Industry and Technology Committee on April 27th, 2026

[Karim Bardeesy, Liberal, Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, ON]

When he says, “A lot of countries rushed into deals with the U.S. They weren't really worth the paper they were written on”, what does he mean? Well, he means a couple of things. He means that those agreements maintained tariffs at a level that was unacceptable, would have been unacceptable, continues to be unacceptable and would certainly be unacceptable to us. Those deals often involve the exacting of a form of tribute in the form of requests for investment in the tens or hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars in exchange for a deal.

The good news is that in Canada, things are going in the other direction. The foreign direct investment into Canada is at an 18-year high. I'm very pleased that the Canada Strong fund, which was just announced today, will attract and allow Canadians to participate even more in that form of investment. When the Prime Minister refers to these other deals not really being worth the paper they're written on, it is a very clear differentiation between the position on this side of the table and the position espoused by some on the other side of the table. I don't think our colleague Monsieur Ste-Marie from the Bloc espouses this position in the same way. To rush into a deal involves baking in the various concessions that the administration is trying to achieve with these tariffs.

I'll also observe about these tariffs that something very interesting was clear throughout today's testimony. Until April 2, there was actually more investment happening. We heard from some of the testimony today that the position those companies were in was actually quite a positive position. They were feeling that form of confidence that comes from.... This is in the context of when the section 232 tariffs were in place. The 232 tariffs were in place, not at the level they have been since April 2, and these businesses were feeling confident. They were making investments.

I know that my colleague from Guelph, when it's her turn to speak, will mention Ms. Hasenfratz from Linamar and the kinds of investments that she refers to. We know that the kinds of investment Mr. Volpe champions on behalf of his sector are ones that continue to be made. We know the auto sector investments, and the SMEs that serve the auto sector—investments in the billions of dollars in the Ford plant in Oakville, the third shift in Stellantis, the NextStar investments in Windsor and the PowerCo investments in St. Thomas. Investment is happening. Investment is happening despite the 232 tariffs that have been levied. It's just the very specific April 2 measure that has tipped these specific firms into unprofitability.

That's something we take very seriously, which is why we agreed to the study and why we got very granular in terms of hearing from the witnesses and trying to get some very specific tactical advice and tactical sense of what was required to come to their support. However, this motion doesn't refer to any of that. This motion does not refer to the investments that have been made, despite the 232 tariffs, at the levels that were pre April 2. A very specific set of decisions on April 2, we know, has had a very damaging impact. The tariffs are now applying to the full value of the good and not just the steel content of the good.

The Prime Minister also said the following in relation to where things are: “There's no value in misrepresenting your position, sugarcoating things unnecessarily, not being clear on where you're going to stand.” I think it's an important piece of counsel for members across the way. This motion appears to invite an invitation to conclude a deal. You know, the 101 on negotiations is something called a BATNA, or best alternative to a negotiated agreement. If you state up front that you must have a deal, you will get a bad deal. That is a demonstration of weakness. On this side, we're actually....

This isn't just a political point. This is a point that can lead to real harm. If the Conservatives continue to campaign on getting a deal at any cost, and if the Conservatives continue to campaign on reviving an auto pact that is three generations of auto policy behind, with no regard to the actual situation that we are in today, then we are at a real risk of the administration identifying that division within Canada and exploiting that towards trying to drive the deal that is most damaging to Canada.

We have had a taste of this in the past. We have not had the member for Bowmanville—Oshawa North sub in to this committee, but I know that in his visit to the U.S. and to the White House, he made some representations about how Canada was dealing with this negotiation, and they were damaging. His public remarks about his White House visit—apparently and unfortunately in the absence of the Conservative international trade critic, with whom I think we could have collaborated in a more collegial way on a common set of objectives—were a damaging intervention.

Now we have this intervention, which calls to “finally” deliver an agreement, not recognizing that the Prime Minister, through his leadership and through his interventions, has actually been doing the key work of protecting a number of sectors. The work to be done by this committee is to hear the real, felt needs of the mould-makers and the associated sectors of chemicals and plastics—and we've also heard from a few automakers and others—and find those tactical supports that government could then use and respond to.

I think this is a real error in judgment. When I saw the wording of this motion, I wondered if we should invite the Conservatives to amend their own motion to say that the committee is calling on the Prime Minister to capitulate, to say that we'll sign any deal, because when you lead with “we will do a deal” and the details are from an era that is 30 years gone, then you're basically calling for capitulation.

