In September 2017, the Prime Minister sat down with the then British prime minister and talked about the importance of having a seamless transition after Brexit. In July 2018, they did better and gave notice that Canada and the U.K. transitional trade agreement would be a seamless trade deal. In March 2019, when the U.K. published its first round of tariffs, we should have said that this was fine, that we did not need to do a deal.

Tariffs are not the only things to talk about in a trade deal. Did we talk about regulatory harmonization? Did we talk about labour transitions and moving labour back and forth? Did we talk about environmental aspects? A lot of other things can go into a trade agreement, not just tariffs.

What is frustrating in this whole deal is that the Liberals pulled out. They walked away. Not once did they consult with anyone in the chamber, or the business community, or in a variety of different ways or even Parliament. They just withdrew. In the meantime, our competitors did not. In the meantime, other countries said that there was still more to be had there and they kept at it.

In January 2020, the EU-U.K. withdrawal agreement was ratified. There was a transition period until December 31, 2020. Then did we say the EU deal was done, that we had better get at this thing? In May 2020, we see the new tariff schedule and realize there is a problem. One would think the Liberals would have reacted then. At that point in time, and I remind the members of the government, we were asking those questions. We were asking where the government was in regard to having a seamless transition with the U.K. We were told not to worry.

In July, the Liberals finally thought they should do something. In August, they entered into some sort of agreement. It is interesting that when they talked about trade negotiators, I asked what the deadline would be once they started the negotiations. I was told it would be December 31. How do we get that through Parliament in such a way that it could be ratified and done by December 31, that we actually had something secure in place?

Then there is the whole idea of a transitional agreement, or a continuity agreement, which they are calling it today. When we look at it as a continuity agreement, we get it: We needed to buy some time to put something in place to provide that seamless transition. That is fine, but then we see there is no trigger mechanism to force a renegotiation. There is nothing in there such as a sunset clause or another trigger item to force both sides back to the table to get the real trade agreement completed, something that addresses a lot of the Conservative issues that are hanging over the EU trade agreement.

I know our agriculture producers have been saying over and over again that the Canada-EU agreement has some issues that need to be dealt with and we do not want to inherit those issues with a U.K. trade deal. There things need to be worked on, but there is nothing to trigger that in this continuity agreement.

Looking back in November going into December, we would have something in place for December 31, but nothing that would ever be ratified right now. It is total disrespect for everybody involved in trade with the U.K. It is a big deal. It is our fifth-largest trading partner and we sell almost $20 billion worth of goods there. We import roughly $9 billion worth of goods. We have a trade surplus with the U.K. and we want to maintain that trade surplus.

How can the Liberals be so nonchalant about it? How can they not take it more seriously? One of the things I have complained about over this last year is that we do not have a full-time trade minister. We have a minister who is in charge of trade in small and medium enterprises. Do not get me wrong. I am not criticizing the minister. This is not her fault. It is not her fault she is given too much. Both roles require full-time ministers. Small and medium enterprises need to have a full-time trade minister and trading companies and trading businesses that trade abroad need a full-time trade minister.

It just shows that the Prime Minister does not understand the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises. Nor does he understand trade and the impact it has on the economy. It shows how he treats this and how nonchalant he has been about it.

What really frustrates me with the government is that the response does not happen until it is a crisis. It is a crisis that has blown up in our face and now we have to deal with it. Now we have to react. As I said earlier, we could see this coming on the horizon. We could have been proactive and done a lot of things to head this off.

We should be talking about a finalized trade agreement at this point in time. We should be like other countries that have complete trade agreements with the U.K. right now. We should have been talking about this last September.

As we look at this, it shows a pattern with the government. It has to be a crisis. We can see another crisis on the horizon called “Buy American”. Again, the government entered into a deal with the U.S. We would have thought it would have learned from previous trade deals that Buy American was an issue. We would have thought that it would have solved the forestry problems, aluminum and steel problems, but no. The government put its head in the sand, ignored the hard stuff and kind of got it through. Now we can see what the President is doing with Buy American.

There are two ways to look at Buy American. It could be a huge problem. No question about it. However, I will also remind the government that under the agreement between Stephen Harper and Obama, a Conservative and a Democrat, we got a waiver from the plan to Buy American. Canadian businesses could do business on a federal level in the U.S. I would also remind colleagues that our biggest problem back then was with municipalities and states. There was no agreement there. Now 38 of 50 states have signed on to WTO agreements that allow us to use a waiver to sell into those contracts.

The Prime Minister is best buds with President Biden. I expect him to cash in on that. I expect him not to make the same mistakes he did with Obama, because Obama was crying out for help on TTP. If the Prime Minister would have listened at the time, we would not have had to go through another U.S.-Canada trade agreement. It would have been done in the TPP.

The frustration I have is not with the agreement itself. Businesses want it. They need it. We have to help them get through. We have to ensure there is bankability and stability.

I hope the Prime Minister does not say anything over this time period until it is actually in force that would cause the U.K. to say “screw you and bugger off”. In the meantime, let us get this done and move forward. Let us go forward with a real agreement that businesses can take to the bank.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague who sits on the international trade committee for all of his advocacy and work on international trade matters.

I listened with a lot of interest to his speech. One thing that concerns me is this recital of the negotiation calendar without the context, which is completely normal. That is because we do not share our hand in poker. There are many reasons why in trade negotiations we may have to strategically pause to restart on a better footing. There are many reasons why in negotiations there are opportunities that need to be seized at particular moments in time.

With this agreement we were able to, as the member himself pointed out, secure stability for our exporters in the context of Canada having a trade surplus with the United Kingdom and not making any concessions on the supply-managed sector, which is so important to constituents in his riding.

Is it better to rush through something to get a deal that is so-so, or is it in the interests of Canada to get the best—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

There are only five minutes for questions and comments. I would hope that members keep their questions within the one-minute mark to allow other members to participate as well.

The hon. member for Prince Albert.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, I enjoy working with the parliamentary secretary on the trade committee. She is doing her best to defend the government, which is hard to defend, so I compliment her on how hard she tries to do that.

With respect to the strategy around this, there is no strategy. There have been no consultations. There has been no work done with people outside of government to ask what is needed in the agreement. There has been nothing done that would allow the government to say that its stakeholders are saying it should do this or do that, and that it needs to step away because of it.

You talk about how you protected supply management, yet you do not have a deal. You have a continuity agreement—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

We have a point of order by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands. I want to remind the member speaking that he is to address all questions and comments directly to the Chair. That was the point of order brought forward.

I want to go to another question, so I will let the hon. member finish up very quickly.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, my point is that nothing is protected. This is just a continuity agreement that is not even in place yet. Let us see what the final agreement has in it and whether you take care of supply management then. The reality is that you have not done a good job taking care of your commitments with respect to supply management.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I remind the member to address questions and comments to the Chair and not directly to the member.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I want to circle back to the parliamentary secretary's remarks. She was saying that sometimes one might pause strategically in trade negotiations to try to get a better outcome, but the outcome here, it seems to me, has been to obtain the status quo, and doing so late in the game, blowing through a couple of different deadlines and causing a considerable amount of anxiety for Canadian businesses in the process.

Does the member have some thoughts on whether this was a case of a well-deployed strategy that got results, or the misstep that it appears to be?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, the reality is that this is not a strategy. I see this as a crisis reaction. That is quite common with the current government: It is not until there is a crisis that it reacts. Sometimes it creates a crisis so that it actually can act. If it had been proactive and respected Parliament like it claimed to do, we would have been dealing with this last September. We would have put this through committee, people would have been consulted appropriately, we would have had a chance to have the appropriate number of witnesses, and this would have been in place for January 1 so it could move forward. None of that was done.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have a very simple question: What impact does the member believe this agreement will have on our agricultural producers? I am thinking of supply management in particular. What will be the impact of reopening these negotiations?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is interesting that supply management always comes up in every trade negotiation. The trick is to provide the market access for the commodities that are not supply managed, such as grains, oilseeds and beef, while still maintaining the pillars of supply management here in Canada. Sometimes that is done through compensation or other mechanisms that allow supply management to thrive and grow in light of allowing market access for the groups.

We have no clue what the current government would do with supply management, depending on what is on the table. It has no history of even following through on commitments that were made in trade agreements before, where it was supposed to compensate the supply-managed sector and never did, or it took so long to do it that the sector almost had to protest to get the government to act and fulfill the commitments it had made to the sector.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be the last of the Conservative Party members to speak on this topic today. We are here to talk about the Canada-U.K. Trade Continuity Agreement that will replicate essentially the same terms and conditions as Canada has in the Canadian-European trade agreement, but in this case with the U.K. because the U.K. is no longer part of the European Union. This continuity agreement largely maintains the terms and conditions of CETA, but makes sure we have stability and continuity to be able to continue the trade agreement with the U.K.

What I would argue, though, is that this agreement is the floor or should be the minimum requirement of our relationship with the U.K. from a trade perspective going forward and should be viewed as barely the starting point.

My colleagues today have spent a great deal of time talking about the delays, the lack of consultation and all of the things that have challenged us in getting to this point with the agreement, which has left us behind the power curve with a trade continuity agreement. I would like to move beyond this agreement and talk about how we absolutely must make broadening and expanding our trade relationship with the U.K. a priority.

First, Canadians need the government to provide a plan with defined timelines to replace this continuity agreement, which is supposed to expire in a year, with a comprehensive Canada-U.K. trade agreement. Second, Canadians absolutely need the government to facilitate, support and coordinate an increase in our trade with the U.K. A trade agreement is merely the beginning; we need further action to ensure that the agreement is leveraged and actual increased trade results from it.

Even before COVID, we saw that the global economic balance of power was fundamentally changing, with economic power being used by some countries as a mechanism to increase their political power and strategic interests. Trade has been used as a weapon to influence behaviour. We only have to look to some of the things that the People's Republic of China has done to Canadian soybean, canola, pork and ginseng exports, frustrating the process and introducing non-tariff trade barriers that have mitigated our ability to leverage our exports, causing a distinct disadvantage in our economic outlook. We can also look at the devastating effect China has had on Australia with its embargo on critical Australian exports, which has undermined Australia's economic stability during COVID.

Therefore, with some of our partners, we need to be wary of trade being used as a weapon. After COVID, we will need stable, dependable and robust trade. It will be critical for Canada, as some countries will race to gain even greater strategic advantage in their recovery. The key to defending against those who would seek to use trade as a weapon and to secure our recovery is to minimize our vulnerabilities and diversify and balance our trade, placing greater emphasis on relationships with countries that share our values, defence and security priorities and unwavering respect for the rule of law.

That is why our trade with the U.K. must be a priority. The U.K. is Canada's fifth-largest trading partner behind the U.S., EU, China, Mexico and Japan. We export considerably more to the U.K. than we import from it, but of the $19.8 billion we export, over 64% is gold, and we only represent 1.98% of the U.K.'s exports.

There are lots of opportunities for us to expand our exports to and imports from the U.K., but with our exports being significantly more than our imports, one could argue that we continue to need the U.K. to buy from us more than they need us to sell to them. That is the downside. It makes us vulnerable, but the upside is that there is a great opportunity to expand and mitigate that.

While the focus of the government at the moment, and our country, must be on vaccine acquisition and distribution, it is not the only thing we need to be focused on. I know that we are capable of doing more than one thing at a time. We need to prepare. We need to leverage our current trade opportunities and to broaden them with the U.K.

First of all, we need to start by developing a comprehensive plan and to include the provinces. We need to include businesses and we need to ask for broad consultation and to identify what those core capabilities are where we can use the trade agreement that we have right now and broaden it. We need to basically ensure that the government plays a key role in facilitating and supporting businesses as they expand into those new markets.

We absolutely need a dedicated minister of international trade. We need more trade representatives who are focused on all regions of the U.K. and Northern Ireland. We need to ensure that we have dedicated programs and infrastructure to support and facilitate Canadian businesses to understand where the opportunities are in those markets.

We have a trade agreement. We need to find and figure out how we are going to leverage that trade agreement to turn it into real jobs and business opportunities. It does not happen without effort. It is something that we need to focus on now and we need to have key dedicated government, provincial and industry representatives to be able to get there.

We also need to start working on negotiating the key areas of the next comprehensive agreement. One thing that is missing from this agreement is a dispute resolution framework. Even though we are great friends with the U.K., we need a comprehensive structure that tells us how these things will be worked out if we were ever to find ourselves in a dispute.

We do need to jointly address how we would deal with non-tariff trade barriers. Perhaps we need to think in terms of economic alliances, the same way that we look at defence and security alliances. Perhaps we need to unite when one adversary is not abiding by trade agreements when we have trade agreements with other people. That gives us the ability to have a greater influence to change and alter that behaviour.

Perhaps we also need terms to address potential nationalistic and centric policies. We are in an emergency and we have seen countries invoke their defence production acts, but with us largely dependent on international global supply chains, perhaps we need to look at broadening and thinking about, in advance, how we would mitigate those Buy American policies or, if there were ever, a buy U.K. type of policy. Could Canada be included as part of that umbrella with the U.K. and address it in that manner?

We need regulatory alignment for existing areas like health, and perhaps vaccines, where we would look at the process that the U.K. goes through to approve and monitor a vaccine and perhaps rather than us having to do it again ourselves, because we were part of it or jointly reviewed it or agreed to the same regulatory conditions, we would be able to facilitate it faster in our country because we have shared regulatory alignment that we have negotiated in advance. We need streamlining for businesses and professionals who want to do things or emerging—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The member's time is up. I know the time just flies by. I am sure that she will be able to add to her thoughts during questions and comments.

