International Trade Committee on May 11th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you for your patience. It now looks like we have a quorum and we're ready to proceed with meeting number 16 in this session of Parliament of the Standing Committee on International Trade.

Today we are pursuing our discussion of Bill C-2, An Act to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the Republic of Colombia, the Agreement on the Environment between Canada and the Republic of Colombia and the Agreement on Labour Cooperation between Canada and the Republic of Colombia.

We have witnesses today who will each give opening statements, which will be followed by questions. I think we'll be able to do two full rounds of questioning today if the witnesses keep their statements at 10 minutes or less. We'll keep an eye on the questioners, to keep their questions short, and hope that the answers are equally short but to the point.

We're going to begin. I'd like to introduce our guests.

First of all, just so we can all confirm that we have communication working properly, I'm going to introduce Mr. Mauricio Ferro.

Mr. Ferro, can you hear me?

[Mauricio Ferro, Head, Technical Knowledge and Learning Centre for Cerrejón Coal Mine, As an Individual]

Yes, loud and clear. Can you hear me?

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Yes, we can. Thanks very much. We can see you as well.

Mr. Ferro is from the Technical Knowledge and Learning Centre for the Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia. He is coming to us from Bogotá today.

[Mauricio Ferro]

I am currently at the mine in La Guajira province in northeastern Colombia, next to the Venezuelan border and the Caribbean Sea.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Well, we have the technology working today. This is very good. You're quite a ways from Bogotá and then looped through to us here in Ottawa. That's terrific. Thank you for joining us today. I will be back to you in a moment. I want to introduce our other witnesses and then I'll ask you to begin with a statement, if you would.

Also joining us, from Project Accompaniment and Solidarity Colombia, is Tania Hallé, who is a fieldworker and coordinator with the coordination team. From the International Trade Union Confederation, we have Stephen Benedict, who is director of the department of human and trade union rights. Visiting us again, I think, from the Forest Products Association of Canada is Andrew Casey, who is vice-president of public affairs and international trade.

Again, our witnesses will be offered opening statements. We'll hear from all of them before we begin questioning. Thanks to all of you or coming.

Let me then return to Colombia via video conference and ask Mr. Mauricio Ferro to begin.

Mr. Ferro.

[Mauricio Ferro]

It is an honour and a privilege to testify before our Parliament on the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

First of all, I'll say a few words about myself. I am a dual citizen. I was born in Colombia and went to Canada, to Ottawa, in 1986, at the end of Mr. Betancur's presidency. I was then Chief Statistician of Colombia. Before that, I was the dean of the Los Andes University School of Management and a full professor there.

I have worked in Ottawa in the high-tech sector, including in international business development for Canadian companies. I have taught some international marketing courses in the MBA program at the University of Ottawa.

For the last three years I have been working in Colombia in an open-pit coal mine as head of the social engagement division of corporate social responsibility. In the last few months, I have been tasked with founding a college that will provide secondary technical education in the surrounding communities.

Cerrejón is a mine owned in three equal parts by subsidiaries of BHP Billiton, Anglo American, and Xstrata. It is the world's largest exporting open-pit coal mine. It is located in La Guajira Peninsula in northeast Colombia, bordering Venezuela and the Caribbean Sea.

The operation integrates exploration, production, transportation, and shipping of high-grade thermal coal. It provides employment for more than 10,000 people. In 2008 and 2009, we produced and exported about 31 million tonnes, of which one million went to the maritime provinces in Canada.

La Guajira's socio-economic development is tied to Cerrejón and the mining sector. Over half the provincial GDP is generated by Cerrejón...[Technical Difficulty--Editor].

Are we down? Can you hear me?

[A voice]

It's okay. We can hear you.

[Mauricio Ferro]

Okay.

In reading the minutes of the testimony, it strikes me that opposition to the agreement is based mostly on ideological grounds and on Colombian internal partisan politics, not on the merits of trade and the long-term contribution that Canada and Canadians can provide to Colombia and Colombians, and vice versa. Canada is a multicultural, multi-ethnic society and we are proud of our values and the tolerance and respect that we have for one another, even if we disagree on many contentious issues.