The section 232 tariffs exist under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows the U.S. secretary of commerce to investigate the effects of imports on national security and gives the president authority to adjust imports via tariffs or quotas if a threat is found. It was rarely used until the Trump administration came along. In fact, the first positive determination came in 1973, for oil imports. It resulted in licensing fees and import quotas, and the U.S. Congress actually moved to limit this power in 1975 to restrict President Gerald Ford's ability to act on petroleum.

The statute was rarely used, particularly after the creation of the World Trade Organization, but this legacy of an older piece of legislation was picked up by the administration in 2017. We know some of the investigations that resulted.

Canada did some very aggressive negotiation at the time, in collaboration with the Canada-U.S. Trade Council. It was great to have Mr. Volpe, who has experience of that trade council as well as the new trade council. Thanks to some very expert work, we were able to limit the damage there.

The Biden administration generally maintained the steel and aluminum tariffs while moving away from the aggressive, broad-based use of the tool, but they did conduct other section 232 investigations, because the free trade consensus that we had in North America—which was already brittle, especially in the United States—was permanently changed by President Trump's first election. Unfortunately, the Biden administration actually showed more continuity than change with the Trump administration on those matters.

We know that section 232 investigations and related investigations continue to target specific critical supply chains, such as semiconductors, pharmaceutical ingredients and critical minerals. We know that Congress has viewed the overuse of section 232 with concern, because it takes away their powers, and in fact we've seen the U.S. Supreme Court move in a related direction on some other emergency economic tariffs that the Trump administration has brought in.

In that context, to invite an agreement at any cost is very damaging to Canada. I think we can do the work, identifying and resonating and empathizing with moving in support, as this government has done, sometimes with and through the advice of committees like this one. We can differentiate between that real work that needs to be done, and capitulation. If we lock in anything like the section 232 tariffs that came after April 2, it is going to be the death knell. We can't lock these in. We can't get anywhere close to locking these in. We have to hold strong. We have to hold strong together as a country.

We have to hold strong as a Parliament to invite a common front on this. The administration is looking for those places of weakness, as we saw with the visit by the member for Bowmanville—Oshawa North to the White House. There was some real damage that resulted.

I'm opposed to this motion for these reasons.

In my opinion, the motion basically tells the administration to the south that we are going to go bankrupt and they will win. Their story is already that they win and we lose, and this motion will reinforce that story in the negotiations.

As we heard in testimony, the witnesses themselves told us that American businesses that trade are also suffering from the tariffs. There is the threat that these industries will leave not only Canada, but also the United States to go to Mexico, China or other countries.

It is up to us to stand together as a country, not only with Canadian industries and businesses, but also with supply chains in the United States. We have to make common cause with them.

For those reasons, we are opposed to the motion. It's not in Canada's interest. We want to follow the leadership of the Prime Minister, who reminded us just today that these kinds of agreements at any cost hurt the countries negotiating them.

We must remain strong and united together.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bardeesy.

Ms. Borrelli, the floor is yours.

[Kathy Borrelli, Conservative, Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Before I start, I want to comment in regard to something that Ms. O'Rourke said when she was questioning witnesses.

She misrepresented my words by saying that I said that shop owners didn't want any financial relief. I did not say that at all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Ms. Borrelli, I'm going to have to interrupt here.

I'm going to give you a minute to get to it, but if it's not related to the substance of the motion that we're dealing with right now—maybe it is or maybe it isn't—then it's not admissible.

I'm going to hear you out for a minute, but I want to caution that this has to be relevant to the topic at hand.

Thank you, Ms. Borrelli.

[Kathy Borrelli, Conservative, Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore, ON]

Look, we all heard the same testimony. We were all here, listening to those witnesses for the last three meetings. I'm sure that on the other side, you guys over there heard the same testimony I heard. You heard business owners say that there are some companies that will need relief. They said that some of them, most of them, can hold out for two to three months, but that's it and otherwise a crisis is absolutely imminent.

Ms. O'Rourke said that I said people don't want any financial relief. If you like, I can tell you my exact words—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Ms. Borrelli, again, this is a matter that under a different circumstance you could certainly take up with Madam O'Rourke, but in the context of a debate on a motion that does not have to do with the issue at hand, I'm afraid that I can't rule that in order.

I'm going to have to ask you to continue in a way that's going to bring it back to the motion—to speak to the motion or relinquish the floor.

Thanks, Ms. Borrelli.

[Kathy Borrelli, Conservative, Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore, ON]

I'll definitely speak to the motion. Thank you. I just wanted to point out that it's disrespectful to misquote another member of this committee.

Mr. Bardeesy spoke at length about why he wouldn't support the motion. He talked about rushing into a decision, rushing into a resolution. I don't understand his point, because I have not seen a rush. Promises were made over a year ago. We were promised a resolution by July 2025. So far, we've had no movement. We've had no improvement. We've had only tariffs that have worsened and put a bigger burden on our companies, put a bigger burden on our economy and put a bigger burden on the ability of Canadian businesses to work and to provide work to their employees.