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[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, where I agree with the member is that this is happening at a time when government needs to be very much focused on the coronavirus. Among other things, part of that is obviously the vaccine. In that respect, it is great that we will be able to hit that target of six million by the end of the first quarter, as we have been talking about for many weeks now.

However, when it comes to the issue of trade, I am sure that the member opposite appreciates the fact that by working with Canadians and negotiating teams we have been very successful at accomplishing a significant number of signed-off trade agreements between Canada and numerous countries around the world in the first five years, which absolutely coincides with the generation of over a million good, full-time jobs. Therefore, there is a direct correlation between trade and jobs and growing Canada's middle class.

Would the member not agree that this particular agreement is a continuation and that we will still have the opportunity to look at better ways and to give it more attention in the months ahead?

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, there is no question that trade is important, but there needs to be a sense of urgency and we need to expand these trade agreements, particularly with those who are like-minded with us, like the U.K., because not all trade is equal and not all relationships are the same. People trade with people they trust, and people trust people they feel secure with and can count on in difficult times as well as positive times. Therefore, we need to leverage the trade agreements with partners who are of like mind with us to create those jobs, and we need to do it quickly because recovery will be dependent upon it.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, we are obviously talking a lot about trade since this is a trade agreement. However, the bottom line is that we would not be here today discussing it if this agreement had not resulted from a debate over national independence, given that England expressed its desire to leave the European Union.

This debate has snowballed, and the Scottish independence movement is gaining traction right now. The Scottish people actually want to return to the European Union, as is their right. They want to return, and it is up to them to decide for themselves what they want to do. That is exactly what England did when it decided to leave the European Union, saying that it was not to its advantage to stay.

My question for my colleague is simple: Does she not believe that a people's right to self-determination is a wonderful thing?

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, it certainly is a wonderful thing, but we are here to discuss Canada's role and our need for an expanded free trade agreement with the United Kingdom.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member spoke a lot about regulatory harmonization and common standards. I note that the U.K. was just in such an arrangement and decided to leave in order to have more independence.

My concern always is that, particularly when Conservatives start talking this way, it really means a levelling down of our standards. What we have seen in many cases under this kind of free trade regime is that downward pressure is put on regulations that safeguard the interests of workers and the planet. Could the member might provide a couple of concrete examples of the kind of regulatory harmonization she has in mind?

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, as with anything else, regulatory alignment is always a balance, and so I would leave that to the comprehensive consultation and input from provinces and businesses, as well as my hon. colleagues. This is about things that we need to target and to start looking at, not necessarily whether we have the solutions on them just at this point.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

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 Courtenay—Alberni, COVID-19 Emergency Response; the hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot, Canada Post; and the hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue, Ethics.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Surrey—Newton.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hard-working hon. member for Sudbury.

Today I speak in support of Bill C-18, an act to implement the Agreement on Trade Continuity between Canada and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles is rising on a point of order.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am sorry to bother everyone, but once again there is no French interpretation.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

There was a problem with interpretation, but apparently it was an internal problem. It should be fixed now.

I will let the member for Surrey—Newton continue.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Madam Speaker, this piece of legislation demonstrates how the Government of Canada continues to pursue trade opportunities for Canadian businesses and exporters while maintaining certainty and stability in the face of global geopolitical developments that are entirely out of Canada's control. The United Kingdom is Canada's fifth-largest trading partner, with bilateral merchandise trade between Canada and the United Kingdom averaging $27.1 billion between 2017 and 2019.

However, I am not here to throw around these numbers that have been widely discussed in this House. Instead, I want to speak about the real-world consequences on Canadian businesses that rely on international market access if this bill is not passed.

Brexit was not something that Canada could control. As international allies of the European Union and the United Kingdom, we are bystanders who have always respected the democratic will of the nation's populace. That being said, this government had to immediately consider the short-, medium- and long-term impacts of such an exit.

Since September 2017, when the former U.K. prime minister landed in Canada to discuss the future trading relationship between our two countries, that is exactly what we worked on. In those initial meetings between the two prime ministers, it was agreed upon that the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the European Union, otherwise known as CETA, would serve as a model for a new bilateral agreement with the United Kingdom.

As a member of the Standing Committee on International Trade for several terms, I was privy to the negotiations that went into CETA, and I saw that it was a perfect template to provide a seamless transition in post-Brexit trade with the United Kingdom. This House spent years studying and debating CETA before it received royal assent in May of 2017, so to suggest that Bill C-18 is anything but transparent in terms of its details is nonsense.

Further, it has been suggested by members from across the way that Canada somehow dragged its feet on this agreement. However, once again, this is political posturing that does not reflect the reality of the past few years. The opposition is well aware that under European Union membership rules, the United Kingdom was prohibited from implementing a free trade agreement until it officially left the European Union.

As we all know, Brexit only became official on January 31, 2020. Of course, soon after that date, the world was hit with the global pandemic, which we are still battling in every corner of the globe.

To affirm the reality of what has happened over the past four years, our government has been in a working group with the United Kingdom in a transparent manner to negotiate our post-Brexit trading relationship as per the European Union's membership rules. Further, our government's timeline is completely in line with the significant dates associated with Brexit, as the transition period for the U.K.'s departure just came to an end on December 31, 2020. In spite of what has been said across the way in attempts to score political points, this bill and the continuity agreement are perfect examples of how nimble Canada has been in our trade negotiations across the world, despite circumstances, rules and regulations outside of our purview.

The bill is a necessity to ensure that tariffs are not applied on 98% of products we export to the U.K. This bill is needed to protect the supply management that the Canadian dairy, poultry and egg sectors rely upon. This bill is also significant for the access it provides to the United Kingdom government's massive procurement market, which is estimated to be worth approximately $118 billion.

These kinds of opportunities, particularly with the United Kingdom government's ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic, are vital for Canadian manufacturers and service providers.

Most importantly, this bill completely acknowledges that this is a stopgap measure by ensuring that, within 12 months of this continuity agreement being implemented, our two countries will hammer out a new comprehensive bilateral agreement that will be in place within three years.

Earlier in my remarks I mentioned the real-world consequences that would impact Canadian businesses and exporters if this bill was not passed. Extensive in-house modelling and analysis from Global Affairs Canada describes those impacts in stark detail.

Without this agreement, Canada would be subject to the U.K. global tariffs. These would be applied without any special treatment to all Canadian imports, and for service sector providers, all certainty that was achieved through CETA would be completely lost.

The preferential treatment that Canada has enjoyed with the U.K. represents billions of dollars that provide a direct infusion to the Canadian economy and labour market. In fact, Global Affairs Canada puts potential trade losses without this agreement in place at $2 billion, impacting the food, chemical, apparel, machinery and equipment industries dramatically.

This is a bill that recognizes the scale of trade between Canada and the U.K., and takes into account the looming January 31, 2021, deadline while still committing to a robust process for a future bilateral relationship with entirely new terms.

To conclude, this bill and support for it comes down to whether we support opportunities for Canadian businesses and exporters. This is particularly the case with the fact that we will spend the year after its hopeful passage negotiating new terms in close consultation with provinces and the Canadian business and export communities.

This bill is about how we, as a nation, can provide hope in the face of great global economic uncertainty, and reach into the future to continue to grow to the benefit of our country and our workers.

I encourage all members of the House to stand in favour of Bill C-18, which will only continue to blossom if we move forward as a nation that is unified in our pursuit of opportunity.

I want to thank the Speaker and all members for the opportunity to speak to this bill in the House of Commons.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, I enjoy working with this member of Parliament on the trade committee. He is a good member of Parliament, for sure.

The question I have for him is in regard to the timeline that he says is wrong. It is not wrong. The reality is that the way I portrayed it is exactly the way it happened. Another reality is that there was no consultation. In fact, if one talks to the bureaucracy, they consulted but the Liberal government did not consult.

If the member says the government consulted, and all these people were consulted, could he inform us how many meetings the Minister of International Trade had with different industry groups, specifically on Bill C-18?

How many consultation meetings did the trade committee have with stakeholders in the past year or two years in regard to Bill C-18?

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Madam Speaker, as the hon. member mentioned, I had the opportunity to work with him on the international trade committee for many years, and in fact we travelled together to different places to advocate for Canadian businesses and workers. The passion and the teamwork that he showed were enormously appreciated.

The member asked me about the consultations. When CETA was brought into effect, at that time all those consultations happened. In fact, this is based on CETA, so all the consultations that we are talking about were at that time. Moving forward, as I mentioned, once this comes to that stage we, as a committee, will be going out and consulting with different businesses and organizations, and the minister and the government will be making those consultations as necessary as we have done already.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to know whether the member opposite is comfortable with how the agreement was negotiated and this issue has been presented. The Minister of Small Business and Export Promotion signed an agreement with the United Kingdom on November 21, 2020. She only tabled the implementation bill for this agreement along with the text of the agreement on December 9, 2020, less than a month before CETA ended and two days before the House wrapped up for the holidays. The Standing Committee on International Trade did not have a chance to study it. The government is the only one driving this sense of urgency.

Is the member comfortable with that? Is he comfortable with the fact that the affected provinces were not consulted?

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Madam Speaker, as I mentioned earlier in my answer to the hon. member for Prince Albert, many consultations were in place when we passed CETA, and this is totally based on that agreement. I will tell members that time was of the essence to make sure that industries and businesses, particularly in Quebec, were able to take advantage of those 98% of goods that would not be taxed. That is why we had to pass it. Moving forward the government, the minister and the committee will be doing the work to have proper, long conversations with the stakeholders.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, earlier I raised the issue that this U.K.-Canada trade deal does not address the ISDS provisions. That is not the only concern. It also does not address the upward pressure on pharmaceutical drug costs related to the patent issue. The government member responded by saying that this is a transitional deal, yet there is no sunset clause to this transitional deal.

Does the member think that it is appropriate to not have a sunset clause to ensure that we will have an end date with negotiations?

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Madam Speaker, Canada and the U.K. have a long-time relationship when it comes to trade. I am certain that, moving forward, even though we do not have a sunset clause, we will come up with a bilateral trade agreement that will benefit Canadians as well as businesses in the U.K.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Surrey—Newton for his excellent speech.

I have the honour to speak to the Canada-U.K. trade continuity agreement.

As members know, the agreement will preserve the existing commitments between our two nations. It will help strengthen our trade relationships as we prepare to begin official bilateral talks on free trade in the coming year.

The United Kingdom is already a key market for Canada's agriculture and agri-food sector. We exported an estimated $553 million worth of agri-food products and seafood to the United Kingdom last year.

The government always takes a balanced approach to trade agreements, to reflect the diversity of our agriculture and food industry. On top of ensuring stability for our agri-food exporters, we will continue to support our supply management system for dairy, poultry and egg farmers across Canada. Furthermore, I would remind members that our support for supply management did not stop us from signing 15 trade agreements with a total of 51 countries, giving our farmers a competitive edge in two-thirds of the global economy.

The same goes for the U.K. agreement. The trade continuity agreement fully protects Canada's dairy, poultry and egg sectors and provides no additional access for cheese or any other supply-managed product. This is yet another sign of our government's strong support for Canada's supply management system and the rural communities it supports.

The Government of Canada is also committed to not opening up access to the market for supply-managed products in future trade agreements. At the same time, we have kept our promise to fully and fairly compensate our farmers for the impacts of CETA and the CPTPP.

Last November, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food announced a major investment for Canadian milk, poultry and egg farmers. She announced $1.4 billion in direct payments to Canadian dairy farmers over the next three years based on their quota. That is $468 million by March 31, 2021, $469 million in 2021-22 and $468 million in 2022-23.

For instance, a farm with 80 cows will receive a direct cash payment of roughly $38,000 a year for the next three years. This funding is in addition to the $345 million that was already paid to dairy farmers in direct payments last year and the $250 million for the dairy farm investment program. This brings the total compensation to dairy farmers in response to CETA and the CPTPP to more than $2 billion.

The minister also announced that for supply-managed chicken, egg, broiler hatching egg and turkey farmers, we will provide $691 million for 10-year programs. These programs will respond to the demands of the poultry and egg working group, following the ratification of the CPTPP, and will support investments in their operations to improve productivity for further market development. Program details will be designed in consultation with sector representatives and launched as soon as possible.

Our government remains committed to providing the sectors with full and fair compensation for the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement. We also remain committed to supporting our supply-managed processors for the impact on the markets. Thanks to the funding we announced on November 28, dairy, poultry and egg farmers will be able to make key investments in their operations and improve their activities to be even more competitive. This will help them to be more efficient and more innovative. The investments they make in their operations today will allow our young farmers to position themselves for growth and success in the future.

Our important announcement clearly shows that farmers can count on our government to keep its promises and do everything in its power to help them and help the next generation succeed. These farming families are the heart of our communities.

We know that our dairy, poultry and egg farmers want our system to stay strong and sustainable, and we want that too. We believe that supply management is a pillar of rural prosperity in Canada, and it works. It is an effective economic model. It brings stability and prosperity to our family dairy, poultry and egg farms.

Our supply-managed producers and processors have deep roots in our rural communities. Some farms and food companies go back generations. Others were founded more recently by passionate young women and men. One such example is Dalew Farms, which is where I buy local meat here in my region.

