Good evening, everyone.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My name is Catherine Cobden, I am the president and CEO of the Canadian Steel Producers Association. I thank you for the opportunity to appear here today to share the perspective of the domestic steel industry on the important economic relationship between Canada and the United States as you deliberate on buy American and the American jobs plan.
Our member companies produce approximately 15 million tonnes of steel and products annually, and support about 123,000 direct and indirect jobs in over five provinces. Our industry plays a strategically important role in the economy as a critical supplier to the North American automotive, energy, construction and manufacturing sectors. We send approximately 40% of our total production to the United States every year, and we meet about 5% of their market needs. In turn, we are a very important customer to them, with U.S. steel making up about 25% of all steel used in Canada. We also benefit from strong and integrated supply chains and markets, and indeed, steel may pass over the border multiple times as it is transformed into specific products required by the marketplace.
While we've had our share of challenges in Canada and U.S. steel trade over the last years, we remain steadfast in our view that we're stronger together than divided. We welcome the renewed collaboration agenda that we have been hearing out of the different bilateral meetings our government has been holding with the United States. Undoubtedly, there are challenges ahead, however, we believe it's crucial to take hold of the opportunity of this goodwill to ensure we maintain and even strengthen access to the United States.
While buy American's damage has been done to steel in previous versions of that program, we are concerned about how things may play out, given changes proposed in the new made-in-America economic plan and the potential implications for its American jobs plan. Our real-life experience is that exclusions or not, customers are driven away from using Canadian steel due to the market chill created by these policies and very practical considerations, such as things like needing to carry different inventories, buy American inventories and non-buy American inventories. We certainly appreciate the efforts and thoughts around seeking exclusions, but we are concerned that this would not at all be a sufficient approach to this challenge.
We would suggest a broad approach in our response to the buy American plan, built upon this collaboration of key priorities and the ability to demonstrate our commitment to make similar efforts in Canada. We have four specific suggestions for your consideration.
Number one, promote Canada as a reliable supplier of green materials in support of the U.S. climate objectives and build back better with their infrastructure programs. The U.S. does not have sufficient supply of its own domestic steel, so it will need trading partners that share common vision and objectives on many fronts. On climate in particular, I'm proud to say that Canadian steel producers are among the greenest in the world. A recent global benchmarking study reports that Canadian steel is number one and number two in the world, depending on production methodology, for the lowest carbon intensity when compared to other major steel jurisdictions around the world.
Number two, demonstrate our commitment to green procurement in our own infrastructure program. This is an important area that continues to be overlooked in Canada's climate and net-zero plans. Canada's steel sector has the green credentials, and I know other sectors do as well, to support this important objective, and we feel it is a bit of a credibility issue to expect this within a U.S. infrastructure program while not pursuing this explicitly in Canada.
Number three, position Canada as an equal partner with the United States in our fight against unfair steel traders through explicit changes to our trade remedy system. Canadian and U.S. steel industries share a deep concern with the growing and significant global overcapacity from China, Iran, Turkey and other areas in the ASEAN region, for example. The U.S. has made significant changes to its trade monitoring and enforcement system to catch and penalize unfair traders, and we simply must keep pace.
CSPA members have made a range of recommended changes, including identifying where steel is melted and poured, improving our monitoring system at the border and addressing the pressing need for an anti-circumvention framework similar to the United States.
Our final suggestion is to continue to support the full implementation of CUSMA. This agreement has been very good for the steel industry. It recognizes the deep integration of our economies and strengthens the competitiveness of the North American industry and our supply chains.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to provide these comments.