Evidence of meeting #3 for Canada-China Relations in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chinese.
A video is available from Parliament.
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
John Williamson Conservative New Brunswick Southwest, NB
Okay. Fair enough.
This is an odd question, but how does the department refer to Taiwan? Is it the Republic of China, is it Beijing, is it Taipei? What's the official line on Taiwan? Is it Free China?
11:20 a.m.
Executive Director, Greater China, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Canada has a one China policy.
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
11:20 a.m.
Executive Director, Greater China, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Taiwan is an economy.
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
John Williamson Conservative New Brunswick Southwest, NB
The Americans refer to it as their unsinkable battleship, and we refer to Taiwan as the economy.
11:20 a.m.
Executive Director, Greater China, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Taiwan is an economy for us. It's a trade partner.
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
John Williamson Conservative New Brunswick Southwest, NB
No, no. In a document, you don't refer to “an economy”. What do you call Taiwan? I'm just curious to know how to refer to this piece of real estate.
11:20 a.m.
Executive Director, Greater China, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
We refer to Taiwan as Taiwan.
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
John Williamson Conservative New Brunswick Southwest, NB
Thank you.
Mr. Verheul, I'm just curious. As we talked about trade with nations around the world, you described a number of obstacles to what we would see as the path forward towards free trade. There was the use of state-owned enterprises. There was a list of challenges. Is it fair to say that if those disappeared, it would perhaps smooth the way to a trade agreement, but would also mean a very different China, and not the China we know today?
11:20 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Trade Policy and Negotiations, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
When we're saying there's potential for a free trade agreement with China, we're looking at the China of today. We've been involved in a number of free trade negotiations in recent years, some quite large ones, and it's always a matter of trying to match up how your partner's economy matches up to your economy. In the case of China, it's much more complex than it was with the European Union or with the Trans-Pacific Partnership members, or within North America, because China does have a different type of economy. They have their state-owned enterprises, and it's very hard to find examples of how they operate. It's difficult to figure out what kind of disciplines we could put on those and what kind of transparency obligations so we would know what's going on. They also provide a high volume of subsidies to certain industries. We would want to address those.
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Geoff Regan
Thank you.
I understand Ms. Zann and Mr. Fragiskatos are going to split their time.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
Lenore Zann Liberal Cumberland—Colchester, NS
Yes, thank you.
Thank you very much, gentlemen. I come from Nova Scotia, representing Cumberland—Colchester, the northern region there. Nova Scotia remains Canada's leader in seafood exports, with over $2 billion in exports, as you probably know. That's 29% of Canada's total seafood experts. While the U.S. remains our largest market, China is our second-largest. In fact our seafood exports have increased by 36% in the last few years. However, the outbreak of the coronavirus with over 4,500 confirmed cases in China has now put the brakes on Nova Scotia's lobster sales and shipments. Just within the last few days there's been a sharp drop, which means that the price at the wharf has also dropped from around $10 a pound to around $8. Has there been any discussion yet about what if anything Canada can do, what the government can do, to deal with this problem if it continues? Is it happening to other Canadian exports to China?
11:25 a.m.
Executive Director, Greater China, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Mr. Chair, I was in Halifax the day before yesterday. I met with some of the companies there and with the Government of Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia has been very successful in developing a relationship with China, as you've said. We have heard that certain lobster shipments have been impacted. We have people at our embassy in Beijing, notably a representative from CFIA, looking into what is happening. It's difficult to reach officials responsible for customs during the Chinese New Year, but he's doing his best. We're not entirely sure if this is a new regulation yet, or whether it has to do with markets for seafood and live food products being closed, restaurants being closed, transportation and coal supply chains being disrupted and people just staying at home and not going to markets and, with the Chinese New Year celebration, those having been shut down and so on. Logically this has an impact on imports of certain food products from Canada, especially those like live lobster that are associated with the Chinese New Year.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
Lenore Zann Liberal Cumberland—Colchester, NS
Thank you.
I have one last question. Is it affecting other exports or is it just the lobsters?
11:25 a.m.
Executive Director, Greater China, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
To our knowledge, no other exports have been affected yet. However, given the difficulties China is going through right now, it's not unlikely that there will be some disruptions.
11:25 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, International Affairs Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food
If I could just add a clarification, there are some other commodities that we are picking up—notional things on the meat side. Again, because restaurants are closed, the streets are as you've seen on TV, so the demand on some of the imports is softening. We are talking to the meat industry and it does look like there may be a slowdown as people assess the situation.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
Thank you to all of you for being here today.
If one accepts that the tensions between the U.S. and China are having a deep impact on the Canada-China relationship, as I think we should accept, then one could be forced to look in other directions. It's been suggested, for example, by former ambassador David Mulroney that, in his own words, “Getting China right requires us to get Asia right.” From there the implication is that we ought to look at east Asia and southeast Asia, and expand relations with Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Australia, the countries of the ASEAN block, for example, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
I know that we have CPTPP in place. We are moving in that direction, but I'll ask Mr. Verheul to what extent we are doing that. Can we do that even more as a way to sort of hedge and protect Canadian interests when we end up caught between two superpowers and their disputes?
11:25 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Trade Policy and Negotiations, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Yes, we are actively engaged in trying to ensure that we have good access and good relationships to those other markets.
Because of CPTPP we do have free trade relations with Japan. We have the same with Vietnam. We have a separate agreement with South Korea. We are exploring a potential agreement with the ASEAN countries, so we're deeply involved in trying to expand our footprint in Southeast Asia.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Geoff Regan
Thank you very much, Mr. Fragiskatos.
Thank you very much to the witnesses. I know we all appreciate your testimony here today, and thank you for coming.
Before we close, we're going to have a discussion, but would colleagues like to go in camera for a discussion on future business?
No. We'll carry on publicly. Fine.
We'll suspend for a moment while we excuse our guests.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Geoff Regan
The meeting will come back to order. Thank you very much.
There are a couple of issues for us to talk about. One is, of course, what the regular meeting time of the committee is to be, which has been a bit of a challenge to work out. The second thing is when the subcommittee wants to meet to consider the work plan. Those are the two questions I have in mind for what I hope will be a brief discussion.
I've been asked to reiterate that Tuesday, from 10 until noon, we'll have the briefing with consular affairs and justice, and then on Wednesday of next week from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. is the briefing with Ambassador Barton.
Is there anything else in terms of...?