We will absolutely protect our supply management system. There is no question about that. This system guarantees a supply of high-quality products for Canadian consumers. It is a model of stability that provides high-quality products at fair, predictable prices for farmers, processors and consumers. Supply management also provides a living for farming families and sustains rural communities across the country. Our milk, poultry and egg farmers are powerful drivers of our economy, with nearly $12 billion in farm gate sales, creating more than 75,000 direct jobs in Canada's production and processing sectors.

Beyond farms, dairy and poultry processing contributes about $22.6 billion to our economy. In all cases, our producers and processors deserve our utmost respect. They work hard every day, and the entire family is often involved in making the business successful.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, they overcame surpluses caused by changes in demand, labour shortages and market volatility to ensure that our grocery store shelves were fully stocked with their excellent dairy, poultry and egg products.

Our government was proud to help our supply-managed farmers weather the storm. We launched the $50-million surplus food rescue program to help food banks and other organizations redistribute surplus food, including poultry, turkey and eggs, to Canadians in need.

This program does not just provide Canadians with nutritious food from our agricultural exports during a difficult period. It also helps poultry and egg farmers stabilize their markets. In addition, to help dairy farmers manage their excess milk, we increased the Canadian Dairy Commission's borrowing limit by $200 million so processors could temporarily store cheese and butter and avoid waste.

Our egg, poultry and egg farmers are always looking for ways to improve. They are innovating and are proud of putting the best food on our tables. I am pleased that the supply management system provides them with a fair return on their efforts and investments. Our farmers and processors want to have a strong and prosperous business that they can hand down to their children. We will help them achieve that.

Agriculture is one of our government's priority sectors for stimulating Canada's economic growth. We will continue to invest in this sector. We will continue to listen to our farmers and processors as we set the best course for Canada's agriculture and agri-food industry. We will continue to ensure that they are protected under the Canada-United Kingdom trade continuity agreement and under all future agreements.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would really like to get some answers from my colleague, who is defending the Liberals' position on supply management.

The Liberals made a lot of concessions in the Canada-United States-Mexico agreement. They relinquished Canada's sovereignty over the right to establish our own tariffs and agreed to put a limit on powdered milk exports. What is more, we still have not heard anything about the compensation related to this agreement that the Liberal government signed with the United States and Mexico.

We do not know what the compensation will be or when it will be paid out. Once again, the government is leaving dairy farmers in the lurch. We also still do not know how poultry and egg farmers will be compensated for their losses. There are still a lot of unanswered questions.

I would like my colleague, who seems to think that everything is perfect on the Liberal side, to answer these questions because they are the questions that farmers are asking me every day.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

It is a valid question, and we are working on that issue right now. However, today we are talking about the Canada-United Kingdom trade continuity agreement.

As I said in my speech, one of our priorities is to ensure the continuity and security of supply management. It is because of this agreement that all of the agreements that we already signed with Europe are able to continue. We want to ensure that there is continuity and that businesses, business owners and farmers know the rules of the game that led to this agreement. That is very important.

It was very important for us to ensure this stability. We have wanted to do that from the start and we succeeded.

We are currently entering into negotiations with the United Kingdom in order to come to a permanent agreement, while still ensuring that we properly protect supply management.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I have to disagree with my colleague because, as a member representing a northern riding, I will take snowbanks over green spaces any day.

That said, I liked his speech, especially when he said he wants to protect supply management. However, we have to be clear. First of all, I welcome the compensation, but the damage caused by the undermining of the Quebec agricultural system in the last three agreements is permanent. Farmers do not want to get cheques; they want to get 100% of their income from 100% of their production, which they can no longer do because of the last three agreements.

There seems to be some openness to protecting the free trade agreement. Will my colleague support Bill C-216, which was introduced by the Bloc Québécois to stop the government from weakening supply management? This would give weight to the permanent agreement we will enter into with the United Kingdom.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Madam Speaker, my regards to my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue. I am sure the snowbanks here are comparable to the ones in his region.

To answer his question, it is clear, as I said in my speech, that protecting supply management is the reason we are doing this. We have to negotiate agreements with other countries to make sure farmers and businesses are properly compensated.

That said, this is also a business opportunity. We have to help those businesses and farmers access these new markets. It goes both ways. We have to help them financially and encourage them to benefit from these agreements in the near future. We have to make sure they can sell their products in the 51 countries with which we have agreements.

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

Madam Speaker, initially the NDP opposed CETA and we had many concerns, whether the investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms or the increased cost of drugs that patent protection for pharmaceutical companies would create. One thing we know is that CETA is widely understood to put upward pressure on the cost of pharmaceutical drugs.

Why are the Liberals entrenching these same provisions in yet another trade agreement while dragging their heels on delivering a national pharmacare plan?

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Madam Speaker, at the end of the day, as the member knows, this is a continuity agreement. Basically, we are taking it out of CETA, and it is the basis to make sure that there is continuity and stability for our markets here in Canada. It also gives us an opportunity to continue negotiations for a new agreement with Great Britain, and that is exactly what we are going to be doing in the next year. It is important that we take in all of these concerns as we move forward.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am honoured to share my time with the hon. member for Saint-Jean.

In 1987, Canada signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, with the United States and Mexico. The purpose of that free trade agreement was to reduce obstacles to North American trade as much as possible. The goal was to create a stable economic environment by reducing or eliminating tariff barriers, enabling the free flow of all goods and services and defining product standards, such as intellectual property. Since NAFTA, Canada has signed many more trade agreements with European, South American and Asian partners. Canada has access to most of the world's major markets.

Bill C-18, an act to implement the agreement on trade continuity between Canada and the United Kingdom, is unique because it is a carbon copy of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the European Union signed in 2017. The bill maintains the status quo in trade between Canada and the United Kingdom and provides time to negotiate a permanent trade agreement between these two countries. For reasons of stability in the current economic context, the Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-18.

This agreement is well received as it will kick-start Quebec's and Canada's economies after the current health crisis is over. This recovery will last years because Canada and Quebec cannot repay the tremendous debt we have accumulated without major consequences. As an aside, this crisis may lead to a major transformation of relations between Quebec and Canada.

The United Kingdom is an important market for Canadian exports. Our exports to the United Kingdom are estimated to total more than $18 billion. This market represents one-third of our trade with all European countries. The United Kingdom is one of our most important partners. It is not far behind the United States, Mexico and China.

A significant portion of international trade between Canada and the United Kingdom is in precious metals, such as gold. The mining industry is one of the largest in Quebec, and gold alone accounts for a large part of Canada's total exports to the United Kingdom. The mining industry is essential to the development of my region of Abitibi—Témiscamingue and for the economy of Quebec. Predictability is essential, and we achieve it through clear trade agreements that make it possible to identify the long-term benefits.

The Canada-U.K. trade continuity agreement fully protects Canada's dairy, poultry and egg sectors. The agreement does not provide for additional access to the cheese market or any other supply managed products. It is business as usual. I do want to remind the House that the damage has already been done. Canada made concessions at the expense of dairy producers under supply management in the last three agreements signed, namely the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with Europe in 2017, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2018, and the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement in 2020. In total, producers, processors and businesses lost out on nearly 10% of market share and more than $400 million because of these concessions.

That is why the Bloc Québécois introduced Bill C-216 in the House. Unfortunately, the supply management system has become a bargaining chip for Ottawa in negotiations with its future international partners. On three occasions, even though the federal government promised to fully protect it, it broke its promise and created new breaches.

Producers want all their income to come from their work and do not want part of it to come from a compensation cheque. Our bill would ensure that the federal government could no longer make commitments that undermine supply management, whether in a treaty or an international trade agreement. The Bloc Québécois is calling for supply management to be protected in all other negotiations, including those that will be needed to make the agreement with the United Kingdom permanent. It is about the survival and sustainability of the Quebec agricultural model.

This agreement has some negative aspects, but we have to raise certain things.

The Bloc Québécois takes issue with the federal government's lack of transparency in the recent negotiations with the United Kingdom. How is it possible that the Standing Committee on International Trade discussed a transitional agreement with the parties directly involved without access to the document? Worse, the committee was supposed to submit its report on the transitional agreement the same day that it finally received the document.

It is hard to protect the interests of a population when the government does not provide all the information. This lack of transparency is unfortunate and in keeping with other international trade agreements recently negotiated by Canada.

The Bloc Québécois believes it is time to look at procedures we should implement here in Parliament to give the elected members of the House of Commons more control during trade agreement negotiations. For example, why not require the minister responsible for ratifying an agreement to table it in Parliament along with an explanatory memorandum and an economic impact study well before it is finalized? Why not require that same minister to inform the House of any intention to engage in trade negotiations 90 days before they begin and to submit his or her objectives 30 days ahead of time? That just makes democratic sense.

International agreements are binding not only on the Government of Canada but on all Quebeckers, all Canadians, and our businesses. Maybe we should invite citizens and businesses to be part of the decision-making process so they can have their say because, in the end, these free trade agreements affect our businesses.

The Bloc Québécois believes that parliamentarians and provincial representatives need to be more involved in the next rounds of talks leading to a permanent agreement between Canada and the United Kingdom. In fact, in order to be able to defend their own interests, the provinces should participate in the negotiations of all upcoming trade agreements between Canada and its partners.

In the upcoming negotiations leading to a permanent agreement between Canada and the United Kingdom, the provinces need to take part in the negotiations on decisions involving provincial jurisdictions such as standards, government contracts and government procurement. The more Quebec is involved quickly in these negotiations, the better chance it will have at defending its economic interests. It is because Quebec knows what is good for Quebec that it is in the best position to defend its own interests.

We need to raise the Canadian federation's democratic bar. With Brexit, the United Kingdom is trying to reclaim its sovereignty, control over its economy, and its autonomy. There is an interesting lesson in there. With Brexit, the United Kingdom is reclaiming all its power to become an economic force once again. I find that inspiring.

However, in order to raise the Canadian federation's democratic bar, the provinces need to participate in the negotiations when there are decisions to be made that affect provincial jurisdictions. Why reject such common sense now? On the contrary, we need to develop mechanisms. The United Kingdom taught us a lesson in sovereignty. Can we use it to make the provinces' economies run even better and to protect our domestic economy?

In closing, the Bloc Québécois believes that we need to pass Bill C-18 on the Canada-U.K. trade continuity agreement. We need to avoid making the current crisis worse with sudden economic losses. According to some assessments, Canada's GDP could drop by $350 million and 2,500 jobs could be lost if we do not manage to come to an agreement with the United Kingdom regarding this trade continuity agreement. Action needed to be taken and Canada chose the status quo, which is wise.

However, the elected members of this House did not take the opportunity to change the approach when negotiating this agreement. Obviously, they did not take that opportunity because they did not have the chance to do so, but that is something that needs to be done. Elected members need to have access to the reports and assessment notes before voting in the House. It just makes sense. Elected members need to be more involved in the negotiating process and the provinces need to be able to negotiate on any matters that fall under their jurisdiction. Agriculture is a perfect example of that.

As members, we have the duty to make the voices of our constituents heard both in this Parliament and in every federal government process.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

Obviously, the federal government is responsible for negotiating free trade agreements, including the one with the United Kingdom. What would my colleague recommend so that the federal government can improve Canada's trade relationship with the United Kingdom? What does my colleague think the priorities should be for the upcoming negotiations?

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will answer my colleague's question by pointing out that there is something to learn here about economic nationalism, the importance of protecting our interests, and the importance of producing the things we need right here at home, so that we can be less dependent on exports.

If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that we must not rely on international trade because a plane can be grounded at any time and people can suffer. This is what we saw with protective masks, for example.

This may send the message that international neoliberalism as we have known it for the past 30 years is coming to an end and that we have an opportunity here to create a strong national economy.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I really enjoyed the speech from my hon. colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue, who is a great asset to Parliament and to the Bloc Québécois. He made a huge contribution to today's debate. I congratulate him on that.

He spoke a lot about how Quebec and the provinces should be more present in this debate. Would it not be simpler if Quebec were independent? Would Quebec businesses not be better off if we could negotiate our own international agreements?

How would we manage that?

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert for his vision and foresight. It is indeed interesting to ask the question. Has the United Kingdom not taught us a lesson about sovereignty? Why did such an important country decide to back out of the European Union? It did so to protect its interests. Sovereignty is about three things: signing your own agreements; passing your own laws and collecting your own taxes.

The member for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert is passionate about the French language. Another fundamental lesson from this agreement we learned from the European Union itself. The official language of the European Union is no longer English since the withdrawal of England. It is now French. Does anyone see this as an opportunity for Canada to look at what is happening elsewhere in the world and to strengthen the position of French in our own Parliament and in our relations with the provinces? Is this not an opportunity to ensure that every province, not just Quebec, has the mechanisms to protect its language? This is another lesson on sovereignty from the European Union and England.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague's speech. I find it interesting to hear that England's exit from the European Union is a model for sovereignty, because I think one of the great lessons to be learned from Brexit relates more to the economic disaster it has caused in Great Britain.

I wonder whether the risks and the devastating economic repercussions for Great Britain projected by economists could also serve as a lesson for a sovereignty proposal.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, his comments and his awareness.

I will give an example. With regard to international trade, we have to be at the negotiating table to protect our interests. If Quebec could have been at the negotiating table, it would have imposed a veto. If the provinces really were listened to in this country, we could have imposed a veto and prevented another breach in supply management.