Businesses have already started closing. This is huge. Why would you talk about not rushing? Why would you not rush when we are at risk, in my community at least, of losing 48,000 jobs and of a total economic impact of 150,000 jobs lost?

I don't want to misquote Ms. O'Rourke, but I believe you said that Guelph is in a similar situation and that you do understand the impact on the companies in your community. I don't understand why you wouldn't want an immediate resolution to this. This is not something we can wait for. When these companies close, they're never coming back. You've heard testimony in that regard. Why wouldn't you want to act right away, right now, today? Why should you not want to request a meeting with your leader, the Prime Minister of Canada? You guys can request a meeting to let him know how imminently, negatively impactful this will be and how bad the situation is.

I talked about the numbers in my community. What are the numbers all across Canada? Do you know that if these companies fail, it's going to have a huge impact on our whole manufacturing sector in Canada? It's going to trip them up too. These companies make the tools that let manufacturers build and do their work, and they're closing and moving to the United States. They're being asked to think about pivoting. I mean, this is a huge problem. Do we want to rush? Yes. Is this a rush when we've been sitting on it for almost a year? We've been told since April of last year that there would be a resolution of this tariff problem by July 2025. We've been waiting. We've been praying. We've been hoping, and nothing's come along. It's just gotten worse.

If those negotiations had been held by the date they were promised, this wouldn't be a problem. These section 232 tariff increases would not be a problem today. Thus, is it important to rush? Is there an immediate need for the Prime Minister to address this? Shouldn't the Liberal members of this committee be taking that message to the Prime Minister? Do you think this is not something to worry about and rush? Spending over a year talking about relieving tariffs has not been a rush.

Therefore, I am in favour of and support this motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Ms. Borrelli.

Mr. Lewis, the floor is now yours.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

I'm going to be relatively brief here, because I really hope we can get to a resolution. Every second, every single minute that goes by that we're talking about this very important motion, by the way, is another second, another minute, another day that our companies hemorrhage and Canadians don't have food on the table. I just want to speak quickly to the need for urgency and how wildly important it is to support not only Essex—Windsor and Guelph but all manufacturing, including our dear friends in Quebec, who are losing very quickly the ability to be even remotely competitive with the United States and are therefore shutting up shop and taking their businesses to either the United States or Mexico, or subbing it out to China, which once again eats our lunch.

It's really ironic, Mr. Chair, that during this meeting a CBC News article came out, entitled “Canada won't be 'chasing a small deal' to get U.S. tariff relief, Carney says.” It goes on to say, “Carney told CBC News: The National that the Canadian side is ready to work on a deal that would see some of those tariffs lifted, but added he's not interested in quickly achieving a 'small deal'.” He said, “We need a good deal in the right time, and what we don't need is chasing a small deal that disadvantages us.” He sounded a lot like President Trump when he went on to say, “We could sit down this afternoon and hammer the whole thing out over the course of 10 days if the U.S. side—which has other things to do, I acknowledge that—had the bandwidth and the inclination to go through it.” He added, “But it takes two to negotiate it through, and they're not all the way there.”

Well, the truth of the matter, Mr. Chair, is that I'm pretty sure the Prime Minister is going to have to be in Washington to negotiate this, or at least to invite President Trump up here. Therefore, those words fall relatively flat, in my opinion.

Mr. Chair, I really do like this committee, by the way. I think we've got a lot done in three meetings, but now it's time to get the study done, to present it in the House and to figure out which backstops we can get for our businesses, so that we don't lose an industry forever and great Canadian paying jobs forever, and that we can remain the leader in autos, the leader in moulds.

Perhaps, if people were really strategic, they would ask questions such as this: Was it perhaps an oversight? Perhaps if we just added the word “mould” to the end of the exception list of the section 232 tariffs, we could get somewhere.

I believe that collectively we need to have level heads, albeit all through the room, and just move this thing forward. I would definitely support the motion.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thanks very much, Mr. Lewis.

I'm just going to remind colleagues of where we are on the speaking list. I have Mr. Bains followed by Madam Dancho.

They will be followed by Mr. Ste‑Marie, Mr. Groleau, Mr. Falk and Ms. O'Rourke.

Mr. Bains, the floor is yours.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Richmond East—Steveston, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the members here. This is an important committee. We all understand the work we're doing here.

Mr. Lewis made some really good points there. We're working on some great studies, with more to come. We'd like to get to the work. We'd like to see reports come out and recommendations be delivered and taken into consideration. That kind of work is really important. It's what we do here.

