Finance Committee on June 11th, 2019

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

But the bill repeals all of that.

[Michèle Govier]

Yes.

[Patrick Halley]

That's right. They remove the moratorium of two years, and if the previous measure was less than 180 days, the moratorium is one year. These are repealed for a two-year period and reinstated two years after royal assent of the bill.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Does clause 2 have a similar effect?

[Michèle Govier]

There's a reference in the Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act to those provisions, so it's just making a consequential amendment to remove that reference.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Clause 2 is just consequential to clause 1.

[Michèle Govier]

Yes.

[Patrick Halley]

Correct.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

And clause 3 is a coming-into-force clause?

[Michèle Govier]

Yes.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Okay. So that's the whole bill. I just wanted to make sure there were no surprises.

Has the Canadian International Trade Tribunal in the last, let's say, five years found that other countries have engaged in steel or aluminum dumping in Canada?

[Patrick Halley]

The dumping and the subsidization—the countervailing process—are complaint-driven. Companies would complain first to the CBSA, the Canada Border Services Agency, and the CBSA determines whether or not there is dumping—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

And have they?

[Patrick Halley]

—or subsidization.

In a parallel process, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal looks at, if there is dumping, whether or not that dumping is injurious to Canadian producers. The CITT really looks at the injury portion of the process and does not determine whether there is dumping occurring in the Canadian market. That's done by the Canada Border Services Agency.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Have either of those bodies found that dumping has existed in the last five years with respect to steel and/or aluminum?

[Michèle Govier]

Yes. I think Patrick referred earlier to 77 measures being in place, with anti-dumping and countervail cases against a number of different countries related to steel products.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

What were they? What was the time frame during which those dumping incidents occurred?

[Michèle Govier]

Some of them go back quite a long time. Measures are generally imposed for five years, but they can be extended if it's found to be warranted and if it's likely that the dumping and subsidization that are causing injury are likely to continue. For some products, I think it goes back even 10 or 15 years.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Is China on the list of countries?

[Michèle Govier]

Absolutely. I think for virtually all products, China is one of the countries that are subject to those measures.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

If there's more later, Pierre, we can come back to you.

Mr. Fragiskatos.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the officials for being here.

I want to ask a question about international legal obligations from a trade perspective. Can you tell us how this legislation is consistent with Canada's international legal obligations in that regard?

[John Layton, Executive Director, Trade Remedies and North America Trade Division, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development]

I think the legislation is consistent with our legal obligations in the sense that there's no obligation to have this time period or moratorium on new measures. There's no obligation to have that in our law. However, if Canada imposed another measure within the two-year period, because we've removed it from our law, I think other WTO members would have questions about how that were consistent with the obligation in the WTO agreement. That is the obligation, but it only applies if we impose another safeguard measure.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Okay, but just to be clear, as far as this bill is concerned, we are not offside with the WTO in any way? We wouldn't face any complaint or anything like that?

[John Layton]

I think we will face questions about why we're doing it, but my understanding is that there wouldn't be a WTO dispute launched because of our law.