Since one of the main policies of President Uribe's government is to open Colombia to international trade through free trade agreements, anyone opposing him is trying to make him fail in achieving his policies.

Colombia, like every other country, has its problems. One of the most prevailing is the rule of law. We can write wonderful agreements and laws; the problem is that these laws are not always implemented. Respect for human rights has to be achieved. This has to be a priority for all of us, but it is something that will take time, the concerted effort of all Colombians, and the help of other countries such as Canada.

Many witnesses have spoken about threats and the killing of union leaders. They are right. This happens. But no one has mentioned domestic violence against women and children.

When a kid grows up in a climate of violence, his or her values are totally distorted. They believe that the way to impose a point of view and to prevail is through violence. Through education, we have to change these ideas that permeate Colombian society.

What do we do?

This is the case in Cerrejón in the case of human rights: we are working with Professor John Ruggie of Harvard University, an expert in human rights and a special adviser to the United Nations, to pilot in the field Ruggie's guidelines on grievance mechanisms. If there is not a mechanism to put forward grievances because of human rights violations, there is no way we can do something about them. There has to be an immediate response.

In 2006 Cerrejón began awareness and training sessions with various human rights themes, including voluntary principles and security and human rights. Nearly 14,000 people from local communities, including employees, contractors, public authorities, private security forces, and law enforcement agencies, have attended.

Last year, Cerrejón promoted 17 workshops by the national Red Cross on human rights issues, workshops that were aimed at children. Nearly 1,000 children from the communities attended the sessions in Spanish and Wayuunaiki. Forty-four per cent of the population of La Guajira belongs to aboriginal communities, most Wayuu.

According to Colombian law, indigenous peoples have the right to their own local social and political systems. Therefore, how national law and local customs intersect on the issues of security, conflict resolution, and human rights is key to Cerrejón's everyday compliance with the voluntary principles on security and human rights.

What we say in Cerrejón is that we need to do not only the minimum required but the maximum possible. It will take years to change the mentality, but we have to work every single day of every week of every month so that values change, so that the respect for human life, aboriginal communities, and Afro-Colombians is there.

Let's not fool ourselves: this is going to take years of continuous and steady work. That's why having a trade agreement in place that provides jobs for Colombians as well as Canadians, but that serves the purpose of enforcement of laws for human rights and labour rights, is of the utmost importance for everyone involved.

I am not going to bother you with more data, but I wanted to point out that these issues are not single issues of one day. We have to work for years and invest in education, because otherwise we are not going to achieve what we want to achieve. We are not going to be able to tell ourselves that we have done something for human rights in Colombia, for respect for one another.

Just as a little example, if the armed forces, as built by illiterate conscripts who grew up in a climate of violence, are given a gun and not provided with any training, you cannot expect anything different from what we have been experiencing in Colombia. We have to do something about it. This is part of what Mr. Uribe's government tried to do by having a professional army and training them.

We have to help train Colombians in respect for human rights and for labour rights.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Mr. Ferro.

Mauricio Ferro is coming to us from the Cerrejón coal mine in northeast Colombia.

We're going to turn now to Tania Hallé, a fieldworker coordinator with Project Accompaniment and Solidarity Colombia.

Ms. Hallé.

[Tania Hallé, Field work coordinator, Coordination team, Project Accompaniment and Solidarity Colombia (PASC)]

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for inviting me to testify before the committee today.

The organization I represent has been operating in the field in Colombia since 2003. Our main partner in Colombia is the Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz, a Colombian human rights organization with which we provide assistance and support to the Metis and African communities in the northern part of the country, the department of Choco, in the region of Bajo Atrato.

I personally have had three long stays in the country. The first, for six months, in 2003, the second for eight months in 2004 and the third from December 2007 to February 2009. So I have fairly good knowledge of what is actually going on in the field.

