Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States Committee on April 22nd, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Raj Saini]

Thank you, Mr. McLean.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Raj Saini]

We'll now go to Mrs. Romanado for five minutes, please.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here again this evening. It's always a pleasure to hear from you.

Being a a military family member, I can't imagine Canada and the United States not working together. We look at NORAD. We look at the north warning system. We look at the Northwest Passage. We look at 9/11, and I cannot imagine Canada and the United States not working together in terms of continental defence.

Ms. Greenwood, you brought up something that piqued my interest because I used to work at CN rail, and I've been watching recently the duel bidding between CN and CP for Kansas City Southern, which would be an incredibly interesting railway. When you think of it, it would basically be mirroring CUSMA. It would be marrying all three partners and the traffic that would be able to flow amongst them.

I look at that, and I look a company in my riding, Héroux Devtek, which is an aerospace company that creates landing gear. They actually created the landing gear for the lunar module and have companies set up in Ohio, in Michigan and in Washington state, because we are just so integrated.

I'd like to ask you if you could elaborate a little bit more on your North American rebound because I think that's what we need to look at. When we're looking at the U.S. and Canada, it cannot be just U.S. or Canada. I think we are integrated, and we're going to continue to be integrated.

Could you talk about the North American rebound versus Canada's recovery and the U.S.'s recovery?

[Maryscott Greenwood]

Sure. Thank you so much.

The North American rebound campaign—check it out; Google it; you'll see it in various places—actually came about out of a conversation with the Quebec delegate general in the U.S., Catherine Loubier. She and I were having...early in the pandemic, when governors of states in New England were getting together.

Remember, cast your mind back to early in the pandemic, when jurisdictions were trying to figure out how to get PPE for their own population. New England states said, let's all form a buying bloc so that we're not driving the price up amongst each other. Quebec said, wait a minute; we're part of you economically, so we want to be part of that bloc.

Catherine and I were talking about that. We said, the truth is that Canada and the United States writ large should be trying to acquire PPE, share it amongst ourselves, manufacture it, get all the inputs and all of that. We therefore launched this North American rebound campaign. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and all sorts of local chambers of commerce, individuals across Canada and the United States and provinces have signed up to say, we agree that it's important; that whatever the question is, the answer is that Canada and the United States are in it together.

That's how it started, and it continues to grow in numbers and support. The community that's building hopefully will push back against some of the Buy American provisions.

I mentioned New Jersey in my testimony because unfortunately the state legislature there just passed a Buy America provision that Quebec and Ontario in particular were very vocal about pushing against, but it was a fait accompli.

Anyway, that's what the North American rebound is all about. We'll continue to build it digitally and invite people and businesses to sign. Then we'll activate the communities in targeted congressional districts to try to support a Canadian carve-in to Buy America.

One thing I will say is that North America is more challenging in the United States, because when you're adding Mexico into the equation, there's an entirely different conversation. When we talk about North American rebound, we're actually talking about Canada-U.S. It's not that Mexico isn't important—it really is important—it's just that the issues, especially in the American imagination with respect to Mexico, are entirely different from the opportunities that we have with Canada.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you.

I know I only have about 30 seconds. I want to give Mr. Agnew a chance to jump in, if there's anything you'd like to add with respect to our collaboration with respect to defence. As I said, it's something that's near and dear to me.

[Mark Agnew]

The one thing we're thinking right now with respect to the DPSA is that it's an arrangement that doesn't have full treaty status in the same way, say, that USMCA has. Generally speaking it works, but we hear anecdotal reports from companies about its not functioning as well as it should on the margins. We would like to think about how we can codify it a bit more strongly to make sure we're not being shut out of potential opportunities.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Raj Saini]

Thank you, Ms. Romanado.

Mr. Savard-Tremblay, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

Mr. Savard-Tremblay, are you there?

You have the floor.

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

Mr. Chair, I would like to make a comment and I would ask you not to count it towards my time. When you say my name, the sound is often cut off. So I don't hear you giving me the floor. I'm not sure whether the message can be passed on to technical support. I don't know the technical reason for this, but it has happened a number of times.