I appreciate the passion Ms. Borrelli brought to the committee. Fighting for your community is extremely important. It's why we're all here. As a British Columbian, I think I'm the only Pacific member here. I represent the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region. If you look at that specifically, it amounts to one trillion dollars’ worth of GDP. To those member states and member provinces, including Yukon, that's a big deal.

I think one thing that's missing here is that Ms. Borrelli brought the point forward that we do need to rush, but as I think Mr. Lewis answered, we have to understand who we're dealing with and the people on the other side. I had the opportunity to visit Olympia, Washington. I work with the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region, and I visited there. Many of our members here, along with the chair of our committee, went to Washington, D.C. We've made several visits—not just people who are part of specific committees but people at the ministry level and all MPs—because we all care. We all care about what's happening across the border and what that means to us. I have 110 million pounds of seafood off-loaded in my harbour annually. That goes down the I-5 into Washington state. They have issues around....

They need our potash. They need our fertilizer. They need things that are important to their wine sector down there. I come from an aerospace background, so I have a strong understanding of the relationship. Boeing has been in my city for over 100 years now. A cool fact is that the first flight Boeing took was Canada Post, to deliver mail from YVR to the Seattle airport.

The relationship we talk about, and the passion everyone wants to bring forward and use towards negotiating things.... We've tried that. We've done that. Many of us have gone there. I've spoken to members from both sides. We've had senator reports written. We've had not only Republican but also Democratic members come to the table. The congresswoman who chairs the ways and means committee brought forward the motion calling the tariffs illegal. We've seen movement from Republican representatives, who are now speaking up as well.

PNWER is five states, five provinces and the territories. Beyond the PNWER states, you have 36 states that are now actively working toward a motion to be brought forward in their state legislatures whereby they're looking at a CUSMA or USMCA deal that would last 16 years. Everyone's working actively. A lot of people we're hearing from are also probably saying, just like Ms. Borrelli, that we need to get to something and we need to rush. It's not happening—on either side.

There was one statement I heard every meeting. Perhaps the chair and others can attest to this. In every meeting I took in the United States, whether it was in Washington state, in D.C., or in Oregon, we would give them a series of facts on the importance of and the benefits in machinery to the tune of $1 billion annually. They make more money off us.

The Spokane region's representative is Congressman Baumgartner, and I spoke to him. He didn't even know, but when we did inform them of some of this information, and they knew what they were missing out on because there's no deal, they said, it's up to the President. It's up to the President. We can sit here, yell and scream about things, and with valid intent, for sure, but if we talk about rushing into something with someone who's very clearly making decisions one way on one day and in another way on another day.... I think that has been very apparent, and I don't think any of us are missing out on the social media that he himself is involved in.

I think that's a very big missing piece in here. I don't know if you can add a line in your motion here about rushing to a deal that the President of the United States agrees to. I don't know, maybe we can make some type of amendment or something. I think that it's the premise behind it. We all love it. We want to do this. We want to help every family, every Canadian family. In this study specifically, it was extremely important to hear how much impact the mould-making and tool and die.... I come from, as I said, the aerospace industry, which was a great many years ago for sure, but every industry that I've been involved in.... I've built homes, so I understand that. I'm from British Columbia; we understand how important the western red cedar is for us and the softwood lumber deal.

We're hearing things such as that the USMCA deal is most likely pretty good as is, but then we're going to do separate deals on lumber and separate deals on steel. Which one are we going to rush to do? That is my question. I'm not sure that we're getting anywhere with this. I can understand. Look, I typically don't engage in a lot of partisan politics, because there's enough oxygen that gets wasted around here. That's not who I am. I'm a worker. I look at myself as a worker. I do my work, and I try to deliver what I can for my city.

I wanted to talk about this today, because we're all working really, really hard, and we know the families that are impacted across the country. We know that, quite frankly, there's a lot of western alienation. We don't really hear much from B.C., so I thought I'd do my bit today, because it's important. It is. There are a lot of things that are happening, and we have a lot of members on the other side from B.C. We know the industries that matter. We have major projects that are important to us right now that we're looking at delivering. If we can, work towards making sure that we can strengthen the things that we can strengthen and not look at saying, okay, we have to rush into certain things. We heard from an experienced, dedicated member in Mr. Volpe, a dedicated person from the automotive industry for years, who gave us some very direct, real answers on what the reality is on the ground. We heard at the last meeting from members, from other experts and representatives from the respective chambers and what they're hearing on the other side. We have the Gordie Howe Bridge and the controversy we saw around that.

