Absolutely.
Nine separate policy statements address steel expansion in China, while at the same time their production capacity has increased in total by roughly a billion metric tons annually.
With this in mind, we believe the Government of Canada should move very quickly to strengthen Canada's domestic trade remedy system through legislative amendments, which we believe should be included in budget 2017.
In the more than two decades since the last substantive reform of Canada's trade remedy system, the companies and countries engaging in unfair trade have proactively, and through sophisticated means, adjusted their practices to skirt Canadian regulations and unfairly gain access to our markets. The development of sophisticated software platforms, direct electronic solicitations, offers to circumvent duties in place, falsification of documents, price engineering, and other manipulations to understate the actual costs associated with production are all commonplace and constantly evolving far beyond what is currently contemplated in Canadian legislation.
As part of budget 2017, our association recommends that the Government of Canada amend SIMA to immediately address issues where a calculation of dumping margins does not accurately reflect the real amount of dumping in the Canadian market; address the need for enhanced and more transparent processes available to the Government of Canada, in instances of circumvention and scope rulings; and provide needed clarification as regards the type and amount of evidence domestic industry is required to put forward to get cases initiated.
As I close, I would remind this committee that unfairly traded goods pose a clear and present threat to the livelihood of the over 22,000 middle-class Canadians employed directly in steel production and the additional 100,000 Canadians whose employment is indirectly supported by our sector. Steel production in Canada involves significant advance manufacturing processes, and Canada's steelworkers are well educated, highly skilled, and trained throughout their careers. As such, we would suggest that it is in the government's defined interest to ensure that steelworkers in Canada do not have their employment security compromised by market distortions created by the policy decisions of foreign governments or offshore corporations.
Moreover, given environmental realities and standards associated with foreign steel production, including the transport of raw materials and requirements for secondary inputs like electricity and transport of product to end markets, there is a significant environmental penalty associated with the use of dumped and subsidized steel in Canada. Domestic production is reliant on efficient local supply chains, operates on a modern and largely emission-free power supply, and benefits from short distances to end markets. The same cannot be said for imported products, which impose a significant GHG penalty and undermine Canada's ability to properly understand and regulate the full life-cycle environmental impacts associated with infrastructure development, energy exploitation, and manufacturing in Canada.
With this in mind, I urge this committee to recommend a quick and fulsome reform to Canada's trade remedy system that will ensure Canada's steel producers, steelworkers, and steelworks are effectively protected from well-documented and corrosive effects associated with global overcapacity and unfair trade in steel.
Thank you very much.