Quebec could have stood up, taken a firm stand, refused to give up another 3% and opposed the notion of sending a compensation cheque to producers under the pretext that it is all right to stop producing in exchange for a cheque, instead of having agricultural producers earn 100% of their income, which supply management used to protect.

With free trade agreements, we run the risk of limiting an individual's ability to earn their income even in their own country. That is what the federal government did in the context of supply management. It has opened three breaches in supply management. Trust in Canada has been undermined. Bill C-216 would establish a legislative mechanism to ensure that, in future, we will be able to protect our national interests and leave behind the concerns brought on by new forms of compensation.

The House resumed from January 28 consideration of Bill C-18, the Canada—United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement Implementation Act.

Canada-United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement Implementation Act

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-18.

I would like to begin by saying that I was particularly interested in two aspects of the process for passing this bill. The first is the way the Standing Committee on International Trade had to do its work with regard to the bill to bring CUKTCA into force. The second part of my speech will focus more on the historic aspect of this new temporary agreement and the impact it could have on the scare tactics that are generally used on separatists when it comes time to talk about Quebec and the way it will conduct future negotiations when it becomes independent.

Yesterday, I had several opportunities to listen to my learned colleagues discuss how parliamentarians were informed of the results of the negotiations between the U.K. and Canada. In the words of my hon. colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, parliamentarians, through no fault of their own, became actors in a theatre of the absurd when they had to receive witnesses in committee without having seen the content of the agreement.

I heard some bizarre responses from the other side of the House to concerns expressed by parliamentarians seated to the left of the Speaker. I heard members say that complaints about how parliamentarians were kept in the dark were futile and petty because, ultimately, both Conservative and Bloc members intended to vote in favour of the agreement and the implementation bill.

With all due respect, our government colleagues are confusing two very distinct concepts: the ends and the means. Here is an example. Say I have to deliver a package at a specific time. I can leave late, drive 160 km/h on the highway, pass cars, cut them off and run red lights, and still arrive on time with a package in good condition that I can deliver like it is no big deal. I have achieved my end, but the means I employed were questionable at best. On the other hand, I could have left home on time, obeyed speed limits, got lost and backtracked, and even got stuck in traffic before finally arriving late with the package.

In both cases, the quality of the outcome in no way reflects the quality of the means used to achieve it. To make the comparison, one might agree with the contents of the deal and the legislation that it implements, but could still be justified in criticizing how parliamentarians were informed of its contents.

Let me give a very clear example of the situation. Parliamentarians were told repeatedly that it was no big deal that they could not see the contents of the agreement, since it was only meant to be transitional in any case. It was intended to bridge the gap between the previous agreement with the European Union and a new agreement to be renegotiated with the United Kingdom. If parliamentarians could have seen what was in the agreement, they would have noticed the missing sunset clause, in other words a deadline by which the two countries must have signed a final agreement. Such a clause, which would irrefutably confirm that the agreement before us is indeed only transitional, does not exist in the text.

We are required to negotiate within a certain time frame, but not required to reach an agreement within that time frame. It is unacceptable that parliamentarians were left in the dark, that the Standing Committee on International Trade received the text of the agreement the very day it was supposed to submit its report and recommendations on whether or not to approve its content.

The lesson in all this is that future negotiations for a final agreement not only could, but must offer more transparency to parliamentarians and all those who will be affected by the agreement. That was the approach during negotiations of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement. Members of both the European Union and the provinces were invited to at least express their position and demands in connection with the future agreement.

As far as the actual agreement is concerned, it should be noted that the British had the courtesy to at least admit that the negotiations were conducted a little late, at the last minute, something the Canadian government is still trying to refute.

With regard to the second aspect of my presentation on the issue of Quebec's independence, there is no denying the fearmongering we are subjected to when there are discussions on the future of an independent Quebec and any necessary future negotiations with other countries. The Brexit negotiations could have many similarities with the situation that will prevail right after a successful referendum.

The European Union is a customs union that provides for the free flow of goods and services within Europe with standardized rules for its trade relations with countries outside the EU. Member countries of the European Union do not negotiate directly with non-member countries. The European Union does so on their behalf, in the same way that Canada negotiates its international treaties with other countries instead of the provinces.

If Quebec were to leave Canada, it would do so the same way that the United Kingdom left the European Union. The U.K. withdrew itself from the agreements it held as part of the European Union and is seeking out new agreements as an independent state, relying on transitional agreements in the interim.

In the lead-up to the 1995 referendum, federalists sowed fear that an independent Quebec would be thrust into economic uncertainty and turmoil since, without agreements with other countries, it would undoubtedly sink into a dark hole, a legal vacuum with no trade partners. Federalists made it seem as though markets would start locking Quebec out as soon as the referendum was won and as though Quebec would be immediately removed from any Canadian agreements.

Professor Daniel Turp countered that argument by pointing out that countries party to agreements operate with the presumption of continuity. A new country popping up in the international community would therefore already have a connection to the trade partners of the country from which it seceded, and this would carry through until they negotiated a new agreement. However, at the time, Professor Turp's model applied only to multilateral treaties, in which the newly seceded party would be joining several other existing parties. It was unknown how the model would play out with bilateral trade agreements.

With Brexit, the United Kingdom just completed Professor Turp's analysis exercise regarding trade agreements, not just in theory but in very real and tangible terms. Leaving aside the issues of a lack of transparency and the last-minute work that I talked about at the beginning of my speech, one has to admit that the exercise is going relatively well, all things considered. The interim agreement that is about to be ratified maintains the status quo and ensures that there is no volatility or uncertainty in the trade relationship while the final agreement is being negotiated.

Even though Brexit put a nail in the coffin of the federalist argument that an independent Quebec would experience great economic uncertainty following a winning referendum, it is still interesting to see the extent to which Brexit itself is serving, for some, as a federalist scare tactic when it comes to Quebec's desire to become independent. Former Conservative minister Michael Fortier, who recently became a columnist for La Presse, gave his first article the title of “A Sneak Preview of Quexit”. In his article, Mr. Fortier painted a very sombre picture of the negotiations for the U.K.'s departure from the European Union. He talked about a cursory agreement that was also negotiated at the last minute and that failed to include many essential details, including financial services, that still need to be worked out. Mr. Fortier indicated that the people of Britain still do not really understand what their government negotiated. His article would have us believe that the people of Britain will one day regret voting in favour of Brexit.

I have talked to a number of people who are up on what is happening in the U.K., and I have asked them if they, too, see Brexit as a bad thing and if the British might ultimately come to regret their decision to leave the EU. As a separatist, I found their answer interesting. Financial services, which are one of the United Kingdom's main exports, if not the main export, are not yet governed by a formal agreement, but uncertainty about their future has not caused bankers to flee London and The City in droves, as some catastrophic scenarios predicted.

As for the people who voted yes to Brexit, it would be odd if they came to regret their choice one day because that vote got them what they wanted, and one of the things they wanted was the power to control their borders. That is something Quebec is clearly lacking right now in COVID times.

All the same, Brexit negotiations in general and a future final agreement between Canada and the U.K. in particular will continue to be of interest to parliamentarians. Bloc members will be paying even closer attention to get a sense of what awaits Quebec one day. It is not perfect, but despite its wrinkles, the likely outcome seems much less catastrophic than some predicted. One lesson Quebec can learn from this process is the importance of diligence and transparency.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my esteemed colleague for her well-written and well-thought-out speech. I do not share her view on some of the points he raised, but since we are in the heart of democracy, we must preserve this freedom of speech and differences of points of view.

Since we are talking about free trade and international trade, my colleague's speech reminded me that in 1988, under the government of the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney, the Prime Minister of Canada, Canada signed a free trade agreement with the United States. This achievement opened the door to an extraordinary market, in part thanks to the support of some prominent, career separatists such as Bernard Landry or Jacques Parizeau. The 1988 free trade agreement opened the door to many international agreements. It is therefore important to remember that even if we do not have the same vision for the future of Canada or Quebec, free trade invites a unity that must be preserved.

The member said earlier that a number of federalists were attacking the possibility of an independent Quebec becoming fully empowered and pointing out that independence could cause economic hardship. Does the hon. member recall when former Quebec premier and PQ leader Pauline Marois herself said that Quebec independence could lead to five years of economic turbulence? I am not the one saying so; it was the former PQ premier Pauline Marois.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yes, I remember it well.

I would of course be surprised if someone told me the day after winning a referendum that absolutely nothing would change, that it would be as if the vote never happened and that no negotiations were needed. After all, if we want to make an omelette we have to break a few eggs.

However, I think it would be a case of just minor economic disruptions, not catastrophic scenarios like those that are raised in the context of Brexit. The City was supposed to lose 75,000 bankers, but only 7,500 ended up leaving, so just 2% of the 400,000 who work in that business sector. The British people are only 29 days into their country's exit from the European Union, and some people are already talking about the end of the British Empire. I would prefer to avoid those kinds of catastrophic scenarios.

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

Mr. Speaker, I agree with a lot of the sentiments raised by my Conservative colleague in his question, and I want to pick up on the discussion between him and our hon. colleague who spoke a few minutes ago.

She at least seems to be acknowledging that there would be some disruption. She said it would be minor. As the Conservative member pointed out, other people say it would perhaps be more than that: five years' worth of disruption.

Can she define what she would consider to be minor? What is acceptable? What is an acceptable level of economic disruption for Quebec to seek, as she is saying, that form of independence? What would be an acceptable amount? Rather than just saying “minor”, I would like her to quantify that.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is difficult for me to give an answer in just 30 seconds.

I think we should not lose sight of the fact that the vagaries of the economy and the secession of Quebec from Canada should not be assessed in terms of the GDP alone. There are many other issues that must be taken into consideration such as border control and, as my colleague mentioned yesterday, supply management, which successive Conservatives and Liberal governments have weakened.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to continue along these lines. We have been talking about the issues that an independent Quebec would face, but what about all the issues that Canada currently does not address in international agreements to the detriment of Quebec?

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will once again take this opportunity to mention supply management, the jewel in our crown, which should ensure that agriculture is not negotiable in the different trade agreements.

We hope that is also the case for culture and certain services. Once it becomes independent after a successful referendum, Quebec will be able to have its way in future international negotiations.

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook for sharing his time with me today.

It is an honour to rise on behalf of the Green Party to speak to the Canada-United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement, or TCA.

I want to recognize that I am speaking from the traditional unceded territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation.

I have many points that I want to make about the TCA, and I will begin by saying that it is time to demand fairness for the 150,000 U.K. pensioners living in Canada. During these trade negotiations, we must not forget about them.

U.K. pensioners in other countries, including the U.S., receive annual rate increases tied to the rate of inflation. U.K. pensioners in Canada do not. This is unacceptable. We end up providing financial support to U.K. pensioners because of this discriminatory policy. Meanwhile, Canadian pensioners living in the U.K. receive annual rate increases. We need to demand the same for U.K. pensioners, and now is the time to do it.

The Green Party supports fair and equitable international trade. We want to ensure that trade agreements have enforcement provisions to protect indigenous rights and workers' rights, as well as consumer, health and environmental standards.

We are opposed to any agreement that contains investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS, provisions. Trade agreements should not be corporate rights agreements in disguise. We oppose a regulatory race to the bottom. We want to ensure that people and the planet are put before corporate profits. That is the kind of fair trade we support.

In February 2020, during the debate on CUSMA, the government made a commitment to be transparent and provide adequate support and notice for all new trade agreements. The government did not fulfill that commitment with this agreement.

For decades, there have been demands for increased transparency on how trade agreements are negotiated. I have followed trade agreement debates for many years, and it does not matter which party is in power. The opposition always complains that there is not enough transparency in the negotiations. That is why I tabled a private member's bill: the trade and foreign investment agreements transparency act, which is modelled on the European Union's process of transparent trade negotiations. The purpose of the proposed act is to create a transparent consultation and assessment process to ensure that Canada's trade, and foreign investment agreements, reflect the values and interests of Canada as a whole; take into account the perspectives of various groups, including local communities, civil society organizations and indigenous peoples; promote sustainable development and respect for the environment, and adhere to the principles of economic fairness, social justice and internationally recognized human rights. We need this kind of legislation in Canada to ensure a transparent process.

The TCA is a transitional trade agreement that replicates the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA. The TCA has no end date or sunset clause. If negotiations for this new agreement fail, the TCA could become permanent and bring the worst parts of CETA into our new trade relationship with the U.K. This is not something we can allow to happen. The stakeholder consultations that occurred for the TCA are completely inadequate for a permanent agreement.

The international trade and investment agreements that Canada has signed affect all Canadians, all Canadian businesses and all levels of government. They affect how we govern ourselves all the way down to the local level. This is especially true of CETA, and now the Canada-U.K. TCA.

The rules of CETA have the potential to affect public procurement at all levels of government. For projects above a certain budget level, CETA prohibits favouring local bids, applying local content or hiring quotas, or setting aside contracts for small and medium-sized enterprises or minority-owned businesses. CETA could affect indigenous rights and indigenous control over traditional lands when those lands are targeted by foreign resource extraction companies. Public services supplied on a commercial basis are automatically included under CETA unless they have been expressly excluded, which limits the government's ability to regulate foreign service providers. If the government wants to provide public services or return a previously privatized service to the public sector, it will be open to challenges from foreign investors.

Canada's free trade agreements have hollowed out our manufacturing base. We focus on ripping and shipping raw resources, such as bitumen, logs and minerals, instead of prioritizing value-added domestic manufacturing and using our resources to maximize employment and diversify our economy.