Again, every road, every bridge, leads back to someone who is putting a dead end on the other side. If we look at how we're going to get to a deal, we do have to take into consideration thoughtfulness, or else we are getting just bogged into something that will not be good for the families, Ms. Borrelli, that you're fighting for, or Mr. Lewis, or others—the families we're all fighting for. Recently, even the polls suggest this. It's not just we who are fighting for this.

We heard from Americans. They tend to agree. They don't think the Trump administration is arguing in good faith. They themselves are now saying that. We aren't even saying this here. This motion doesn't say this here.

Polls found that, among Republican voters, 53% say they trust Canada. We must be doing something. The Prime Minister must be doing something that's trustworthy at this point for them to think that way. Thirty-three per cent do not. It's 71% for Democratic voters.

We are now in a situation where many of us come from a wide variety of different sectors. We all are fighting for those things.

I'd like to share some thoughts from recent senators and what they're saying on the other side, if I can find them. I don't want to misquote.

We talk about defence. Look at defence. I really want to share this, because it was such an important piece in some of the conversations I had with Congressman Bentz from Oregon. I talked about Boeing and how we have now procured the Boeing Poseidon aircraft and other military defence procurement that we're engaged in right now. There are over 600 suppliers across this country in defence. They are Canadian suppliers, and 300 come from British Columbia.

I said that, for interoperable capabilities, we are basically being counterproductive. We're spending twice as much on things that don't need to be spent on at a time when both of our nations need to grow together and protect one another against the challenges we are seeing with over 120 different conflicts around the world right now.

Adding to that piece, if we look at everybody from, let's say, the corn growers.... Canada and Mexico are two of the largest markets for American corn growers, and USMCA has been vital in making that happen. We're deeply appreciative of these senators for taking the initiative, sending this letter and highlighting its importance. Everyone wants this.

I'm talking about corn growers. I know Ms. Dancho might not like the corn growers' association or something, but they're saying this.

The spokesperson for the Agricultural Coalition for USMCA said that they are greatly appreciative of their allies in the Senate for supporting the renewal of USMCA, which “is vital to the U.S. economy and an important economic engine for rural America...Renewing the agreement builds on the president's success, and we encourage extension due to the vast benefits to U.S. agriculture.”

They're not getting to it. They want it. The National Corn Growers Association and the Agricultural Coalition want a deal. Everybody's saying, “Let's get to it, let's rush,” but it's up to one person. That's what I heard when I went there. It's up to the President. Let's get to it.

Go back to the Greer report and the Senate finance committee. Ambassador Jamieson Greer did the report and highlighted the grievances they have. When was the last time we heard some of these things that have come forward? Greer wrote, “The question is whether—in recognition of these shortcomings—anything should be done to change them. Stakeholder views are mixed.”

That means.... All of industry wants something to be done—it's just not happening—to tackle these issues: everything from rules of origin to critical minerals to economic security alignment—trilateral approaches between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, negotiating firmly.

This is the most important thing that it says here—the United States said this. In this report, it says, “USTR's view is that, whatever the USMCA’s value to the United States and even North America, the shortcomings are such that a rubberstamp of the Agreement is not in the national interest.”

Are we looking to do a rubber stamp? Are we hoping to just rubber-stamp a deal here? I think that's basically what we're working towards if we look at going back to this motion. I don't feel that it is very pragmatic. It's not something that has a reality attached to it in terms of the real circumstances that are attached to the current situation between these two nations.

I'd like to sort of add a bit more here, if I have time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

You have three more minutes.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Richmond East—Steveston, BC]

I have three more minutes. I think I have one more piece to talk about here.

Again, not enough has been said about the relationship between Washington and British Columbia. Washington exports $2.2 billion in services to Canada. If we're talking about just in travel, travel alone is $482 million. Telecom is $441 million. Charges for the use of intellectual property are $436 million. This is good business, great business, between the two nations here. Just in Washington it's $7.9 billion in goods. That's agriculture, chemicals, energy equipment, etc. Who doesn't want this? We've done innovation. There's Harbour Air. I'm sure you have had an opportunity to fly on Harbour Air. The Flying Beaver is a great pub out there, too.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Colleagues, I would normally have to intervene to ask that the crosstalk stop for our interpreters, but the goods news for everybody is that we're at 6:30 p.m.

We've had a good conversation here. This concludes the third of three studies. As I mentioned a few moments ago, I am going to tack 30 minutes onto Thursday's meeting—we may not need all of it—to just do some forecasting. We need to give the analysts a bit of direction specifically related to this, particularly with those two constituency weeks coming up.

Colleagues, I am going to adjourn the meeting.

The meeting is adjourned. Thank you.