Today, in this testimony, I'm going to try to show essentially two things: first, that the forced displacement in Colombia is a phenomenon that, among other things, is part of the policy of the Government of Colombia to allow the private sector to appropriate community lands in order to introduce economic development projects in the agri-industrial sector, among others; second, that there is a plan in the country for the political persecution of Colombian human rights advocates and international organizations critical of government policies.

I'm going to provide you with some background to the situation of the communities we are assisting. Those communities are located in the territories of Jiguamiando and Curvaradó, in Bajo Atrato. They were displaced in 1997 following an operation by Brigade XVII of the National Army conducted jointly with paramilitary troops. In addition, judicial proceedings are currently underway against General Rito Alejo del Rio, who was the commander of Brigade XVII at the time.

Since 2000, the communities have begun to gradually return to their lands. However, paramilitary violence resumed in 2003. We have also seen an agri-industrial project being introduced involving African palms intended for the export of biofuels, and has been illegally established in the collective areas of the communities recognized by Law 70 in Colombia.

I personally witnessed a number of paramilitary incursions into the villages when I was there in 2003. During one of those incursions, the commander of the paramilitary operation wore the insignia of Brigade XVII, the National Army, while the troops wore the insignia of the AUC, the Auto Defensas Unidas de Colombia, a paramilitary group.

Also during that incursion, the paramilitary troops told the communities they were there to take back the lands and to support the major project to develop the African palms to be planted.

In 2005, the Colombian rural development institute, a government body, prepared a report following the proceedings of an African palm plantation audit commission, stating that 93% of palm plantations established on the communities' lands were illegal. Unfortunately, despite all the efforts made by Justicia y Paz to assist the communities in taking back their lands, that was not always done. There are now more than 15,000 hectares of illegally planted African palms on the lands.

An even greater concern is that evidence has been gathered of the paramilitary's involvement with palm businesses and the fact that the businesses have taken advantage of government financial support. The evidence we have found points to connections between the paramilitary and the palm businesses in the Baja Atrato region. We have admissions from paramilitary members themselves, including a top military leader by the name of Éver Veloza, known by the pseudonym of HH, who before he was extradited to the United States as part of the demobilization process, made a number of declarations. Among other things, he handed over a USB stick containing documents concerning the relationship between Vincente Castaño, one of the highest-ranking paramilitary leaders in Colombia, and the African palm project in the Curvaradó.

He also stated that Rodrigo Zapata, alias El Negro, another demobilized paramilitary leader, who at the time was leader of the Calima Bloc under his authority, was in charge of the palm business in the region, and that he had been responsible for legalizing the papers for the lands at INCORA—the Colombian agrarian reform institute—to allow the project to be implemented in Curvarado.

In another troubling fact, in 2009, a report equivalent to that of our Auditor General revealed evidence that nearly 100 per cent of the funding used to implement the illegal African palm project on the communities' lands came from public funds, mainly from FINAGRO, the Colombian government's agricultural financial company.

It will be recalled that, from 1996 until the present, these communities have experienced a total of 140 assassinations and forced disappearances and more than 15 forced displacements, responsibility for which is directly attributable to the Colombian government.

In the second part of my presentation, I would like to draw your attention to the media, political and judicial persecution conducted of the human rights advocacy organizations in the field. You have probably heard from other witnesses about the existence of a document confiscated by Colombia's office of the attorney general from the DAS, the department of administrative security, the Colombian intelligence service. I'm only going to read you a few brief excerpts, which are quite horrifying. The document dates back to June 2005:

OPERATION TRANSMILENIO—OVERALL OBJECTIVE: To neutralize NGOs in Colombia and worldwide. To establish links with narco-terrorist organizations in order to incriminate them. OPERATION INTERNET: Objective: To create controversy surrounding NGOs. STRATEGIES: Discredit. OPERATION FOREIGNERS: Objective: To neutralize the actions of foreign citizens. Operational investigations. Discretion and pressure. Deportation. Press releases and denunciations.

In concrete terms, we are experiencing the consequences of what is written in these documents. Since October 2008, there's been a new wave of attacks against human rights NGOs in Colombia, particularly against our partner in Colombia, the Comisión de Justicia y Paz, against our Canadian human rights organization, PASC, and against the Brigades de Paix Internationales, an internationally recognized agency involved in the region.