We are vulnerable to fluctuations in commodity prices for raw resources. The downturn in oil prices and the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline are both perfect examples of this vulnerability.

Canada's trade deficit with the EU has increased under CETA. EU companies have an easier time exporting to Canada than Canadian companies have exporting to the EU. A 2019 study shows that the only exports to the EU that have increased are fossil fuels and raw minerals, so CETA hurts value-added industries and benefits rip-and-ship resource extraction.

Canada made major concessions on intellectual property that hurt our pharmaceutical industry. Under CETA, Canada was forced to give drug companies patent extensions for innovative drugs. The EU was not bound by the same rules.

How has CETA helped us procure vaccines for COVID-19? The EU is threatening to block exports of vaccines to Canada until it has enough supply for its own citizens. If we still had a robust pharmaceutical industry in Canada, we would not be in this position.

Canada is one of the most open countries for trade and foreign direct investment. There have been more investor-state challenges against Canada than against any other country in the OECD. This is not a record to brag about. We give far too much power to foreign investors. Foreign investment is destroying home affordability. Foreign investment in long-term care homes has resulted in seniors living in horrendous conditions. Foreign investors have ripped and shipped resources from this country and left an environmental mess for taxpayers to clean up.

The ISDS provisions in CETA have been suspended for three years with the TCA. Why were these provisions not completely removed? Do we not trust our justice systems to make fair rulings when corporations feel they are being treated unfairly? There is no justification for a private tribunal system to deal with trade disputes between our two countries. The TCA actually states that if we have not agreed to new investor-state provisions in three years, then the CETA ISDS rules apply. We need to remove ISDS permanently from this agreement and from all of our trade agreements.

The pandemic has made it clear that we need to support our local supply chains. We have seen how the hollowing out of our manufacturing base and the offshoring of jobs has left us short on personal protective equipment. The Greens are particularly concerned about protecting our food supply chain. This makes sense for food security and also makes sense for lowering the carbon footprint of the food we consume. Canada has vast areas of farmland and is a net exporter of food, but we have become too specialized and too dependent on imports of food that can be produced right here.

Since CETA, a provisional agreement, came into force, the agricultural sector has lost 10% of its exports to Europe, while imports from the EU have increased by 10%. The CETA, along with other trade agreements, has undermined our supply management system, which provides stability for farmers. We need enforceable labour and environmental standards in trade agreements. The labour provisions in CETA are not enforceable, and the compliance mechanism is non-binding. The environmental provisions are weak, with no concrete obligations.

The CETA does not protect regulations to address climate change, and leaves climate action on the part of the government subject to investor challenges through the ISDS provisions. This is unacceptable to the Green Party. We would hate to see the U.K.’s climate accountability laws attacked by Canadian corporations using ISDS provisions.

Since 2008, the U.K. has had a real climate accountability law, with five-year increments set to carbon budgets. The U.K. has currently reduced greenhouse gas emissions 40% below 1990 levels, with a target to be 69% below 1990 levels by 2030. Pathetically, Canada has increased its greenhouse gas emissions by 21% above 1990 levels. This is one area where I would love to see Canada adopt U.K. standards.

In closing, CETA was disappointing and so is the Canada-U.K. TCA. Canadian governments need to do a better job of putting the interests of Canadians ahead of large corporations.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague made a lot of great claims about issues that I think are very important. We should be listening to them.

I want to highlight something regarding pensions. Some people from the U.K. who came to Canada are collecting U.K. pensions. They will not get any of the increases that those in the U.K. get, yet Canadians living in the U.K. will get them. This could be very costly to Canada, as we are actually subsidizing people from the U.K. through some of our programs because of low rates that are not keeping up with the cost of inflation.

Does the hon. member agree that this should be looked into and that the government should be taking a serious approach to it? This is not free trade at all. This has to be looked into.

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member for Hamilton Mountain. This is an egregious situation for pensioners in Canada who are not getting indexed increases to their pensions. This has to stop, and the government needs to take this opportunity, when it is negotiating a trade agreement with the U.K., to make sure this ends.

The U.S. allows indexing. It has an agreement with the U.K. for indexed increases, as well as a with a whole bunch of other countries, but here we are, a Commonwealth country, being abused by the U.K. Where is the allyship in that? It needs to end.

[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]

Mr. Speaker, the Green Party needs to acknowledge that Canada is a trading nation. We need trade. It is critical to our economy and supporting our middle class. The number of trade agreements we have achieved in the last five years is significant. At the same time, our employment prior to the pandemic grew by well over one million people, most of whom are full time.

The Green Party is always in opposition to all trade agreements. Can the member indicate any trade agreement that the Green Party has ever supported? Why does the Green Party not recognize the true value of trade and how Canada has benefited by it over the years? That is a reality.

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has a very short memory because the Green Party caucus voted for the CUSMA agreement. We voted for it because the ISDS provisions were removed. It took away the corporate rights part of that agreement. The proportionality clause about exporting oil was taken out of that agreement as well.

We are looking for fair trade. We are looking for trade that protects the rights of workers, protects the environment and protects the health, safety and consumer standards that we hold dear. We want to see regulatory levels go up, not down; it is not a race to the bottom. We want to see measurements like the genuine progress indicator when we measure how well we are doing with trade so that we consider things like health, the economy, social good and the environment, rather than just how much we rip and ship raw resources for export from this country.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with quite a number of the member's comments. With CETA, there were many components that the New Democrats were concerned about. The investor-state dispute settlement provisions were certainly one of them. The issue around the increased cost of drugs related to additional patent protections for pharmaceuticals was another. Restrictions on local content provisions for subnational procurement initiatives was a third element. Then, of course, the concessions resulting in lost market share for Canadian dairy products were also a component we were very concerned about. These are just some highlights.

The real question is this: Why would the government proceed with this transitional agreement without a sunset clause?

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a really good question and it is something we are concerned about as well. This should have a termination date on it. We should be negotiating a fair and equitable trade agreement and dealing with all of the issues I outlined in my speech and the member outlined in her question.

We need to ensure that we protect our manufacturing base and stop hollowing it out. We have seen what this has done to our pharmaceutical industry. We have become too dependent on the export of raw resources, such as raw bitumen through pipelines, and when the price of oil changes or a pipeline project is cancelled, it affects our economy in a detrimental way.

We need to really examine how we do trade properly and take into consideration a long list of other things, aside from corporate profits.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am always happy to speak in the House of Commons, even if it is virtually.

As members know, I am from Nova Scotia. My riding of Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook is quite diverse. We have a very strong Black community, Acadian community, fishing community and agricultural community. We are on the outskirts of the big cities of Halifax and Dartmouth. It is a beautiful place to visit, with lots of tourism.

Trade deals are extremely important not only to Canada, but also to Nova Scotia and my riding, and with trade deals, new opportunities are being opened up. They are about having access to more people and goods, which is extremely important.

We have had a number of successful trade deals in the last five years, since we have been in government. We signed off on the CUSMA, which is the Canada, U.S. and Mexico deal. Then we signed off on the CPTPP and the CETA, which is with the European Union, and now we are talking about this trade deal with the U.K.

When it comes to CUSMA, since 1993, Canadian and U.S. goods have doubled in trade, which is very impressive. With Mexico, we are trading nine times the amount we were prior to 1993.

No one can forget that when we were negotiating CUSMA, then president of the United States, Trump, made it very tough, to say the least. Of course, he wanted NAFTA out, wanted a new trade deal and had all kinds of demands. He would tweet at three or four o'clock in the morning, saying there would be no deal unless Canada removed supply management. Canada won; we did not remove or end supply management.

Trump then tweeted that we had to end chapter 19, the dispute resolution mechanism. He said he did not want international judges, but American ones. Of course that was unacceptable to Canada, and did Trump win? No, Canada won.

Then he wanted the five-year sunset clause removed so that if we did not renegotiate every five years, the agreement was dead. He was pushing for that as well and was unsuccessful. We made a great deal and our government did an awesome job in that area.

When it comes to the CPTPP deal, it is very important for trade in the trans-Pacific partnership. We are seeing lower tariffs or no tariffs for Canadians in many areas. This means great jobs and opportunities for our companies. The duty-free access is up to 99%, which is amazing considering where we were before.

In the first year since we signed that deal, our two-way trade is over $45 billion, which is a 3.36% increase. Frozen and fresh beef alone saw 143% in export growth to Japan. With Japan, we have seen the 5% tariff on certain products go down to zero, and tariffs with New Zealand are down to zero. For Vietnam, tariffs of 34% dropped to zero as well. As we can see, it was a very successful deal.

Now let us talk about CETA, because it is going to be a bridge with the U.K. This deal was with the European Union, and prior to the deal only 25% of goods were duty free. Today, 98% are duty-free, and in seven years 99% will be duty free with some removals. CETA allowed us the best market access to the European Union. It also boosted Canada's trade and allowed us to have access to over 500 million people and lots of opportunities.

In Nova Scotia, the trades we did with the EU were 98% duty free. On seafood, we used to have tariffs of 11% to 25%, which were removed. The tariff was 11% to 25%. That was removed. This new CETA deal was a success for Nova Scotians in the food industry, the agriculture industry, the manufacturing industry, the seafood and the fish industries because it eliminated 96% of the tariffs that were in place.

Today we are talking about the departure of the U.K. from the European Union, so this agreement is a crucial one, because we wanted to avoid disruption. This is a trade continuity agreement. In November, the Minister of Small Business and her U.K. counterpart announced the successful conclusion of this trade continuity agreement. It is, of course, an interim deal, but what is crucial is that it preserves the main benefit of CETA, including the elimination of 98% of the tariffs, so it is again very successful. This continuity deal is bridging between CETA, which is so important for Canada. It maintains our preferential access and it also bridges this deal, as I have mentioned on a few occasions.

We had to do this quickly. As of January 1, 2021, CETA no longer applied to the U.K. Two-way merchandise export trade between Canada and the U.K. was the largest market in Europe in 2019. It was worth $29 billion just in 2019. The U.K. is also the fifth-largest partner, next to the United States, China, Mexico and Japan.

Beyond that, our relationship goes even further, because we have a long-lasting relationship of peace and we fought together in both world wars. We have a long-standing relationship with the United Kingdom.

With this deal, we are going to see opportunities for agriculture, fish and seafood exports. We are going to see opportunities in services and supplies, with guaranteed access for Canadian supplies to $188 billion worth of U.K. procurement. Having access to their procurement would be a very important part.

We have entered negotiations, and the objective is that as soon as we ratify this interim deal, we have one year to begin negotiations, with the goal of a new bilateral trade agreement within the next three years. Our government will work hard to ensure high standards and an ambitious agreement, which will also focus on the environment, on women, on small business and on digital, which are all important pieces of our trade deals, past and future.

This interim trade deal is an opportunity for our exports. It is an opportunity for our services. It has given us access to their procurement, which is worth $188 billion. It ensures high standards for labour, the environment and dispute resolution. It is also a commitment for subsequent negotiations. This is a great deal. We are moving forward and we are very pleased to move forward on this.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I could not help but notice that the member said that this deal had to be rushed because the timing was so important.

Why would we have to rush the deal? It seems that the Liberals never take action until we are in crisis mode. Why was this deal not worked on for months prior, if not years, instead of arriving at the 12th hour? Liberals did what they always do, creating their own chaos and having to rush deals through that we never have time to properly scrutinize.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has to realize that trade deals take time. They are negotiated. Of course, the U.K. had to work its way through the CETA agreement with the European Union. We have been in conversations with it now for quite a long time. This deal is bridging us to future negotiations, through which we will have a much more comprehensive deal, but this agreement is ensuring the predictability and stability that is needed to move forward, as of day one, on January 1.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my colleague could comment on the fact that this was a real opportunity for Canada to do some interim measures.

There is nothing in the agreement that states it is interim. It could end up being permanent. We are dealing with one country only. This point has already been mentioned, but I will ask again why we did not take advantage of this opportunity to get agreement on reciprocity on increases for pensions for U.K. pensioners in Canada, just as Canadian pensioners in the U.K. get increased indexed pensions. Can the Liberals explain why that was not done and why it could not be done?

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has to realize this is not a comprehensive agreement. That is what will follow.

I would say “absolutely not” to his suggestion that this could be the deal. It is agreed upon that the U.K. has one year from the ratification of this deal to begin official negotiations on a comprehensive deal, with the goal of achieving it within the next three years. Because of the relationship I shared earlier throughout my speech regarding Canada and the United Kingdom, I am convinced we will arrive at a conclusion that will not only be good for the U.K. but also very good for Canada and the Canadian business community to have access and the like.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke a lot about our fishery resources in his speech.

However, one specific sector in Quebec has often been neglected under the last few trade agreements. I am talking about the agricultural sector and the breaches in supply management.

The three most recent trade agreements opened up breaches in the supply management system. Producers are getting compensation, but it will never make up for everything they lost through these international agreements.

I would like to know what my colleague could do about that.

For example, would he be prepared to support Bill C-216, introduced by the member for Berthier—Maskinongé, which would prevent further breaches in supply management in international agreements?

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her important question.

I can assure her that the agricultural sector is part of this negotiation and will be part of the more comprehensive final negotiation.

As my colleague pointed out, supply management is very important to Canada. We have protected the supply management system in all of the agreements that we have signed, even though we had to make some adjustments and compensate for losses in certain sectors.

