International Trade Committee on Nov. 28th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

After Ms. Guergis, it's Mr. Eyking.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Just briefly on Mr. Menzies' point, you explained very well, I thought, Mr. Chair, that essentially we're talking about two parts: the first part NAFTA and SPP or deep integration; and then we were dealing with the conundrum of a possible election in March.

So do we map out a full spring agenda, or do we put it in two components and, assuming potential for an election, have a first component and then, if there is no election—it's up to this Parliament to decide, of course— move on to the second component of it?

What you've raised, I think, is contained within that second component.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Of course, Mr. Julian, as you know, the Prime Minister has announced the election date for the next election, October 19, 2009. But in the event that it does come sooner, that's right; that was a consideration.

Next is Ms. Guergis.

[Helena Guergis, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Are we talking about the second part of the study?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Whatever you want—the proposal—and we'd like to deal with it as soon as we can, if everybody could keep comments as short as we can. We have two motions to deal with.

[Helena Guergis, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

I wanted to add a couple of countries, or a few of them, that I believe probably offer some potential for a substantial increase for Canadian commerce. I was thinking we could have the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and—I know we've talked a little bit about and have had representatives from Australia and New Zealand—how about Brazil and Russia? That's it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Okay. Thank you. That would be for the second part of the study, from April until June.

Are you on this issue, Monsieur Cardin?

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Chairman, we often come back to the issue of the election. You always say that it will happen in October 2009. However, if it should happen earlier, and very quickly, I would like to reassure the committee that my colleague and I will be here to guarantee that there is a follow-up afterwards.

[Some honourable members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

You're out of order.

Now we go to Mr. Eyking.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have to commend the steering committee for putting this together.

I agree with Ms. Guergis about bringing these countries in, but I suggest Mr. Menzies' idea. Why don't we flip it so that we do these other countries first, as soon as we get back after the holidays, and then do the NAFTA afterwards?

Just flip it. That's what I'd suggest.

[Helena Guergis, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

I absolutely support Mr. Eyking's proposal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

I'm certainly here at the will of the committee.

You've heard the proposal, gentlemen. The proposal is that we reverse the order and deal with countries beyond NAFTA, starting at the end of January and moving into that time period.

Mr. Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Chair, I'd like to speak against the amendment.

When Mr. Temelkovski raised the issue in the steering committee, he was raising it in the context of perhaps this committee as well choosing to have some focused travel. It was determined at the steering committee level that we wouldn't be able to do that in this fiscal year. If we wanted to map that out early in the new year, we could certainly do that, but there would need to be time in order to do that.

Mr. Temelkovski is not here to discuss what he was proposing, but that's why we have the logic of doing the NAFTA and SPP deep integration component first, and then having the second component later in the year, which is also the next fiscal year. So I would be opposed in switching that back arbitrarily, because there was some plan and forethought provided to that, and Mr. Temelkovski could provide the details to Mr. Eyking if he wanted to know more.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Yes, Mr. Eyking.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Just on my amendment, I think flipping it would not be a problem, and if we have to travel in the new fiscal year, we could still travel in the context of what we learned in the first month about these countries. We could still learn about these countries in trade committee and then travel to these countries in the next year. I don't think that is a big problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Okay, we're going to have to deal with this.

Apparently they're setting up a conference or video conferencing, or something for later on, and need a little bit of time. We have two motions to deal with.

I don't know where to go with this. The steering committee came with the proposal in this fashion. There has been an amendment proposed. Can we just deal with that with a show of hands very quickly, those who would favour the proposed amendment to move the NAFTA to be the second part of the study and to move what is now the April to June portion ahead to when we get back after Christmas, and those opposed?

(Amendment agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

So we will reverse the order. We will work on that, then, and go ahead with that.

We'll continue until Christmas with what's planned here.

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to Mr. Julian's motions. Go ahead, Mr. Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll move first the motion on the apparel industry:

The Committee calls on the government of Canada to stem the current market disruption, in specific categories, in the Canadian apparel industry, by immediately invoking Article 242 of China's accession protocol to the WTO and putting in place restrictions or safeguards on the growth of specific categories of apparel imports from China.

I don't think there will be much debate or disagreement with this. We've had 50,000 jobs lost in the last four years. I'm not as eloquent as Mr. Menzies is on this particular issue, so I'll just read his words into the record, because I know he stands by them.

In reference specifically to safeguards, he said on November 8, 2005:

A Conservative government would stand up for Canadian workers and work proactively through international trade policies to ensure Canada competes on a level playing field.

And the official opposition at that time, the Conservative caucus, including leader Stephen Harper, supported a motion in Parliament on February 8, 2005, which called on the federal government to negotiate safeguards with the Chinese government, implement measures to encourage the use of Quebec and Canadian-made textiles, and to create programs to support older workers in the industry.

Mr. Menzies was absolutely right. I agree with him completely. It's nice when we can get all-party agreement on these things. He said it extremely eloquently. Mr. Chair, given his eloquent words, I cannot but agree with him, and I hope that all members would support this motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

I believe there's an amendment as well that Monsieur André or Monsieur Cardin brought.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

We have actually Mr. Eyking and Ms. Guergis first. Could we make the debate discussion as short as possible? We could move the meeting to the room across the hall if we want to go beyond a couple of minutes before eleven, but let's try to deal with this in a short time.

Mr. Eyking.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, Mr. Julian, what Conservatives say before an election and after it always seems to change, and that's consistent.

That being said, Mr. Chair, on Mr. Julian's motion, I'll be brief. We have a problem with putting caps on. What we want to see is more discussion on it and witnesses come forward to discuss the repercussions of it, especially the department and the industry. Just to go out and put caps on an industry sometimes is not going to solve the industry's problem, so we'll be voting against it because of those concerns.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you.

Ms. Guergis.

[Helena Guergis, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you.

I will be voting against it. With respect to some of the points I had raised earlier, in 2005 there were few companies, less than 1% of the Canadian apparel industry, that actually approached the government and asked it to proceed with this process. That was in 2005, less than 1%. My question was, have they done it since? I got the answer back, no, they haven't. So I would want to hear from the industry before we embark down this path. If they haven't asked the government since then and there's been no request, then why are we proceeding with them? I'd like to speak with the industry, as Mr. Eyking has said. I'd also like to speak with department officials, before we make any decisions on voting on this.

I did raise a question today, but unfortunately we couldn't get an answer. We saw that there was widespread disruption in the EU with proceeding with this process. I want to know what the possible disruption could be here in Canada for the industry before we make a decision. I think it would be irresponsible for us to just simply vote in favour of this without having these questions answered.

So we will not be supporting it. Thank you.