In the fall of 2008, I personally witnesses numerous death threats made by cell phone against field team members of Justicia y Paz, an episode that resulted in the kidnapping by paramilitary members of Justicia y Paz's field team in November 2008, who fortunately were subsequently released. The fact remains that the paramilitary are still very much present in the region and that, in concrete terms, the only difference we see following the demobilization process is a change in modus operandi.

Since the start of this year, a major defamation campaign has hit Justicia y Paz and our organization. Articles were published in the national dailies in December 2009, one of which was written by Jose Obdulio Gavrira, a former advisor to President Rivet, in which Justicia y Paz, the Brigades de Paix Internationales and PASC were accused of working directly with FARC-EP, the Colombian guerilla force.

On February 16, as part of a radio program hosted by Mr. Fernando Londoño, former minister of the interior in the Uribe government, baseless accusations were made in an attempt to establish a false connection between us and the Colombia guerilla force. I would therefore like to remind you that this strategy of associating the human rights NGOs with the armed struggle on the extreme left converts human rights advocates into targets for paramilitary personnel and that, in its annual report last March, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia once again identified human rights advocates as vulnerable groups and stated that the increase in attacks and threats against them was directly attributable to defamatory public statements made about them by members of the government, among others.

For us, the series of defamatory comments and threats to which we and our partner have been subjected is not an isolated case. It is an indication of a policy that involves the highest levels of the Colombian government.

In closing, I would remind you that Colombia is one of the 10 countries in the world that is under the preliminary review by the International Criminal Court. In our view, ratification of a free trade agreement between Canada and Colombia would constitute a disavowal by the Canadian government of the work being done by Canadian NGOs in the field. It would also have the consequence of seriously increasing the risk to our field workers and removing the guarantees that enable us to continue our work.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you.

Now we're going to hear from Mr. Stephen Benedict, director of the department of human and trade union rights of the International Trade Union Confederation.

Mr. Benedict.

[Stephen Benedict, Director, Department of Human and Trade Union rights, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)]

Thank you, Chair.

I'll speak in English, but I'm happy to take questions in French or--

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Excuse me. Can I ask you to present for under 10 minutes so that everyone gets a fair opportunity? Thank you.

[Stephen Benedict]

Thank you, Chair.

First of all, let me thank the Canadian Labour Congress for sponsoring my presence here and, of course, the committee for the opportunity to address you with regard to the trade union rights situation in Colombia from an international perspective.

I am the director of the human and trade union rights department at the International Trade Union Confederation, based in Brussels, and a former director of the international department of the Canadian Labour Congress.

The International Trade Union Confederation is an umbrella organization. It is the largest umbrella organization for national trade union centres, representing some 176 million workers across 155 countries and territories.

Our members include organizations like the Canadian Labour Congress and the Confederation of National Trade Unions, the CSN, in Canada, and in Colombia, the three major national centres, the CUT, the CTC, and the CGT. These three Colombian confederations represent, among them, somewhere above one million unionized Colombian working women and men.

My department at the ITUC is responsible for producing an annual survey of trade union violations across the globe. I have a copy in English and a copy in French if anyone is interested.

First of all, we monitor labour legislation as it is in law with regard to freedom of association and collective bargaining rights. We then monitor the implementation of that legislation. Then, of course, we document violations that occur with regard to those pieces of legislation. I'll come back to the survey in a second.

My department is also responsible for playing a role in the International Labour Organization, where we support and coordinate the input of worker representatives in the Committee on the Application of Standards, in particular.

I've had the opportunity to review some of the transcripts of testimony received by this committee to date and will therefore focus my presentation on three issues: one, Colombia's participation in the supervisory mechanisms of the International Labour Organization; two, some of the information on labour rights violations in Colombia; and three, some concerns regarding the impact of a free trade and investment agreement on Colombian workers.

Let me turn to the first point. There are two sides to the ILO's supervisory mechanism, and you've probably heard some references to them. The first mechanism is the Committee on Freedom of Association, a tripartite body with worker, employer, and government representation. It was established in 1951 to monitor rights to freedom of association.