We have not made any concessions this time. I sincerely hope that we will come to an agreement that does not take anything away from the sectors in question.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to enter into debate on Bill C-16. Trade agreements are an important subject of debate within this House, and I am glad that we have this opportunity.

Before I forget, I will mention that I will be sharing my time with my friend, the member for Regina—Lewvan.

Before I get into the substance of my speech, since I am on my feet in the House, I will note that today is a day of remembrance for the tragic shooting that took place at a mosque in Quebec. It is incumbent upon all of us to ensure that we take the time today to consider the implications of hate. Likewise, two days ago was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Two poignant days this week remind us all of the tragic consequences of hate.

We are entering into debate on one of the constitutionally significant roles that this place plays: Canada's relationship with other global jurisdictions. In that context, there is no more important relationship than the one we have with Great Britain, the United Kingdom.

We share a governmental system. In fact, the opening lines of our Constitution refer to this government as being based in principle upon the Westminster system of governance. Certainly we share a lot of history, and even the symbolism around this place and in many of our provincial flags represents that long-shared history.

The United Kingdom has undertaken some pretty significant changes over the last number of years, as we have seen with Brexit, the exit of the United Kingdom, after a referendum, from the European Union. Last year it negotiated the intricacies of that departure, bringing us to the point where we are today, debating a continuity agreement as a stopgap between the previous CETA and what we expect will be a more comprehensive trade agreement in the coming years. The United Kingdom is acknowledging what it has gone through over the last year as well, in exiting the European Union while securing trade agreements with many partners in Europe and around the world.

It is a little troubling, because in typical government fashion and in direct contradiction to commitments made in this place, this process was brought forward at the 11th hour. The parliamentary secretary who spoke before me made a statement that trade deals take time. Yes, that is absolutely correct, but it is incumbent upon the government to ensure that steps are taken to anticipate changes.

We knew for a number of years that the circumstances relating to the U.K.'s position in Europe would be changing significantly. It is disappointing, quite frankly, that we now find ourselves debating this continuity agreement at the 11th hour, while other comparable jurisdictions have taken steps to go much further than what we are debating here today.

It is the opinion of many that had the government been more proactive, had the government worked more diligently to ensure that steps were taken early, we would be in a very different position. Because Canada is a trading nation, we have spent a lot of time this week discussing our trading relationship with our neighbours to the south. As well, I believe the United Kingdom is our fourth-largest trading partner. All of these sorts of agreements have massive implications upon our economy, upon jobs and upon the security of Canadians.

One of the troubling trends we see with the government is that it seems to not take seriously the need for certainty, investment certainty and certainty of the economic circumstances that allow people to do things like plan for their future.

A trade agreement is a massive undertaking. Negotiations between two jurisdictions are complex. In the case of the United Kingdom, we have similar legal systems and a long history. We share a Queen. We could not be closer than that. There are massive intricacies involved the negotiations. When we see these eleventh hour deals brought forward, it brings a level of uncertainty. Although many may suggest that it does not have an impact on the ground for regular Canadians, it has a significant impact. Jobs are impacted each and every day by the certainty of ensuring that investment has a clear path. When companies or entities are looking to invest in jurisdictions, they want that certainty. They want that understanding that there will not be a massive upheaval in jurisdictions, that there will be consistency in the long term.

This is really at the heart of why it is so troubling that we are debating this. We are actually debating this after the U.K. left the European Union, although work has been done to ensure there are further stopgaps that provide a bridge between the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union, which took place the last day of last year. Before the bill is passed, some significant work has been done to ensure there are measures to bridge that. Now we are debating another bridge to what we will see within three years very clearly as we will enter into more extensive negotiations for further trade agreements. That speaks to some of the challenges we face and why this debate is so important.

Many aspects of the bill reflect similarly the agreement we negotiated with CETA. I would like to compliment the former Conservative government led by Stephen Harper and specifically the member for Abbotsford, who was the trade minister for a good portion of the Harper government's tenure. There is no question that the Conservative Party is the party of free trade. When that member spoke on the bill the other day, he brought incredible wisdom to the conversation and the clear fact that many of the deals that the Liberal government had taken credit for was because of the heavy lifting done by the previous Conservative government.

In fact, when it comes to CETA, we saw the panic on the faces of Liberal ministers when they almost screwed up. They had to rush back into negotiations with Brussels and other jurisdictions to save the deal because they decided to change things. Then we saw how they were quick to jump into negotiations with the United States, and we came out behind in the new NAFTA or the “halfta” agreement. With respect to the CPTPP, much of the heavy lifting was done by the previous government.

There are significant details I would love to get into, but I do not have the time. However, the Liberals will claim that they are all about free trade. The reality is that even in the 1993 election, they ran on a campaign of two major promises. The first was to get rid of the GST, but I still see GST on everything. The second was to pull out of NAFTA. However, when they saw the value of trade, they seemed to have changed their tune. I am proud to be part of a party that has worked diligently to increase trade globally.

I know a number of members have brought forward the need to address some of the pension disparity that U.K. expatriates have in Canada. I often hear from constituents who have uncertainty regarding their pensions. I would hope that as the government moves forward into the complete trade agreement, it would use its position at the bargaining table to advocate for U.K. pensioners who live in Canada and, in some cases, have lived in Canada for many years.

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

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to discuss Bill C-18, the continuity agreement between Canada and the United Kingdom. For a little background, I would like to take us through the relationship that we have had with the United Kingdom and how we have come to this point so far.

The United Kingdom is our fifth-largest trading partner and third-largest export market, with two-way trade between the U.K. and Canada worth $29 billion as of 2019. When the United Kingdom left the European Union on January 31, 2020, a transitional period lasting until December 31, 2020, went into effect. If no Canada-U.K. agreement were in place by the close of the transitional period, CETA, Canada's trade agreement with the EU, would no longer govern trade between Canada and the U.K. Trade instead would be governed by the U.K. Global Tariff scheme. This would have been the worst-case scenario for Canadian business.

In July 2018, a notice was issued in the Canada Gazette that the government was intending to negotiate a Canada-U.K. trade agreement. Canada walked away from the trade negotiations with the U.K. in March 2019, only to return to the table in July 2020.

When questioned on the status of this agreement in early November 2020, the Prime Minister made a remark that the U.K. lacked “the bandwidth” to finalize an agreement, despite the U.K. having concluded negotiations with multiple countries.

On November 21, Canadian and U.K. officials announced that an agreement had been reached. The government finally tabled legislation to enact the agreement, Bill C-18, on December 9, 2020, just two House of Commons sitting days before CETA's application to the U.K. would end. During committee testimony, the minister stated that she had not coordinated with the Senate on this bill's passage and it was likely not to be ratified by the end of 2020. As the government did not have time to pass and enact the legislation before year's end, on December 22, Canada and the U.K. reached a memorandum of understanding to provide continued preferential tariff treatment until the Canada-United Kingdom trade continuity act is ratified.

I lay out these timelines because it is a continuing pattern with the government and it should be a worrisome pattern to Canadians. It seems that the government only takes action on files and on issues when it comes to the crisis point, and that is no way to govern. There are countless examples that lay out the government's pattern of basically waiting until the 12th hour and not making a decision until one is foisted upon it.

We saw it when it came to the negotiations for CUSMA, the new NAFTA. Our negotiators were late coming to the table. The United States was negotiating with Mexico before our negotiators were even there. I do not lay that at the feet of the public servants within Canada; I lay it at the feet of the government, this Prime Minister and the former foreign affairs minister, who waited and waited to get engaged and get involved with the administration in the United States on behalf of Canadians. We needed to have competent people at that table to fight to get us the best possible trade deal when it came to CUSMA. Unfortunately, they failed Canadians once again, because they waited until the last hour to try to negotiate a deal.

Unfortunately, we saw it recently again when it came to the cancellation of the Keystone XL expansion. We know that President Biden campaigned on this deal, so the cancellation should not have come as a surprise to the government. Not in just the four days before he was inaugurated, but in the months after he became president-elect and in the years before Mr. Biden went to Washington, our ambassador should have been promoting the idea of Keystone XL tirelessly, talking about how well our oil sector is doing environmentally, talking about how the Keystone XL pipeline would create jobs not only in Canada but in America as well. That is what we should be doing differently.

When I talk about Keystone XL, people ask what I would do differently. To start, I would be a proud advocate on behalf of our energy sector and an advocate on behalf of Canadian businesses. That would be the start of not always being the last one to the dance or the last one to the table, and trying to play catch-up every time there is a new decision that needs to be made.

We have seen this in other recent negotiations by the government. We saw it when the COVID pandemic outbreak started. I am new in the Chamber, and I am slowly learning the processes of what it takes to pass legislation. However, there are a lot of people who have been here for a long time, especially on the government benches.

However, once again, the government has foisted a huge spending bill on this House, and because it was not prepared, it is saying that we need to pass it so that spending gets out the door. I remember we had four hours to debate hundreds of billions of dollars worth of spending because the government was not prepared. The government is not providing certainty to Canadians.

Time and time again, when it comes to providing opportunities to not only oppose legislation or oppose agreements, but also to take a fine eye and go through them to help the government make better decisions and come up with better trade agreements and legislation, the government has continuously been found lacking.

We are seeing this again with the crisis that arose with approving the continuation of spending. The government did not realize the COVID programs were sunsetting, and they needed to be continued. Where is the foresight? Where is the foresight for Canadians to ensure that the programs are there? Where is the foresight, when the government is making agreements with the U.K. or the United States, to be there earlier to talk and advocate on behalf of Canadian businesses and what Canadians want to see in the agreement?

The government could take a page from Japan's book during its U.K. negotiations. Japan's trade delegation was able to secure a free trade agreement with the United Kingdom on October 23, several months before Canada was ready to move ahead with an agreement.

Like Canada's agreement, Japan's agreement is very similar to what it had in place when the U.K. was still a member of the European Union. Unlike Canada's agreement, however, the U.K. and Japan were able to identify and eliminate enough trade barriers to result in an additional £15 billion, or over $25 billion, in trade between their two countries. They made sure that the agreement was already firmly in place before the trade agreement deadline of January 1, 2021. Not only did this give Japanese businesses and investors a head start over other countries, but they were able to take advantage of new negotiating positions and score big wins for its automotive sector.

I ask members to imagine a government that has the foresight to make trade deals sooner, and to make them better and in favour of the businesses in the country it represents. That would be a great country to be a part of, one with a government that actually cares about some of its industries.

We know that the Liberal government has difficulties with the philosophy of being an energy independent country. We understand that it does not like what we do in western Canada. It does not like the energy sector.

I remember when the Prime Minister let it slip that he wants to phase out the energy sector and the oil sands. Unfortunately, through the litany of promises he has made and broken, this might be the one promise in which he actually succeeds, the phasing out the energy sector across western Canada. That will not only damage those in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Newfoundland and Labrador, but it will also damage us across the country. When the energy sector does well in Canada, Canadians do well, and our economy does well.

It is imperative for people to realize we are being forced to make decisions in crisis mode because the government has continuously had a lack of foresight to do the groundwork necessary to make sure Canadians are getting the best deal. Whether it is the CUSMA, the Canada-United Kingdom trade agreement, or the cancellation of Keystone XL, the government continues to show Canadians that it does not have the ability to govern competently. That means we need a government that is working hard for Canadians, respects all industries in this country and wants to secure our future for generations to come

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

Mr. Speaker, there was no shortage of points raised in my hon. colleague's speech that I would like to correct. Perhaps, just to mention off the top, in response to his mention of CUSMA, I would remind him that it was actually months of extensive work by all members of the House of Commons in order to negotiate a successful agreement, which was the result of the president at the time threatening to rip up the NAFTA agreement. If he does not want to take my word for it, or the word of the minister responsible for it, I would suggest he speak to former prime minister Brian Mulroney.

With respect to the Canada-U.K. free trade agreement that is the subject of the bill we are discussing today, I would like to hear from my hon. colleague with respect to the farmers and producers in his region in Saskatchewan. What I am hearing from those very farmers is that they would like this agreement to be ratified as soon as possible so they can benefit from this trade agreement.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I would just remind my hon. colleague that the Liberals were not even at the table when Mexico and the United States were bargaining and negotiating CUSMA. I will take what she has to say with a grain of salt.

When it comes to the farmers in my home province of Saskatchewan, I am happy a Liberal has finally noticed that we do have farmers in Saskatchewan. Without a doubt, the trade agreement should get ratified and get done so we can continue to have that trade with the United Kingdom.

However, and this point cannot be made enough, they are always so late coming to the table. They are so late coming to a trade agreement deal that we have to accept whatever is forced upon us. Why can the government not be like Japan and make better trade agreements within that trade continuity agreement?

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will take the floor while we are talking about agriculture.

My esteemed colleague, who sits with me on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food and whom I hold in high regard, raised the lack of transparency in the recent negotiations that were held behind closed doors. This was thrown at us at the last minute, and then we are asked to rush through a vote.

Does he not believe that the agricultural sectors that have been sacrificed so much lately, like the supply-managed sectors, should be protected?

Should we not adopt Bill C-216 to avoid any new surprises?

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's great work on the agriculture standing committee. It is an honour to serve with him. Our committee has done a lot of work promoting farmers. We are doing a study right now to see how we can increase capacity and our processing across the country.

One thing that we should do, whenever we come into trade negotiations, is make sure that we have farmers across the country in the forefront of our minds as we are making trade deals. In Canada, we have the best agriculture producers in the world. We need to continue to promote those great quality products such as poultry, milk, lentils and pulse crops. We have to ensure that the world knows that Canada has the highest quality goods and make sure we have trade agreements in place that have the backs of our farmers across the country.

