Bill C-13

An Act to implement the Protocol on the Accession of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

This enactment implements the Protocol on the Accession of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, done at Auckland and Bandar Seri Begawan on July 16, 2023, by updating how that Agreement is defined or referred to in certain Acts and by amending other Acts to bring them into conformity with Canada’s obligations under that Agreement and Protocol.

An Act to implement the Protocol on the Accession of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Bow River.

I rise today to speak to Bill C-13, an act to implement the protocol on the accession of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. It may be a technical bill filled with tariff schedules, statutory amendments and trade protocols, but it represents something deeply important: the partnerships we build between nations.

Conservatives have always believed in free and fair trade. We know that open markets, clear rules and reliable partners drive prosperity. The United Kingdom's accession to the CPTPP would strengthen that rules-based framework and deepen our trade with a close ally that shares our democratic values, our legal traditions and our belief in opportunity through enterprise, so yes, there is some good to be found in the bill.

However, support does not mean silence, because while the agreement is long overdue, Liberal trade policy is riddled with big announcements, poor follow-through and a willingness to please foreign governments while leaving Canadian citizens and businesses behind. Many of my colleagues have spoken more directly to these Liberal failures, but today I want to focus on an issue that affects more than 2,800 people in my riding and thousands more people across Canada, which is the frozen pensions of British Canadians.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

Can we allow the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith to make her speech, with respect?

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Alexandra Mendès) Order. There will be no heckling, period.

The hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have no doubt that some of my colleagues will speak more directly about the Liberal failures and the problems with the bill, but I want to focus today on an issue affecting more than 2,800 people in my riding and thousands more people across Canada, which is the frozen pensions of British Canadians.

For 75 years, the U.K. has refused to provide annual increases to the state pensions of British retirees living in Canada. More than 105,000 pensioners already face this injustice, with hundreds of thousands more Canadians aging into it. They paid into the U.K. national insurance system their entire lives. They earned their pensions.

However, because they moved to Canada, a Commonwealth ally, their pensions are frozen at the amount first received, in some cases decades ago. If they had moved to the United States, to Israel or to the Philippines, they would receive their annual increases. About 60% of British pensioners living overseas get their annual increases, but 40% do not. It is a lottery that is based not on contribution or need but on geography, and Canadians are inexplicably on the losing end of this.

The U.K.'s Department for Work and Pensions admits that fixing the problem for British retirees in Canada would cost only about 13 million British pounds, which is about $24 million, of a total U.K. pension budget of 146 billion pounds. Therefore this is not a question of cost; it is a question of will.

I have met pensioners in their seventies, eighties and nineties surviving on payments at levels set in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Canada honours its obligations to our pensioners living in the U.K. by indexing their pensions. The upshot is that Canadian taxpayers are subsidizing a moral failure by one of our oldest allies.

The world has changed, our trade has certainly changed and our lives have changed; however, this unfair policy remains. The U.K. remains the only OECD country that pays pensioners differently based on where they live. It is an outdated, discriminatory relic from another era.

Successive MPs from my community have raised this issue over the last decade. The House has passed motions. Past Canadian governments have asked the U.K. to reopen discussions on this issue. The U.K.'s pensions minister has said no every time, which seems to be a pattern in Liberal trade negotiations.

Meanwhile, the U.K. has signed new reciprocal social service agreements with Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein, but not with Canada, a country that stood shoulder to shoulder with it through wars, through peacekeeping and through generations of shared sacrifices. This is not how friends treat each other.

This is where partnership really matters. If the U.K. wants to benefit from the CPTPP, then it should also act like a partner, by honouring fairness, reciprocity and human dignity. It is a conundrum, yet I cannot help but think, “if only”. If only we had a prime minister with deep connections to the United Kingdom, someone who understands economics, banking and pensions. Wait a minute; I seem to recall that our current Prime Minister is not only a former governor of the Bank of England but also the man who arranged for the King to deliver the throne speech of this very Parliament.

The Prime Minister may be friends with kings, but he has failed the commoners on this issue. The Prime Minister waxes poetic about transformational change and extols generational investments and structural reforms, but if he truly wanted to be transformational, he would start with this generation: the seniors who built the country he once served and who now suffer under an unfair, outdated policy. If the Prime Minister cares, if he wants to show that his talk about values and fairness is more than just a slogan, he should use his connections to fix this, because it is a burning issue for British seniors who have chosen Canada as their home.