In this committee, the murders of Colombian trade unionists are regularly condemned under case number 1787, which has become that committee's longest-standing case. In 2006 the committee's report on Colombia was more extensive than the combined reports on all other cases put together. Since the year 2000, Colombia has received more high-level ILO missions than has any other country in the world.

Central to the mandate of these missions has been the issue of anti-union violence, though of course they have also examined a number of other issues, including: limitations to the rights to organize and bargain collectively, and the right to strike; the introduction of anti-union legislation; the forced dismantling of trade union structures under the guise of restructuring or privatization; the practice of outsourcing personnel, social security, and health coverage to associated labour cooperatives in which unions cannot operate; and, other similar limitations that impact on the rights of working people.

The second mechanism at the ILO is the Committee on the Application of Standards, where a list of countries are invited to appear every year at the conference, based on a report produced by a committee of legal experts. The experts produce their report on the application of conventions based on information received from a wide variety of sources.

They include the annual reports that the ITUC produces. It includes information they receive from workers in Colombia. It includes information received from employer organizations and governments, as well as a number of non-governmental organizations, like a school in Colombia that does studies on rights in Colombia, or Amnesty International, or a number of well-known non-governmental organizations.

In the report this year--I want to be very up front--the experts noted a number of areas of satisfaction and of particular interest. Of course, careful reading of the entire report--which is available--raises ongoing concerns with regard to the situation of violations against the right to freedom of association or collective bargaining.

It wasn't mentioned in the earlier testimony, but let me quote from a paragraph following the one that was referred to and that is in your record: “The Committee once again expresses deep regret...”. That is in bold letters. These experts are international legal experts; they don't use bold letters very readily. They expressed “deep regret at the murders and acts of violence against trade unionists which have been occurring for many years and those that have occurred in 2009, since the previous examination of the application of” Convention 87.

Now, with the regard to the situation of murders of trade unionists in 2009, according to our monitoring the situation has not in fact improved. In 2009, 47 murders took place. These trade unionists were assassinated for no reason other than that of exercising their right and their responsibility to represent workers. I wish this committee could hear from some of the organizations that represent the workers who have been assassinated. What is worrisome, beyond the numbers, is that the numbers of women victims have increased.

As is illustrated in the ILO's agenda, Colombia's unions are under attack through physical violence and assassination, but also through a series of legal channels, intimidation, and harassment, all within an ongoing culture of systematic exclusion of workers and their organizations and a lack of understanding and disrespect for the fundamental role that trade unions play in a democratic society.

The attacks are systematic, and in most cases, they are directly linked to labour conflicts. The goal is to stop workers from being able to join unions, to bargain collectively, and to gain better conditions for their families, as is their right. The situation severely limits workers from enjoying any results of economic expansion resulting from trade.

When murder and terror are insufficient to stop union organizing, other techniques are used. Certification submissions are arbitrarily denied, mass firings occur, and impunity exists for employers who violate the law. These violations have resulted in a serious decline not only in the numbers of unionized workers in Colombia, but also in the numbers of certified unions as well as the number of workers covered by collective agreements.

Despite reports to the contrary, the fact is that there has been a decline of some 4.7% in the number of unionized workers from 2002 to 2008. Two hundred and fifty-three requests for certification were denied from 2003 to 2008. In fact, what we have is a decline in collective bargaining over the last years, the years of the present government.

So far this year, in 2010, 25 trade unionists have already been murdered as of the end of April. There are lists of names of victims available, along with where they were murdered and the name of the union they belonged to.

Let me refer to the third point now very quickly, Chair. I think I still have a couple of minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

You're about half a minute over so far, but with the two minutes that Ms. Hallé went over, you are now four minutes over.

[Stephen Benedict]

I'll be 30 seconds, then. Thank you.

The three national Colombian confederations have opposed this trade deal. In 2009, they said:

From our perspective, fair trade should be defined as the development and progress of the socio-economic, cultural, and environmental rights of the Colombian society. Signing an FTA between Canada and Colombia would not guarantee these rights.