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think we missed the questions for the last speaker. I was hoping to ask him about the record for the Harper government and the Canada-China FIPA, which is an outrageous agreement with a 15-year clause on it before we can get out of that agreement. This is unlike all our other FIPAs, which have one-year get-out clauses. That agreement gives Chinese state-owned corporations extraordinary powers to invest in this country and then challenge our laws and policies when they do not like them.

I would like to ask the hon. member about this agreement and what he thinks about giving Communist China so much power over our resources and over foreign investment in this country.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith mentioned the word “resources” and that makes me laugh. This is coming from a member who has wanted to crush the resource sector in Canada since he took his spot in the House of Commons. This is coming from a member who is happy to say oil is dead across the country and support his leader when she welcomed Keystone XL being vetoed. For him to stand up and ask that question is beyond the point of hypocritical.

If he wants to support our energy sector, he should ask his leader to stop making ridiculous claims, actually get on board, and support the hard-working men and women across our country who go to work every day in our resource sector and do a fantastic job.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Before we move on, I would like to advise the House that since there have been a total of five hours of debate on this motion, all subsequent interventions will be limited to 10 minutes for speeches and five minutes for questions and comments.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The previous speaker from the Green Party commented that he was not able to ask questions regarding his concerns and noted that a member was not in the chamber at the time. I recognize that we are all working together because we understand that we want to get the bill through, and we want to have debate. We are aware of the time, so let us all work together and get this done.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order, I was paying attention as well, and while I appreciate the point that my hon. colleague from the Conservative Party just made, I want to correct the record in that the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith did not point out the presence or absence of anyone in the House. He merely said there was no opportunity to ask questions of the member who spoke right before question period. I just did not want—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I do not want to get into a debate on this question. Let me say for the benefit of other hon. members that this opportunity is not always available. When an hon. member, the previous one being the member for Battle River—Crowfoot, is unable to do the five minutes of questions and comments because it is time for Statements by Members, and thereafter question period, sometimes members will have to go on and do other things.

When this occurs, the likelihood of there being a continuation of that five minutes for questions and comments is not always assured. Members should not be surprised if that occurs in the course of the sitting day, and I would ask hon. members for their patience in that regard. If the member is not available to take the time for remaining questions and comments, we move on to the next speaker on the list and carry on with the debate.

I thank hon. members for their patience.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-18, an act to implement the agreement on trade continuity between Canada and the United Kingdom.

The Bloc Québécois has always been in favour of free trade, so it will come as no surprise that we are in favour of this bill to approve the agreement and make the necessary legislative changes for the transitional and coming into force provisions. It is important to realize from the outset that the purpose of the agreement is to keep trade flowing. Maintaining the flow of trade is of the utmost importance to our businesses, in Quebec in particular.

What does the agreement do? It keeps 98% of goods tariff-free and preserves access to government procurement, which may seem restrictive in some ways, but which gives us access to a market worth $118 billion annually. Agreements on services, investments, intellectual property, sustainable development, environmental protection and labour standards are all renewed. It is all good, and that is why we are in favour of the bill.

However, we have to anticipate greater competition in the U.K. because the reality has just changed. That country will be perfectly entitled to change its tariff rates on other trade partners, including those that are members of the World Trade Organization.

Nobody will be surprised to hear me say a few words about agriculture. Fortunately, this agreement does not increase access to our supply-managed sectors. Unfortunately, that is only for the time being. Let us be realistic. This is a transitional agreement while we await a permanent one.

Consider the side letter about cheese, which states that cheese originating in the United Kingdom shall continue to be imported into Canada under the tariff rate quota for the European Union until 2023. It will then be up to the U.K. to negotiate a new reserve and to talk to its trading partner, Canada and Quebec, about what it can export here. I do not want to be pessimistic, but I have a feeling the U.K. will ask us to let more cheese in. Our answer must be a hard no. We must and will be vigilant. Regardless of what happens with the United Kingdom's cheese exports, it is not up to producers in Quebec and Canada to pay for Great Britain's choice. That must be clear from the start.

We know that our farmers across the country, particularly in Quebec, have demands. Through its president, Daniel Gobeil, the Producteurs de lait du Québec is calling for “the federal government [to] continue to keep its promise to stop making concessions in the dairy sector in other trade negotiations, just as it did in the transitional agreement between Canada and the United Kingdom”, the agreement we are talking about today. Obviously, Mr. Gobeil is talking about the dairy industry, but other associations, such as those representing egg and poultry farmers, feel the same way. It would also be good to hear what processors have to say since they are always left out when it comes to compensation.

Let us be vigilant and protect key sectors of our economy, such as dairy production, in the case of Mr. Gobeil, which represents a significant portion of our GDP, or $6.2 billion to be exact. We can do that by passing Bill C-216, which was introduced by the Bloc Québécois and seeks to exclude supply-managed sectors from future trade negotiations. Of course, we understand that some people are concerned that doing so could negatively impact a future agreement. However, every country has sectors that it needs to protect and, in our case, these sectors have already given enough, since the dairy sector alone has already given up 18% of its market.

This fight must continue. Once again, I invite all parliamentarians to support our bill. Even if their minds are made up, they can change them.

In response to my question about compensation and promises, my esteemed colleague from the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food said earlier that we need to promote our agriculture. What a great idea. The next time we are negotiating a trade agreement, let us promote supply management rather than cutting it up into pieces and tossing it all over the place.

Let us teach others about this effective, amazing system that is working well for our farmers. Let us show others the way.

We have the right to assert ourselves. Once in a while, it is good to stand firm and stop giving in. I apologize to those who have already heard me say this, but I really like this sentence by Pierre Falardeau, who said, “If you lie down, they will stomp on you. If you remain standing and resist, they will hate you, but they will call you 'sir'.”

We have to protect our sectors from time to time. I therefore urge my colleagues to support Bill C-216. I was not planning on talking for so long, but I could not help myself.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, we support the agreement, but we denounce the lack of transparency.

Since the debate began, I have heard my colleagues repeat that it is not right that the text was unavailable. Remember, the Standing Committee on International Trade sat seven or eight times last fall without seeing the text. The meetings that took place over the summer also took place without the text. Committee members were not able to read the text until the day they were to submit their report.

I do not have the right to show my colleagues the document, but I would have liked to do so. It is not just a two-page letter. It is a very thick document written in small font. The situation is completely ridiculous. This government is always putting us in a position where urgent action needs to be taken at the last minute. It does not make sense.

Members need only think about what happened in the fall. We had to quickly vote on a Friday to extend the support measures that were expiring that Monday just because the government chose to shut down Parliament to cover up scandals.

I would like us to be able to do our job properly. The Bloc Québécois has not changed its views on that since October 2019. Of course, we come here to promote Quebec's independence, but we also come here to work in a constructive way and to make progress. We come here to work for our constituents, to keep the economy going. We cannot work if we do not know what is happening. Think about all of the improvements that we could make.

Even when we get commitments from the House, there is no follow-through. The Canada emergency student benefit is an example of that. We got a formal commitment from the House, but it took months for anything to actually happen.

The NDP secured an agreement for advance access to the CUSMA documents. This time, we did not get the documents. Transparency is very important. Not having access to the documents is preposterous, and so is getting them at the last minute. We need to think about revamping the system. I encourage my colleagues in government and the other parties to start thinking about that.

Let us come up with a process. We cannot keep acting in this bad movie where we are forced to vote for agreements with our backs to the wall and a knife at our throats without having read the documents, purportedly to prevent people from running out of grocery money. That is preposterous. The same thing happened with this agreement.

We also need to find a way for the provinces and Quebec to participate. My colleague, who is a member of the Standing Committee on International Trade, suggested to the committee that Quebec be invited to participate in the negotiations. His suggestion was turned down. In fact, it was turned down by many of the members, including the Conservatives. They have been sucking up to Quebec in recent weeks, claiming that they will give us everything we want. Apparently that is not really true.

In closing, I want to say that what I like about Brexit is the independence aspect. This is a clear, powerful example of a state reclaiming its trade bargaining powers overnight. The fearmongering federalists want us to believe that this would be a horror show, but the Brits signed agreements with 60 of the 70 countries with which they had relationships before leaving the European Union.

Since Canada always waits until the last minute, it is not one of the countries with which the Brits signed agreements. We are doing so now, but I want to point out that today is January 29 and we have continued to trade since Brexit came into force on January 1.

The evidence is clear, and it speaks for itself. It was not a disaster. There are, of course, some adjustments to be made, but it was not a disaster.

Canada ranks fifth in terms of trade with the United States. I might disappoint some people by saying that the United States will not stop trading with us if we become independent. Furthermore, we will be able to sign agreements and protect our key sectors.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

Let me first clarify something. I want to make sure my colleague understands that the study we did in committee was a pre-study on the possibility of signing a transitional agreement with the United Kingdom, and that we are awaiting the passage of Bill C-18 at second reading before we begin our study of the legislation and the text of the agreement.

Did we stand up for our dairy farmers? Personally, I think we did. I also think that members from Quebec should take a moment to celebrate the fact that we kept our word and protected the dairy farmers of Quebec and Canada.

When Mr. Gobeil appeared before the Standing Committee on International Trade, he thanked the Prime Minister and the minister for keeping their promise and protecting our agricultural sector.

Would my colleague agree that we have done that?

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her very interesting question.

She used the words “preliminary study” and “possibility”. That is ridiculous. As elected members, we manage the country. We need to have access to the documents. Need I say more?

The last time, the government managed to salvage something from the wreckage, which is fine, but they should not be surprised if the smell of smoke lingers. It is true that Mr. Gobeil thanked the government for what it managed to salvage—which we will need to clean to get the smoke smell out—but he is also asking us to support Bill C-216.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to hear the member's thoughts on investor-state provisions.

We were supposed to see provisions that would improve transparency, but foreign companies will still have access to a special court system to challenge Canadian laws without going through domestic courts. Canada is already one of the most sued countries in the world under ISDS. These existing ISDS measures have also contributed to a regulatory chill, where governments fail to take actions in the public interest that they fear might trigger an investor claim.

Does the member agree that it is irresponsible for the government to not adequately protect Canadians from this kind of regime?

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Victoria for the great question.

I will be brief, the answer to her question is yes. Yes, we must protect ourselves from that.

The good news with respect to the U.K. agreement is that the dispute resolution process, which could give rise to such claims, will not come into effect for three years. We have the opportunity to negotiate. I have a message for the Liberal government: Negotiations must not be undertaken at the last minute.

The government introduced the bill two days before the end of the session, or just before the holidays. That is a joke. It must give us time.

I agree with the member for Victoria. We need to curb this tendency and protect state sovereignty, because we also need to protect people's sovereignty.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, you are doing an excellent job.

I have a question for my colleague from the Bloc Québécois. The Green Party is against agreements that include investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms. I think it is terrible to have treaties that protect the rights of major foreign corporations and not the Canadian economy.

What is the Bloc Québécois's position on investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms?

[The Acting Speaker, Christine Normandin]

The hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to be given the floor by this new occupant of the chair. I am a bit flustered.

I thank my colleague from the Green Party for the question. It is essentially the same question as before. I will reiterate my position. We are in favour of protecting the sovereignty of states because we are in favour of protecting the sovereignty of peoples. Obviously, we must avoid giving businesses the ability to sue governments. It is a dangerous thing that we must fight against.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Madam Speaker, like my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé, I am honoured to be given the floor by this new chair occupant.

First, I would like to thank someone who worked very hard on this file on behalf of the Bloc Québécois, and that is my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot. I would like to thank him for the work he did in committee to defend the views of the Bloc Québécois and all the work he did for Quebeckers to help them better understand the issues related to trade agreements, something that many people feel is far removed from their daily lives. However, as we saw during the debate, these issues have a very real impact on people's lives and even affect the issue of independence, which is something that our party cares a lot about.

What is more, I would like to thank those of my colleagues who, like the member from Berthier—Maskinongé, spoke to Bill C-216. We see that everything is related and that the work of the Bloc Québécois, what we are going to do to defend agriculture and food sovereignty, is essential. I therefore thank my colleagues for demonstrating how this teamwork helps Quebec to be better heard and defended.

It has been said before, but I think it bears repeating: The Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-18. We are not questioning the need for trade agreements and treaties that have been around since the beginning of time and that improve people's lives from an economic, social and cultural perspective.

This debate is about a bill to implement a temporary agreement that will be in effect until a permanent trade agreement is signed. This historic example is proof that there is no black hole when at state decides to reclaim its sovereignty. Everyone wants to keep the trade channel open so we can reassure our businesses and our economy that there will be a smooth transition. Because this agreement is temporary, we can make improvements. Having to renegotiate is not a bad thing; it actually provides opportunities, including the opportunity to work on one of the issues that came up today, dispute resolution mechanisms. We will have no choice but to renegotiate in the coming months, and that is a good thing.

Here is the first thing I would like us to focus on now: transparency in all its forms. I feel like I have talked about this concept repeatedly during this Parliament and the previous one. I am going to talk about how the committee work played out and how we ended up studying this bill. I found the whole process totally ridiculous, and I want to stress that.

