Evidence of meeting #34 for International Trade in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was colombia.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5 p.m.
President, Canadian Labour Congress
Those are the facts so far. Those aren't speculations; those are facts.
5 p.m.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Is there a particular market it would negatively affect, particularly the workforce that it will negatively affect?
5 p.m.
President, Canadian Labour Congress
I'm sure it would have an effect on our forest industry. Colombia has a big potential there. It will have an effect on manufacturing, if manufacturers are allowed to locate there without proper regulation. For example, in China they can build a coal-fired generating plant twice as fast as it would take us to go through our regulatory process here. I don't know what the regulations will be in Colombia, but I suspect they're the same. It will have a huge effect on our ability to compete in blue colour jobs, for sure.
5 p.m.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Back to Canada Pork International. Is there another market? You're saying if we sign a trade deal with Colombia it's going to help the pork industry, particularly in your field. Is there another market we can explore in which we can have fair trade where there are no human rights violations and workers' rights are better protected? Are there any other countries you can focus on besides Colombia?
5 p.m.
President, Canada Pork International
Jacques will answer that one. But to the question you asked before, it doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to create jobs by increasing our exports to Colombia. That's open market. You lose markets and you gain markets, but we have to fight to obtain as much market access as we do. If we slowly start losing markets we're going to lose a lot of jobs, because our manufacturers would not be as efficient as they were.
Go ahead, Jacques.
5 p.m.
Executive Director, Canada Pork International
We're already exporting to more than 130 countries in the world, but there are still significant markets that we haven't tapped yet, and one of them is India. But it will be a very complex issue to negotiate a better agreement with that country.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
Thank you, Mr. Dhaliwal.
We've been good today.
The last one on this round is Mr. Allison.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Dean Allison Conservative Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To the pork producers, you talked about the difficulty in accessing markets around the world, etc. I realize you're here representing the pork industry today, but could you talk to us about other agriculture industries in terms of how we would benefit them with this deal?
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Dean Allison Conservative Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON
Okay, you can't comment.
Strictly in terms of what this deal will do for the pork industry then, we've talked in terms of possibly doubling the sales in the next three to five years. Is that what you're suggesting?
5:05 p.m.
President, Canada Pork International
Yes, and also keeping what we have. That's the first point, keeping what we have. Then there's a potential to increase.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Dean Allison Conservative Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON
Okay.
Mr. Garver, in terms of talking about the sidebar agreements in environment and the like, I appreciate the fact that we're here discussing it. Some parties feel it's not strong enough and others feel it's a good start. Would you not agree that in terms of trying to at least work in this direction, we're moving in the right direction by raising these issues as sidebar deals with free trade agreements versus not having any agreements at all? If you don't have any free trade agreements, how else would this be addressed?
June 9th, 2008 / 5:05 p.m.
Environmental Consultant, As an Individual
I think free trade agreements do offer an opportunity to make sure there are improved environmental protections that go hand in hand with more liberalized trade.
In terms of making progress, unfortunately, I see this trade agreement--if it's like the Peru one, given what I've seen there in terms of the environment--as a step backward. If you look at what Europe does in regard to its economic integration, there are European-wide rules. Now that took an evolution. It took a lot of time to get there--50 years.
We are not headed in that direction with this kind of agreement, in my view. I just don't see the stepping stones there. And if you look at NAFTA as the beginning point, it really looks like a step backward to me. We're moving away from those kinds of “fair playing field oriented” rules.
I think it's important to put these agreements into the big picture. What's the overall vision of where this is headed? Are all these little agreements going to be pieced together in some big, integrated America? If that's the case, what kind of environmental regime are we talking about? We need to be working toward a meaningful level of environmental harmonization. I just don't see that in this case.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
Because we have a bell about to ring for a vote at 12 minutes after....
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
There are others ahead of you, Mr. Julian. I know you always want to speak, but there are three ahead of you if we have another round.
Mr. Bains had asked earlier that we take a couple of minutes at the end to deal with procedural matters. So I think I'll end this section now and thank our witnesses, again, for coming. Sorry about the delay in getting some of you here, but I'm glad we were able to get your testimony on the record. Thank you very much for attending.
Mr. Bains, do you want to raise another point?
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
I just want to shake the hands of the witnesses. I'll do that later.
Mr. Chair, with respect to the discussion that took place last week on EFTA, there was an understanding at that time by the committee members that we would give priority to the Columbia free trade agreement study in committee. Then we would try to arrange meetings on EFTA to do the clause-by-clause. Based on that, there was a determination made that if we needed extra meetings, so be it; we would meet to discuss the EFTA clause by clause.
My understanding--and maybe I can get clarification--was that we would meet today to discuss when that time would be set, because obviously schedules are difficult to manage. So under that premise, I'm a bit surprised that a meeting was set. Also, in light of the fact that the Colombia free trade agreement was signed and negotiated over the weekend, that now puts an emphasis on the importance of completing our study. In light of the fact that we took a trip to Bogota, we owe it to the taxpayers, and obviously to the witnesses who have come before committee as well.
I just wanted to speak to committee business and say that priority should be given to the Colombia study in committee. Subsequent to that, if time permits, we can look at that clause by clause.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
Thank you.
Are there any other comments on that?
Go ahead, Mr. Julian.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Mr. Chair, I agree with Mr. Bains. Essentially, we haven't approved having an extra meeting. Given the events of the weekend, we have to stay focused on Canada-Colombia. That would be the agenda, essentially, from what I understand of Mr. Bains' comments, for today. Wednesday we would continue our work on Canada-Colombia and would continue that next week as well.
