Evidence of meeting #44 for International Trade in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was agriculture.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
John Maloney Liberal Welland, ON
The information I have is that of the four countries, 99% of our trade is with Switzerland and Norway. When I hear that the population of Iceland is 300,000, and Liechtenstein has roughly 30,000 people, I can perhaps understand why.
What goods would Iceland and Liechtenstein export, and what goods would they like to import? I'm trying to assess the markets of those two countries.
12:30 p.m.
Chairman, Member of Parliament, Parliament of Iceland, European Free Trade Association
If you like good fish, then we have plenty of it. As you know, fish is good for you, so I would recommend you buy some Icelandic fish. But the Icelandic economy is moving quite rapidly toward service. We export high-tech, and not much of the things we have been discussing today. For example, I doubt that Icelandic boats have ever gone to Canada, but I know that a lot of them have come from Canada to Iceland. So I think there would be some opportunities for you there.
If you come to Iceland, which I hope you will do one day, then you will see that we have a market for a lot of products from North America. I am sure that will not change in the future.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Thank you, Mr. Maloney.
We'll go now to the Bloc Québécois and Mr. André.
12:30 p.m.
Bloc
Guy André Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Welcome to all of you. It is a pleasure to be able to meet you today.
As concerns sovereignty, I want to mention that we talk very much in Quebec about countries like Norway and Iceland, because they are small countries, much smaller than Quebec in terms of population, except Switzerland, whose population is similar to ours. These countries took their place on international markets through various agreements. The standard of living and the score of these countries on the human development index are very high et and even much higher, for example in Norway and Iceland and other neighbouring countries. I think sovereignty is profitable because you can negotiate your own international agreements. This is the direction Quebec is taking right now.
Mr. Thordarson asked us what was the attitude in Quebec towards the Doha Round, the World Trade Organization, NAFTA, and various other agreements.
My questions to you deal with all your countries. Even if Quebec — which is not a country yet, but nonetheless — and Canada export a great deal, the free trade agreement and the WTO agreements have a impact on certain industries and contribute to the impoverishment of an important segment of our population.
In Quebec, there is a crisis right now in the agricultural industry, and our farmers are burdened with huge debts. Our small traditional family farms could disappear and be replaced by megafarms that are more productive and competitive. This crisis is affecting just about all our rural areas. Personally, I live in a rural area. We have problems with the recruitment of a new generation of farmers and with the heavy debt load. Some agricultural sectors are vulnerable. You may know the supply management regime, a Canadian agricultural model which is now threatened. Quebec has 50% of all dairy farmers in Canada. These are vulnerable sectors we want to protect.
Our manufacturing industry is also threatened by foreign competition and globalization. In some manufacturing industries like textiles, Canada as a whole has lost roughly 50,000 jobs. The furniture sector in Quebec has lost 5,000 jobs over three or four years. So, we have a number of sectors that are in a difficult position. The aircraft manufacturing industry will also have to expand more.
My question to you is on your trade with Quebec. But first, I would like to ask you about the situation of rural areas in your countries, even if they are in a very good economic shape. Are you losing some industries? What do you do about it? How can you manage these losses with the gains you make thanks to various free trade agreements? What is the outlook as far as trade with Quebec and development opportunities are concerned?
12:35 p.m.
Chairman, Member of Parliament, Parliament of Iceland, European Free Trade Association
Well, I think Quebec, even though I don't know it in detail, has tremendous potential. I know there are proud and hard-working people there.
If you look at the Icelandic example, even though I'm from the constituency of Reykjavik, I was brought up in a rural area and I know that quite well. Maybe that's a good example of how things change. If you look at Icelandic agriculture—and I can promise you it's much less competitive than Quebec or Canadian agriculture—what has happened is that there has gotten to be less and less over the past decade or two.
For example, the little town I was brought up in was basically, first and foremost, about agriculture and service towards agriculture. It's very little about agriculture at the moment, but it has still been prosperous because it has taken something over—for example, tourism, and a lot of other things.
Strange as it seems, when you look at what you could call a crisis, very often there are new opportunities that come, and that is what has happened in Iceland.
You mentioned a few sectors. They are not big at all in Iceland. They used to be, maybe a decade or two ago, but they have been changed, transformed into high-tech, into more educated labour, tourism, and more emphasis on education and other opportunities. I think we have been very fortunate going on this path.
You mentioned that of course Quebec could probably be an independent country, but even though we are independent and wouldn't like to have it otherwise, we wouldn't do anything if it wouldn't be a part of a bigger market. Because we are a part of the internal market of the EEA, the EU, and EFTA, that's the reason we have been so prosperous. If we had been protective and put tariffs on those things as we used to do, we wouldn't have the achievement we've had in our economy in the last ten or twenty years.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
12:35 p.m.
Member of Parliament, Parliament of Norway, European Free Trade Association
Yes. I have a couple of comments, if I may.
The Norwegian economy also has changed over the last twenty or thirty years. The textile industry is gone, the shoe industry is gone, and so on, and we import more and more of those things that we need in our daily life. We're changing into high-tech; we're changing into service industries, and so on. I think that's part of the globalization, and we have been successful so far.
One of the answers in terms of why is that we succeeded in bringing the women into the workforce. A very high percentage of women are working. It's the same in Iceland, the same in Sweden, and so on.