I will use an analogy to put the situation in context. In our personal life, when we reach an agreement or sign a contract to buy a car—a very practical example—or to get married, which outside of love may be very practical as well, the stakeholders, those who are affected by the agreement or the contract, have to be heard. They must be able to express their interests and their wishes and to discuss them. For there to be agreement, the people involved have to be able to talk to one another. The bill was tabled on December 9 at the Standing Committee on International Trade, just two days before the House rose for the break.

As my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot put it so well, it really is like a theatre of the absurd. What is even worse is that the Liberals have no idea they live in such a world, although everyone else sees it.

The government brought this bill before the committee and asked that it be reported back. In this case, committee members were to examine a trade agreement and submit a report.

Without access to the text of the agreement, they had to take part in the deliberations, express opinions, take considerations into account and ask all their questions. This is completely absurd, even beyond absurd. This calls into question the very privileges of parliamentarians.

We are talking about legislating, deliberating and holding the government to account when we cannot even express our views on a bill. I do not think my constituents would be very pleased with me if I told them I voted for a bill without having any idea what it was about or what impact it might have. They would not understand that, like a good, obedient opposition member, I trusted the government, which has fooled us many times with these kinds of trade agreements. I do not need to name them, because they include last three agreements.

I believe that we have the right to legislate, deliberate and hold the government to account. However, to do this properly, we need all the information.

I find that the government is irresponsible. As parliamentarians and citizens, we must always learn from our mistakes, find solutions and do better. I am urging us to do so as we move forward. As this is a transitional agreement, we should not wait until the last minute again. We must renegotiate and we can establish a timeline so that this happens very quickly.

I would also like to talk about the historical perspective, which we as separatists have a keen interest in. I have already thanked my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot for his analysis of Brexit, the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. It represents a true precedent for Quebec. We are seeing the will of a nation to take back its sovereignty. We are moving from theory to reality.

How many times have we heard economic threats directed at separatists, telling us that we cannot make it without Canada? I think we have often seen that we are very capable of making it without Canada. My colleague from Saint-Jean noted earlier that Quebec does not wish to be independent solely for economic considerations.

This is a practical, and not theoretical, example of what happens when a trading nation decides to take back its sovereignty. The United Kingdom's experience is a prime example. There was no black hole at the end of these agreements during the transition period. The United Kingdom has already restored 60 of the 70 trade agreements that had been signed with the European Union. I think it is worth noting that the Brits now have an agreement with Japan, which they did not have before.

Earlier the notion of turbulence came up. In response to that, I want to point out that no matter where you fly, your plane will go through turbulence, and yet you always get to your destination. I am happy to get on that plane, whether it is headed towards Ottawa or towards Quebec's independence.

As a final note on the topic of sovereignty, decision-making and the opportunity to do things on our own, I want to stress that our principles and our values are not for sale. Topics such as health, workers' rights, the environment, food sovereignty and democracy are all things that a sovereign state can protect. When we step up to a bargaining table, we do not negotiate over issues that are important to us, that make us who we are or that bring us together to work as a people, as a whole. That is why we want to sign our own trade agreements.

We could then protect supply management, softwood lumber, aluminum and all of the issues that make Quebec what it is. This is what my constituents want.

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

Madam Speaker, I have listened to members of the Bloc talk a lot about what I perceive to be a downplaying of the economic reality of what would happen if Quebec took on independence when it comes to economic trade. I have asked a couple of members about this in the past.

Can the member comment on what she thinks that economic reality would look like? It has been downplayed, and I have not heard about what it would look like if it transpired.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for reiterating her question about concerns related to Quebec's independence.

I would say that fear is the federalists' only argument. Fear is irrational. Jacques Parizeau was a Quebec premier who I really liked. The inscription on his headstone reads, “Do not be afraid”. I can say that we separatists are not afraid. Building a country is exciting. It is what motivates all the members of the Bloc Québécois when they rise in the House. We will not stop our work because of scare tactics, quite the contrary. We will show that Quebec is a viable nation that is alive and well.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am very concerned about any comparison suggesting that what happened with the U.K. within the European Union was a loss of sovereignty. Conflating the parallels of Quebec within Canada and the U.K. within the European Union is a false comparison. There are many other aspects of the multilateralism in the European Union, and the U.K.'s place within it, that we should not celebrate. They are ripping apart effective, functioning protections for the environment and human rights, as well as a display of multilateralism that was a good example for the world.

I respect that the hon. member and I have different views regarding the nation of Canada and the place Quebec has within it, but does she not agree with me that Canada would be so much more the poorer if we were to lose the critical role that Quebec plays in our environmental and cultural policies and our social fabric?

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Madam Speaker, there are so many things I want to say in my response to my colleague.

First, it is the United Kingdom's choice. In my opinion, withdrawing from a trade agreement does not mean that the U.K. will not respect or want to respect human rights. Withdrawing from the agreement also does not mean that the U.K. will no longer be interested in environmental issues, contrary to what my colleague was saying.

That brings me back to Quebec. Quebec is already struggling. Multilateralism can be worthwhile, but let us focus on the issue of the environment right now. Quebec is a leader in environmental issues, green energy and clean energy, but it is being penalized simply because it is located in Canada. The oil industry is still receiving federal funding, whereas Quebec is not getting anything for green energy, so there is a difference.

I want to say one last thing. Trade agreements are very important to peoples and to nations. I am talking about Bill C-18. The members of the Bloc Québécois have all spoken about it, but it always comes down to Quebec's independence. The economy is very much linked to independence and how it would benefit Quebec.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to hear my colleague briefly comment on what seems to be a recurring issue with the Liberals, namely a lack of transparency, as we saw with this agreement and also the WE scandal and vaccines.

I would like her to briefly comment on the Liberals' dangerous tendency of not being upfront with Canadians.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for Shefford for her question.

The lack of transparency is an affront to democracy, and this is what we see from the Liberals day after day, session after session here in Parliament. We have seen it in many different ways. I expect more from a government, and as an elected official, I want to defend our democracy. In a democracy, people need to be able to make informed decisions, especially when these decisions affect our constituents, Quebeckers.

[The Acting Speaker, Christine Normandin]

The member for Berthier—Maskinongé on a point of order.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to know how much time we have left today.

[The Acting Speaker, Christine Normandin]

To answer the hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé's question, I am being told that we have 16 minutes remaining.

The hon. member for St. Albert—Edmonton.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-18, an act to implement the Canada-United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement. I will say at the outset that I support the passage of this legislation so that the agreement can be studied at committee. I will also say, in unequivocal terms, that it is absolutely vital for Canada to achieve a permanent comprehensive trade agreement with the United Kingdom. It is vital for jobs. It is vital for trade stability, given the fact that the United Kingdom is Canada's fifth-largest trading partner and third-largest export market. It is vital given the special relationship that Canada enjoys with the United Kingdom.

Our countries share a common history and common values. Indeed, I can think of no more special of a relationship that Canada enjoys than that with the United Kingdom, other than perhaps that with the United States.

In light of that common history and common values, and the fact that trade between Canada and the United Kingdom is a big deal, with $29 billion of two-way merchandise trade in 2019 and opportunities to expand, five years after the Brexit referendum the government has failed to achieve a permanent comprehensive trade agreement with the United Kingdom. What we have instead is a transitory agreement that merely continues the terms of trade between Canada and the United Kingdom from CETA.

Let me be clear. CETA was a groundbreaking agreement, negotiated under the leadership of Prime Minister Harper by my colleague, the hon. member for Abbotsford, while he served as Minister of International Trade. On the whole, it has been a win for Canada regarding trade with the European Union broadly and in the context of trade with the United Kingdom. That being said, CETA was negotiated several years ago, and in that regard I would submit it constitutes the floor: We could do better, and we have not yet to date.

Why have we not done better? It seems that the basis for not doing better is the government's set of priorities. For much of the past five years, the government has been focused, when it comes to trade, on a trade deal with Communist China, an unreliable trading partner that does not share our values, instead of focusing on a trade agreement with countries like the United Kingdom that are reliable trading partners and share our values.

In March 2019, at the very first opportunity, Canada walked out of negotiations with the United Kingdom. The government then proceeded to sit on its hands, not just for weeks or months, but for more than a year. The government continued to sit on its hands even after the EU-U.K. withdrawal agreement took effect in January 2020. The withdrawal agreement set in motion the date upon which the European Union and the United Kingdom would sever their ties and, consequently, the United Kingdom would no longer be a party to CETA. That date was December 31, 2020.

Notwithstanding that, while other countries secured permanent trade agreements with the United Kingdom, the current government instead chose to let the clock tick: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, and achieved nothing. In November, we got this trade continuity agreement: a copy-and-paste of CETA, the floor for it, rather than something closer to the ceiling. The government then dithered yet again and failed to bring forward enabling legislation until two days before the House rose for Christmas. That made it virtually impossible to ratify the trade agreement by the December 31 deadline.

As a result of the government's mismanagement, Canada was put at the precipice in its trade relationship with the United Kingdom, with no trade agreement in place but a trade relationship that would be governed by WTO rules. It was a completely untenable situation that was only averted as a result of a memorandum of understanding the government entered into on December 22, nine days before the December 31 deadline. Talk about cutting it close. Talk about a lack of a plan. Talk about a lack of prioritizing Canada's important trading relationship with the United Kingdom and, more broadly, the very special relationship we enjoy with the United Kingdom.

As I say, maintaining the CETA terms does provide stability. It provides continuity for the exchange of goods and services between Canada and the United Kingdom, and that is a good thing. However, we could have done a lot better. We could have addressed a number of issues with CETA, including non-tariff barriers; opportunities to expand the export of agricultural products and goods, particularly beef and pork, where we have had significant challenges with the European Union; and opportunities to expand investment and to achieve greater regulatory alignment and to make closer the relationship between Canada and the United Kingdom.

It is true that this agreement does contemplate that within a year of its ratification, negotiations will commence toward a comprehensive trade agreement to be concluded within three years. However, there is no mechanism to require that to happen. There is no sunset clause to this agreement.

Consequently, what we have is a purportedly temporary agreement that might in fact be a permanent one. I hope it is not. I hope the government refocuses. I hope it prioritizes getting back to the negotiating table, something it largely failed to do over the last five years, and engages with the United Kingdom, as described by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, correctly, I believe, as an “open, generous, outward-looking, internationalist and free-trading” country.

Let us get back to the negotiating table to negotiate a permanent comprehensive trade deal that will be a win-win for Canada and the United Kingdom.

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

Mr. Speaker, from listening to my colleague's intervention today, although I recognize that he accepts that this interim agreement is important and acceptable for now, I do not see his appreciating why businesses might actually want that stability now.

Certainly business owners in my community who do a lot of exporting are going to want to know at this time what they can depend on, that there is continuity and that what they are used will continue. Right now in the middle of a pandemic is not the time, in my opinion, when businesses want to start worrying about how trade relationships, especially with a country like the U.K., might be affected.

Would the member like to comment on how he sees this from a business perspective in terms of that continuity?

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Kingston and the Islands is right that continuity and certainty are important to Canadian businesses that do business in the United Kingdom. That is why it is unfortunate that we have this 11th hour agreement that left Canadian businesses in a precarious position, not knowing until the 11th hour that there would in fact be, at this point, an interim agreement, a carry-over agreement. As a result, business, labour, and many sectors across Canada and Parliament were not adequately consulted.

It has been a failed process and it is an unfortunate one. It could have been worse, but it certainly should have been better.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

Our colleague opposite spoke about the anxiety of businesses that are not considered essential. I would like my colleague from St. Albert—Edmonton to tell us about parliamentarians' anxiety when they have to work on international agreements without seeing the text, and the anxiety of supply-managed farmers who are always sacrificed at the last minute.

In conclusion, does he not think that we should pass Bill C-216 to avoid nasty surprises and prevent anxiety for our agricultural producers, who are the foundation of our economy?

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Berthier—Maskinongé is right that there has been a lot of uncertainty. He is also right to suggest that the government has no reason to brag when it comes to supply-managed sectors. The government, after all, did not get a deal on that. All it got was an extension of the current terms of CETA. With respect to the government's record on delivering compensation to supply-managed sectors in respect of other agreements, we know it has failed to meet the promises it made.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, is the member concerned about the government's saying that it will start negotiations in a year and that its goal is to have an agreement in three years with no sunset clause? If it does not reach its goal in three years, I guess it will change its goal to another three years and if it does not achieve that, it will go on for another three years.

Is the member concerned that there is no sunset clause to make a permanent agreement? Right now, it is not bound to anything; it just continues on. I would like to hear the member's comments on that, please.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in short, yes, I am concerned about the absence of a sunset clause. Although this agreement is being billed as a temporary transitional agreement, a carry-over agreement, and the government has gone to pains to emphasize that fact, there is no guarantee. It could in fact be a permanent agreement; hence, the need for the government to focus and get back to the table so that we do reach a permanent agreement like other countries have achieved but we have not.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I would like to make a brief comment before moving to the next question.

I am so grateful to the hon. member for Saint-Jean for replacing me for a few minutes. It is sometimes necessary on Fridays. She heard a point of order, and there were some problems with the technology. She did an excellent job, and I thank her.

The question is on the motion.

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes to request a recorded division or that the motion be adopted on division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

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

I request a recorded division.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Accordingly, pursuant to an order made on Monday, January 25, the division stands deferred until Monday, February 1, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

It being 1:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.

The House resumed from January 29 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

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

It being 3:10 p.m., pursuant to order made on Monday, January 25, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at the second reading stage of Bill C-18.

Call in the members.

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #43

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on International Trade.

(Bill read the second time and referred to a committee)