To the question as to whether this is ideological, let me point to an area where we probably do agree, and that is the proposed amendment. We welcome the initiative to amend the agreement in order to ensure that a human rights impact review is part of a trade deal.

Let me try to understand this. As I see it, the Colombian government will introduce an annual report to its Congress on the impact of the trade deal on human rights in Colombia. The Government of Canada will do the same.

And then what? Will the reports be exchanged between parliaments? Will they then be debated? In which committees? How does that whole process function?

What are we saying? That Colombians will debate the impact of the trade agreement on human rights in Canada?

We believe the principles of a legitimate human rights impact assessment must be that it is prior to implementation, independent, and its conclusions actionable. If we accept these principles of an effective and legitimate assessment, the conclusion must be that it is premature to proceed with the free trade agreement at this time.

Let me just say in conclusion that if indeed the Colombian government is serious about the efforts it says it is undertaking, then they should welcome a true, independent, prior human rights impact assessment. It doesn't that mean trade and investment stop.

The governments can continue to negotiate and implement tariff reductions to benefit products from both parties, something like a general preference system, which would allow for improvements for Canadian exporters and for Colombian consumers, whom you claim to want to assist. It would allow you to say to the Canadian public that you have done full due diligence--a win-win situation.

Thank you. My apologies.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

We get a lot of that. But you are four minutes over and it's just abuse of the committee: other speakers get cut off and the question period is shorter. I'm sorry, but I say this every time. I did speak to you before the meeting, and actually just before you spoke, and yet here you go.

Mr. Casey, 10 minutes, if you could.

[Andrew Casey, Vice-President, Public Affairs and International Trade, Forest Products Association of Canada]

Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much.

And thank you to the committee for this opportunity to contribute to your deliberations and study of Bill C-2.

I just want to give you a quick sense of who we represent. We're the Forest Products Association, the national voice of Canada's forest products industry in Canada, with integrated lumber, pulp, paper, and other products forming the mix.

By way of introduction to the industry from an economic standpoint, we represent about 12% of Canada's manufacturing GDP. We directly employ 240,000 Canadians and, indirectly, another 366,000 Canadians across the country. Given the rural nature of the industry, we of course are a huge economic foundation of about 200 Canadian communities from coast to coast.

An instrumental component of our economic strength and long-term viability is our ability to sell into markets outside of Canada. Indeed, about $24 billion worth of our product goes to markets outside of the country. That's well over 50% of the products we make. That makes us the fourth largest Canadian exporter and the most successful forest products exporter in the world.

The lion's share of our product, as most people would know, goes down to the U.S. market--about 70% of our products. Another large part goes to Asia, to China, India, and other Asian countries. About 16% of what we produce goes there. Another 6% goes to Europe. The remainder goes to other countries around the world, including those in South America. For that reason, we find that our opportunity here to contribute to these deliberations is an important opportunity in that it obviously presents a chance for us to grow that success.

Members of this committee and other parliamentarians are of course very familiar with the economic challenges this industry has faced over the past couple of years. We've seen a number of mill closures and job losses and, of course, the communities are gravely affected by this. Many of you have communities in your ridings that have been directly affected by the challenges that this industry has gone through over the past couple of years.

There are some bright lights on the horizon. There are some signs that the industry is picking up. We've seen a growth in demand for lumber. Prices have gone up accordingly. We've also seen a growth in pulp demand, with prices going up there also.

It's too early to tell right now whether this is a short uptick or a long-term trend. Nevertheless, the industry continues to plan for when markets do rebound. We expect them to rebound and we have put in place a four-point strategy that will help or position the industry to be ready for when markets do come back.

First and foremost, it's incumbent upon the industry itself to invest and improve its productivity. We've done so, even throughout this economic downturn.

A second component is to continue to improve our environmental performance and our forest management practices. We've done so. We want to be able to leverage those improvements and practices in a marketplace that is increasingly using environmental criteria as a criteria for buying.