The Prime Minister needs to understand that transformational leadership does not just happen in jets or hotel lobbies, or swanning around English parties. It happens when we stand up for real people who are being left behind. I ask the Prime Minister to come down from on high to see these people, the British pensioners of Nanaimo, Ladysmith, Vancouver Island and from across Canada, whose income has not risen in 30 years. Some of them split pills. Some skip meals. All of them deserve our help. They are the people who built the very democracy that allows us to debate the bill today.

If the Prime Minister had a functioning constituency office in his riding, he would know that this is an issue that affects his community too. If the Prime Minister truly believes in fairness, he should pick up the phone. He should call his old colleagues in London. He should call the King and explain the issue as I have, and put it back on the agenda. He should pursue justice and get a deal.

The Canadian Alliance of British Pensioners has worked tirelessly to raise awareness of the issue. The pensioners are not asking Canada for new spending; they are asking for their government to negotiate justice for them from the United Kingdom.

The CPTPP is about rules-based trade and mutual benefit. Let it now show that it is also about fairness, reciprocity and moral responsibility.

I want to close with this. The 2,845 people with frozen pensions in Nanaimo—Ladysmith, and the thousands more across Vancouver Island and the rest of Canada, have not been forgotten. Their government may not always fight for them, but today I lend them my voice and this platform for their cause. They worked hard, they played by the rules and they deserve justice.

The Prime Minister has the relationships, the platform and an immense amount of privilege. He should use it and bring the issue to the fore in his discussions with the U.K. He should raise it at every level, because justice is not measured in economic models or global summits. It is measured in the lives of real people, in this case the thousands of Canadians who are also British pensioners, who chose Canada to be their home, against their own self-interest, and who deserve our support in remedying this injustice.

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

Madam Speaker, the expectations that the Prime Minister has are actually fairly extensive. The Prime Minister, right out of the gate, instantly dealt with substantial policy measures, whether it was tax breaks, building one Canadian economy or looking at trade opportunities that go beyond the Canada-U.S.A. border. There have been a lot of things that have been happening in the few short months that he has been Prime Minister.

To try to imply that the Prime Minister does not care about pensioners does a disservice in regard to the issue, I think. I would ask the member opposite this: Has she actually written or done anything to demonstrate to the government some concern by crossing over and talking to the Prime Minister about the issue she was just talking about, or has she written or talked to other ministers?

It would be great if the member could answer that, but the real question I have for her is this: Can we anticipate that the Conservatives have some good faith within, in terms of recognizing the value of trade for Canada and of building trade opportunities, and that the legislation will pass before the end of the year?

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, on the question of whether or not the Prime Minister is aware of this particular issue, I will say that if he reads his email, he would know that the British pensioners were actually here a couple of weeks ago. They had a Hill day. They had a suite. All MPs, including the Prime Minister, were invited to come by, and they had extensive briefings on the issue. If the Prime Minister chose not to include that in his schedule because he had things to do that he considered more important, then I suppose that answers the member's question on its own.

In terms of the value that Conservatives place on trade, we have fought many elections on the issue. We have negotiated many free trade agreements, and we obviously care about free and fair trade. We believe earnestly that, had Canadians given us the opportunity to do so, like former prime minister Harper, who negotiated a softwood lumber deal within 80 days of becoming prime minister, we would have produced more results than the Liberal government has in the time since it was elected.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to ask my colleague a question, because her answer provided a nice segue. She just talked about the negotiations that took place under the government of Prime Minister Harper. However, that government also adopted a policy on introducing and tabling agreements and treaties in Parliament. Currently, that policy is not being followed, given that the government introduced the bill within a shorter period than required by this policy. This policy is supposed to enable us to do our work more effectively.

What does the member think about the government's failure to comply with the existing policy, which is still available on the Government of Canada's official website? Does she believe that a policy is not enough and that we need legislation like the one the Bloc Québécois is proposing in Bill C‑228?

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, I wish I could answer the hon. member fluently in French. I am working on it.

I am a new member of the House, and one of the things that actually astound me about this Parliament is how little the Prime Minister's office and the government actually involve the House in making laws and making decisions. I would have thought that the Liberals' calls for collaboration and requests that we pass legislation before Christmas and work with them on their legislative agenda would have been accompanied by genuine efforts to sit down with us and engage us on their policies. Unfortunately, I find that that rarely happens.

