Government Operations Committee on May 5th, 2015

[Graham Rae Dulmage]

I think Jean covered it. I am the chair of the international ISO committee on second-hand goods—an interesting topic—and the issue there is that I was appointed by ISO but was delegated by the SCC, as he said. We hold, I think, seven national committees for ISO, and we hold three positions internationally. As Jean said on the facilitation, the SCC is always the member body at ISO, but certain SDOs may have certain committees that have that subject matter expertise.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Bélanger.

Next, for the Conservatives, we have Mr. Mark Adler.

Go ahead for five minutes, please, Mark.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

First of all, I want to address my questions to Mr. Dulmage.

How does our standards regime here in Canada rate internationally compared to others around the world? Who are we most closely identified with?

[Graham Rae Dulmage]

I would say that we're rated very highly because our consensus system is very robust.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Yes.

[Graham Rae Dulmage]

I would say that we are closest probably to the Australian-British model.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Okay.

[Graham Rae Dulmage]

As for our voting record, when I came to the SCC, the voting failure at ISO and the IEC was 32%.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Okay.

[Graham Rae Dulmage]

We got it up to no less than 2% or 1%, which is within the margin of the top seven members.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Thanks.

As you know, we have a very aggressive trade agenda. We've negotiated over 40 free trade agreements since we achieved government in 2006. Is our standards regime keeping up with the free flow of goods resulting from all these new free trade agreements? If not, what can we do to rationalize it?

[Graham Rae Dulmage]

I don't think we're keeping up. We're doing better, but I look at it and say I'd rather be at five after 11 than five before. We're at about five before. We need to be at five after 11. The SCC has a fairly good funding model, but we really have to drive to coordinate internally, and also drive to have the right person at the right table with the right tools and the right resources, to go out and deal with the sense and elect a European group, a Chinese group, and any other group that's trying to get the market, and drive for that. But we need to have a really good plan. That's a system need.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Who's responsibility would it be to develop that plan?

[Graham Rae Dulmage]

Well in our country, to be honest, the SDOs are not rich companies. The federal government and others will have to get together and drive it with the SCC. The SCC is probably best set to help push that through, but it needs to have that knowledge. If it costs $10,000 a day to be there, what's the cost if you aren't there, if you aren't involved?

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Of course.

[Graham Rae Dulmage]

I gave an example of the electric vehicles standards which in the U.S. were written 12 years ago. We're just doing them now and we're using the American standards. We should have been doing them 12 years ago with the Americans, if we could have. That's an example of where we missed the trade advantage.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Similarly, there are probably areas in which we're ahead of the U.S. but they're catching up. Is that true, or not?

[Graham Rae Dulmage]

There are some, but not as many as there could be.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Oh, really?

[Graham Rae Dulmage]

There are just a few.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Okay.

In terms of efficiencies within the regime, what inherent impediments are there to achieving some of these efficiencies?

[Graham Rae Dulmage]

Well, one is that in some areas there's an overly heavy administrative burden. As my staff always say, “Are we more interested in the outcomes, or are we interested in dotting the i's and crossing the t's in the process?”. That's always a challenge. I think the other challenge is collaborating among the SDOs, and we have successfully done that. Over the past many years, there have been some significant disagreements among the SDOs, which has meant that things have stopped, because they want to work on them themselves internally. They don't want to face out to the world in front of them and work with the people in the country that needs the solutions. That has largely gone, but I still see a legacy of it.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Oh, really?

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

That concludes your time, but I wonder if we could ask Mr. Rousseau if he might want to comment on either of the questions you put.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

You're very liberal with your time, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that.