First and foremost, thank you, honourable members, for the opportunity to present in front of you today on behalf of the Canadian Steel Producers Association.
Our association represents 10 primary steel producers and steel product manufacturers in Canada, with member facilities located in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. These operations directly employ over 22,000 Canadians and support an additional 100,000 Canadian jobs through indirect economic impacts associated with our operations.
We welcome the government's budget 2016 commitments to taking steps to improve Canada's ability to effectively remedy dumped and subsidized imports, as this is an area in which steel is particularly exposed. In light of the increased frequency of market-distorting trade in Canada, the CSPA views modernization of Canada's trade remedy system as critical to ensuring that our members and their employees are able to compete fairly in the global marketplace.
I'd like to provide some context, if I may, for the importance of these measures. The global steel sector today is facing an unprecedented overcapacity problem. Put simply, more steel is being produced than is required by the global market. This phenomenon is driven largely by China, where demand has declined while state-supported production has increased significantly. Through the maintenance of more than 425 million metric tons of surplus capacity, which is almost 30 times the size of the entire Canadian steel market, China's state-owned and state-supported steel sector has disrupted established trade patterns and degraded the pricing of steel products globally.
The result is the significant increase in market-distorting dumping and circumvention practices, both from China directly and from a host of other global producers whose home markets have in many cases suffered as a result of Chinese competition. Left with no choice but to export, these nations begin doing so aggressively, dumping yet more product on the global markets and further degrading global prices.
At the recent OECD high-level symposium on excess capacity and structural adjustment in the steel sector, the CSPA was encouraged to see the development of a consensus position from the governments of the European Union, Japan, Mexico, the Republic of Korea, Switzerland, Turkey, the United States, and, importantly, Canada that overcapacity and adjustment challenges facing the steel industry have an important global dimension that needs to be addressed through ongoing international dialogue. Unfortunately, China refused to participate in this joint statement or support its content.
The impasse here underscores Canada's need to fortify our domestic trade remedy system. Increasing instances of market-distorting trade in steel globally have been accompanied by an historic escalation in the number of new anti-dumping and countervailing duty cases initiated in 2015, with a continued escalation foreseen in 2016.
Understanding this trend, Canada should take immediate action to ensure that we do not as a jurisdiction become an attractive place to dump product. Our NAFTA partners in the United States have take significant action through the passage of the Trade Preferences Extension Act in June 2015 and the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act in February 2016 to discourage dumping and circumvention in that market. Canada needs to keep pace.
With this in mind, the CSPA would express our appreciation for the inclusion in Bill C-15 of amendments to the Special Import Measures Act ensuring that investigations will no longer be terminated at the preliminary stage, which will allow investigators to more fully consider whether dumping and subsidizing are harming Canadian producers. We also welcome amendments that will address the timing of and process around expiry reviews, resulting in measures remaining in place for up to ten months longer before a decision is made as to whether to extend or rescind that measure.
Similarly, we're encouraged by the recent initiation, which was also promised in the budget, of a public consultation on potential future changes to the Special Import Measures Act, and we are hopeful of near-term legislative action to address: the calculation of dumping margins in situations where data in a given export market understates the degree to which products are being dumped; the enhancement of enforcement options available to the Government of Canada in instances of circumvention; and clarification in regard to the type and amount of evidence the domestic industry is required to put forward to get cases initiated.
The CSPA supports trade. We believe that with our efficient facilities and innovative workforces we can thrive in a free trade environment, but in order for trade to be free, it also has to be fair. Bill C-15 takes important steps to ensure fairness in Canada's trade remedy system, and we are hopeful that the consultation process will generate additional positive near-term results.