An exception, which I was actually quite pleased with, was when the member for Terrebonne approached me a few weeks ago to lend my support to her bill, which we just voted to send to committee this afternoon. When the government approaches us to work together, we do have something to contribute, and it would be wonderful if the Liberals actually listened.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, today I rise to speak to Bill C-13 and the impacts it would have on cattle producers, especially in my riding of Bow River, but first I want to recognize the storied history and legacy of ranchers in southern Alberta.

The beef industry has long been vital to the region. Since the late 1800s and the era of open grazing, the herds of the Circle Ranch, the Bar U and many others have grazed the expanse of Bow River. People homesteaded there and built lives on the harsh prairie.

As D. Larraine Andrews writes in her book, Ranching Under the Arch, about life on the ranch, “In reality it represented a uniquely hybrid combination of Old and New World culture, skill and expertise, heavily influenced by American, British and Eastern Canadian know-how and adapted to a frontier environment that demanded adaptation for survival.”

In her remarkable story of a people and a landscape, one that helps to explain southern Alberta's uniqueness, Andrews makes clear that the land and the people cannot be separated. She also writes, “They made the rangelands their home, conserving and preserving the land for generations to come. In the process, they were instrumental in establishing the vibrant and successful ranching industry that remains a fundamental part of our history and our future as a province [and a country].”

This goes to the heart of what I want to get at today, which is how what may seem a small part of a trade agreement is in fact large, because it goes to the cultural fabric.

The influence of ranchers on southern Alberta can be seen in countless ways, for example in the Calgary Stampede, established in 1912 to honour the end of open-range ranching, and in the preservation of vast stretches of native fescue grasslands. Today, the 160,000-acre McIntyre ranch, established in 1894 in southeastern Alberta, remains home to the largest tract of fescue grassland in North America. These were, and are, true stewards of the land, calving through snowstorms, fixing barbed-wire fences and holding on to the promise of spring. It means hard work, long days and an unwavering commitment to ensuring that food reaches Canadian tables.

Once again, Canada's farmers are being left behind by the Liberal government's incompetence on trade, or its laziness. Bill C-13 is supposed to strengthen our partnerships and expand trade through the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or the CPTPP. Make no mistake, the CPTPP is a good agreement. It offers real opportunities to grow Canada's trade footprint, and Conservatives support that vision, but under the Liberal government, those opportunities are being squandered.

The Liberals have had nearly a decade to fix the barriers harming our farmers and producers, and there has been no progress, only neglect. Let us look at some facts. The U.K. exported over 16 million dollars' worth of beef to Canada in 2023, over $42 million in 2024 and over $28 million in just the first half of 2025. Meanwhile, Canadian beef exports to the U.K. were just over $85,000 in 2023, $25,000 in 2024 and zero, not a single dollar's worth, in 2025.

The situation is just as bad for pork. British pork exports to Canada rose from $5.6 million in 2023 to $9.1 million in 2024 and another $3.6 million in the first half of 2025. Canadian pork exports to the U.K. were zero in 2023, only $75,000 in 2024 and $122,700 this year. That is not free trade; it is one way. It is not bilateral; it is preferential.

Now the Liberals are asking Parliament to approve the U.K.'s accession to the CPTPP. This is without fixing a single one of these problems, and they are giving the British everything they want while Canadian farmers are getting little in return. This is not a negotiation; it is surrender.

The Canadian Cattle Association has been crystal clear: Terminate the failed Canada-UK Trade Continuity Agreement and return to the negotiating table, because right now there is no continuity for Canadian beef. The only market access is for British exporters.

The U.K. continues to block Canadian beef using a hormone ban that the World Trade Organization ruled against nearly 30 years ago. It refuses to recognize Canada's world-class meat inspection system, a system trusted by dozens of other trading partners. The carcass wash has been mentioned, and the Canadian standard is arguably far higher than that of the U.K. It is also a fallacy to blame EU requirements, as the U.K. has left the EU. It is a non sequitur.

What have the Liberals done about it? Nothing. Not a single kilogram of Canadian beef has been sold into the U.K. in 2025, yet the government calls this progress. This is not progress; this is failure. The Liberals had years to stand up for our farmers and fix these barriers. These problems and irritants are not new. Instead, they chose the photo ops over results. They let the U.K. walk away from negotiations, ignored clear warnings from producers and are now rushing to rubber-stamp this deal without securing anything for Canadian agriculture.