When it comes to Quebec, it's very dangerous for a foreigner to have a view on that, of course. But if I may be so frank, I think most challenges we meet in the world today have to be met with more cooperation between nations—on the environmental problem, climate change, and so on and so on. Looking from outside, I have to admit that it's very difficult to see what kind of problems you're going to solve better as an independent nation in Quebec, being where you are, with the neighbours you'll want to have, and so on. You may have good answers to that, of course, but we're talking about having to be a sovereign nation, and I think interdependence in the modern world is escalating.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Thank you, Mr. Hansen.
Mr. André, your time is up, but Mr. Vaudroz would also like to answer.
Go ahead.
12:40 p.m.
Member of Parliament, Parliament of Switzerland, European Free Trade Association
Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to give a short answer to your question as far as Switzerland is concerned. It is a fact that the agricultural problem in our country is extremely important. At this time, it is one of our main concerns. It is more the protection of the landscape that counts, because of the tourism industry and the fact that our country is very small. Our country provides some support through subsidies that are more ecological in nature, I dare say. They are based on the acreage under crop, or on the number of livestock, and not on the production.
The agricultural production will be more and more left aside as the basis of government support, and replaced by the concepts of acreage and landscape. The situation is quite different depending on the location. We have farms in flat plains or in middle or high altitude. The support depends on the location. In the mountains, we do not have any significant production excepts dairy products, but in the lower lands, agriculture can make a difference.
Right now, our farmers wonder what the future will be, in a country that could emphasize more the economy, machine tools, watchmaking and other products that have a rather good added value.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. André.
We now go to the government side, with Mr. Lemieux.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Thank you for your presentations this morning.
Certainly free trade is of great concern. It's a very positive thing, particularly for those industries that are very export oriented, both in your countries and in our country. Certainly on the plus side, the industrial sectors that see the opportunities will grow. They will expand. There will be more jobs, more commerce. It's all good. On the downside, of course, there are the industries that are most affected by imports. Oftentimes what you get there is contraction. You get some people being laid off or having to be retrained. Certainly this is a struggle that we face right now: retraining of older workers.
So I have a political question, and I'd like to aim it at the MPs from Norway and from Switzerland. What sort of mechanisms do you put in place as a government? How do you deal with this as a government? One way is just to let the market sort itself out. But oftentimes it's a sensitive issue. I'd like to know what sorts of strategies you put in place, as a government, to deal with these types of issues, as the market transforms due to free trade agreements.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
12:40 p.m.
Member of Parliament, Parliament of Norway, European Free Trade Association
Thank you. I shall make it short.
I think it's one word: education. When people lose their jobs, we try to train them so they can fill other jobs. But of course, in this process, over the years, too many people have been shut out of the workforce also. But we try to train them for the new jobs that develop.
I think that's the short one.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
So you actually invest in training programs, training opportunities, subsidized training, whatever it takes to train people.
12:40 p.m.
Member of Parliament, Parliament of Norway, European Free Trade Association
Yes.
12:40 p.m.
Member of Parliament, Parliament of Switzerland, European Free Trade Association
It's the same in Switzerland. We don't subsidize industries because of the change in international trade and so on. We think also, if we have trade agreements between industrialized countries, as now between Canada and the EFTA states, it is important for the industries to be competitive. And if we stop this, we have in the end, also in our country, industries that are no longer competitive. But if there are agreements between countries that are in very different situations, such as developing countries, there must be--not for Switzerland, but for these countries--some measures to find the level for an agreement. For example, if we had an OSIS agreement with the EU-CEEC and so on, that's not the same level of discussion. But between industrialized countries there should be competition.
For the labour force, we need education. We need help for job changes and so on, and in our country that's a very big issue for social welfare. We have some insurance for this work, and they do it as well as they can, but there are still people who have problems. That's the case.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our guests. I had the opportunity to visit with a few of you during the lunch break. I hope we'll have a chance to learn a little more from each other this evening as well.
I was doing a little research and checking on the website before you came. You have some really good information on the website.
On one of the aspects of trade, we recently had the softwood lumber agreement, which provides some certainty and stability in the forestry sector. We also have the NAFTA agreement, which has provided about 99% dispute-free trade, but the one per cent of dispute needs a mechanism to resolve those issues.
In your past negotiations on trade agreements, what kind of dispute resolution mechanism have you had in place and how successfully has it been working?
12:45 p.m.
Chairman, Member of Parliament, Parliament of Iceland, European Free Trade Association
For the largest agreement, the EEA agreement, you have the EEA court. Individual firms can go to that court with issues and disputes. It has been working quite effectively. We have had to change a lot of things in Iceland because of the ruling of that court. It's the one that is for the biggest area, the free trade area that we are in.
For the other nations, for the other free trade agreements with the third countries, there is no court like that and the mechanism is at a different level.
The court is very effective. Of course people do not always agree with it, and there are some voices that say it rules too much and doesn't rule correctly. But at least it's effective.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
The court is composed of what? Is it a panel or individuals? Are they appointed? How is the court composed?
12:45 p.m.
Chairman, Member of Parliament, Parliament of Iceland, European Free Trade Association
They are appointed, one from each country. They are in effect the whole year long. It's quite a big body, which is like another court.
It's something that came out of negotiations with the EFTA countries. When there were more EFTA countries at that time, it meant they established the EEA agreement. At this time, there are those EFTA countries left. But there are others, like Sweden and Finland, that were also members of EEA--but are now members of EU--when that was established.