[The Chair, Liberal, Raj Saini]

No problem. You have two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you.

My question is for Ms. Greenwood.

Mr. Biden has already said that he hopes to see the U.S.-Canada border reopened in the summer. We know that there is at least a willingness to open the border and have a dialogue.

Do you think that could be used as a negotiating point?

[Maryscott Greenwood]

Well, some of the best arguments have to do with professional services that are key to our economic recovery. We've done a pretty good job in Canada and the United States at keeping trucks going back and forth to keep grocery store shelves filled, but we have not done a good job with people in professional services.

When it comes to, for example, artificial intelligence, we have a company in CABC called Contextere—a wonderful Canadian company. All of their customers are in the U.S. They say that their people are the supply chain and their people can't get back and forth across the border right now.

I think in figuring out vaccines, testing, and a risk-based approach—not a political approach—we have to get people going back and forth across the border again.

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

Yes, we need to be able to cross the border again. On a completely different note, I think that willingness on the part of the U.S. may possibly be speeding up the supply of vaccines from them.

Given the willingness of the U.S., if Canada were to make some access a condition, do you think it could be used as a negotiating point?

[Maryscott Greenwood]

If I understood your question, I think yes.... I mean, I think Canadian companies need the access to visit their customers and vice versa.

Again, hopefully this lack of vaccination challenge will be behind us in a few weeks' time. There's a lot of vaccine available now in the U.S. and in the world, and hopefully it will be made available in Canada so that we can resume our back-and-forth commerce in earnest.

[The Chair, Liberal, Raj Saini]

Thank you, Mr. Savard-Tremblay.

Mr. Green, you have two and a half minutes, please.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Agnew, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce issued a statement after Biden signed the order, saying that it's going to have a “chilling effect on businesses” and will hit harder in Canada. It went on to state that, “Buy American restrictions remain a perennial problem for Canadian businesses seeking to access government contracts with our largest trading partner.” It said that “the rules have progressively tightened over the years [and today's] announcement represents another unhelpful step to make it more difficult for Canadian businesses to secure contracts in the U.S.”

What steps would you like to see Canada take in response to this show of American protectionism?

[Mark Agnew]

There are a couple of things we would suggest: one is going back to an earlier comment I was alluding to around seeking very targeted exemptions from the buy American program for the upcoming infrastructure bill. Once we see what's on offer and where they're going to be targeting, let's identify the sectors that we should get an exemption for and then go after those.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Through you, Mr. Chair, have you identified steel as being one of those?

[Mark Agnew]

We have not finalized our process with members, but I would imagine that steel, aluminum and clean energy would be products at this point.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

One thing that strikes me, particularly with the steel that's coming out of Hamilton, is that it's very hard to tell at what point it begins to be Canadian steel, and is not, because it's shipped back through all of its various forms.

I wonder what steps we should be taking to proactively make sure that's accounted for, whether that's industrial planning domestically or finding ways to adjust our own procurement policies here in Canada to reflect our steel sector.

[Mark Agnew]

I think there are things we can do domestically to help our sector. What I would say for the steel industry that's important is showing the U.S. that we're serious about tackling the problems with excess capacity in the global steel market.

To go back to what Scotty was saying earlier about how you link issues between folks in the White House, I think going to the White House and saying that we're serious about tackling overcapacity would show that we're a serious player and would make it less likely to be hit with a buy American policy on steel products.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you for these responses. I certainly look forward to further interventions from our other witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Raj Saini]

Thank you, Mr. Green.

We'll now go to Mr. Nater, for five minutes, please.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witness. Some interesting ground has being covered so far.

I'm subbing in this week for Ms. Alleslev, so my questions are coming from her. They've been touched on in a few different points so far, so I may be repeating a little bit, but I want to have her questions on the record.

She wanted me to ask about chapter 13 of CUSMA and whether or not there would be an appetite or interest in reopening that section of the agreement, and what options we, as Canadian lawmakers, should be taking to push that issue south of the border.

I will open that up to both witnesses.