Conservatives believe in free trade. We always have, but we also believe in fair trade, trade that works for Canada and not against it. This is not just about tariffs or paperwork; it is about the livelihoods of hard-working farmers and ranchers who feed this country and feed the world. When their shipments are blocked and their access to markets is cut off, it means less income, fewer jobs and more uncertainty for rural communities. It is especially egregious when these non-tariff barriers are such flimsy excuses.

This is the difference between keeping the family ranch afloat or just shutting down, so I ask the government, why did it allow British beef unlimited access to Canada while Canadian producers cannot sell a single kilogram to the U.K.? Why is the government tolerating non-tariff barriers that violate science-based trade rules? Why did we let the U.K. walk away from negotiations that were supposed to protect Canadian interests? The government has failed Canadian farmers under CETA; it has failed forestry workers on softwood lumber; it has failed our energy sector, and now it is failing our beef and pork producers under this agreement.

Conservatives will not stand by while rural Canada pays the price for Liberal negligence. We will support trade agreements that expand opportunity, not agreements that reward protectionism abroad and punish production here at home.

While we are talking about fairness, there is one more group the government has ignored. This has been spoken about by my colleague already. There are more than 100,000 U.K. pensioners living in Canada. These seniors paid into the system. They paid their whole lives, but because the U.K. refuses to index their pensions, even though it indexes them for those in the United States and elsewhere, their incomes shrink every year as inflation rises. We know inflation is a problem in Canada.

Given the Prime Minister's close relationship with the U.K. Prime Minister, members would think he might have used this opportunity to stand up for these pensioners. Instead, there is silence. Conservatives believe in strong, principled trade, trade that strengthens our economy, supports farmers and delivers results for Canadians. We will hold the government accountable for its failures and stand up for the producers, ranchers and workers who make Canada competitive on the world stage. Under a Conservative government, Canada will not settle for bad deals; we will fight for better ones.

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

Madam Speaker, it sounds as if the Conservatives might be voting against the legislation. The member wants to talk about farmers and cattle farmers. I had a wonderful experience when entrepreneurs from the Philippines came to Canada and participated in the Calgary Stampede. The Minister of Agriculture met with the owner of what I believe is the Wildflour Restaurant. It is a chain of restaurants in the Philippines. They are now selling Canadian beef, recognizing that the best beef in the world is likely in the province of Alberta. It may even be in Manitoba, and I am not giving up on my Manitoba beef producers, but let us stick with Alberta right now, given that the member is from Alberta.

I can tell members something. The Minister of Agriculture is one of Canada's greatest ambassadors in advocating for our products, whether it is Alberta beef or P.E.I. potatoes, and we see that in the trade discussions we are having. I would suggest to the member that he might be a little inaccurate when he tries to portray the false impression that the government is not doing its job in terms of promoting agricultural products.

I am seeking clarification from the member. Does he support the passage of this legislation?

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, the comments and questions from the member opposite are truly one of the greatest pleasures to experience in this House.

Alberta beef, and Canadian beef worldwide, is noted for its quality. It is sought out by the world because it is the best beef in the world. However, I think the member misunderstood. I was not talking about the Philippines and the partners that we already have in the trans-Pacific partnership. I was talking about the U.K. and the opportunity the government has right now to ensure that we have fair, equal, equitable, reciprocal trading with the U.K. The U.K. has been obstructing Canadian participation in their market for a very long time, for very flimsy reasons, and its desire to have access to the trans-Pacific partnership is the perfect opportunity to apply the appropriate amount of pressure to get our beef into the U.K.

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

Madam Speaker, I apologize because you must be getting sick of hearing my voice, but I have not received an answer yet. I asked two members on both sides of the House the same question. I will ask it again now.

What does my colleague think about the fact that the government did not follow the existing policy, the public policy adopted under the Harper government, if I am not mistaken, that there should be a 21-day waiting period between announcing an agreement and tabling it in Parliament?

In this case, it took 15 days. Therefore, the government did not comply with the existing policy.

Does that not show that what we need is a law, not just a policy?

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have come to learn that a very common feature of questions in the House is for members to ask them repeatedly and still not get an answer.

I apologize that I do not have a clear opinion. I am just not well versed in the circumstance of the previous reality. It seems reasonable, but I do not know for sure.