For that reason, if I might just open up a side bracket, we're pleased with the inclusion in this agreement of a separate agreement on environmental priorities, where it has identified both forestry management and sustainable resource management as priorities for cooperation between the two countries.

A third portion of our strategy going forward is looking to maximize the resource, to get as much out of the fibre, out of the tree, as we possibly can. A major portion of this is integrating the new emerging bio-economy, bio-products, and bio-energy into the existing product lines--again, to get as much value out of the tree as we possibly can and minimize the waste.

The fourth--and I put it fourth because it gives us a proper segue--is to grow and expand our markets. Seventy per cent dependence on the U.S. market is a bit too heavy. We see what can happen when you get tied up into a softwood lumber war. We'd like to diversify those markets and expand them elsewhere.

Bill C-2, this agreement, serves as a good example of how those markets can be expanded and of the potential there, so let me give you a sense as to what the potential is. The potential is mostly on the pulp, paper, and paperboard side of things--very little lumber. It looks to us like it's not exactly a culture that builds with lumber, unfortunately; maybe there's some work that can be done there, but let's say that's not part of what we can talk about today.

Overall, Colombia imports about $740 million annually of forest products. I think what's interesting about this is that we're seeing a 13% annual growth in that number. That's a significant marketplace that is growing annually.

There are three core areas where we see opportunity here.

One is in the newsprint business. They import about $60 million annually in newsprint. We represent $41 million worth of that, so that's the lion's share of it. Right now that is tariff free. The advantage this trade agreement will give us is that it will put in place the zero tariff for the foreseeable future, which gives us some security and a long-term security in terms of our marketplace.

The second area is the pulp area. Colombia brings in about $125 million worth of pulp annually. Again, we're seeing about a 17% growth per annum in that import number, so that's a growing market for us.

We're not at play in that marketplace, arguably because we're facing about a 5% to 10% tariff on that, whereas our competitors from Brazil and Chile, who enjoy not only geographical proximity but obviously have no tariff, have much greater access to that marketplace. Getting our tariff down to zero will at least put us on the same footing or level playing field with our core competitors from Chile and Brazil.

The third and probably most important area is the uncoated paper and paperboard product lines. Colombia imports about $450 million of this annually. Again, it's growing. We ship only about $12 million worth of that product into that marketplace. The other big players there are Germany, the U.S., and Brazil.

Germany and the U.S., like us, are faced with about a 10% tariff on their products going into the marketplace. This agreement would bring ours down to zero, obviously giving us a huge leg up on our immediate competition out of the U.S. and opening up a potential market of $450 million in this product line. It will also let us undercut Brazil, which is another one of our major competitors.

We see those three market areas as presenting enormous potential: $740 million in potential. While it may not seem like a big number if you put it on a national scope, the reality is that a lot of the products we are sending down there are coming from certain regions of the country.

Most of the newsprint side, for example, comes from Quebec and Nova Scotia. So you can see that when you're shipping $41 million from one specific region, you're talking about keeping a couple of mills open for a longer time.

Any time we have a chance to open up new markets or expand markets we welcome that. For that reason, we're very supportive of Bill C-2 and what it aims to do. We encourage you to support the bill likewise.

Again, thank you very much for the committee's time.

I will be pleased to answer your questions in French, if you wish.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Mr. Casey, from the Forest Products Association of Canada.

That brings us to questions. We have a little less time than I had hoped for, but we will try to get in one round anyway. We'll start with seven-minute rounds. That means the questions from each speaker and the answers should be seven minutes in total.

We're going to begin that with Mr. Cannis, our vice-chairman.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I extend a warm welcome to all of you.

To our guests from Colombia, thank you for coming before our committee.

I just wanted to say off the bat to Mr. Ferro, who spoke to us from Colombia, that I really enjoyed his statement that Colombia, like other countries, has its problems. If any one of us thinks that other countries don't have problems, then I don't know what planet we're living on.

I was moved when he talked about domestic violence in terms of women and children and what needs to be done there. I'll address that in one minute.

If I understood you correctly, Mr. Ferro—I'm just trying to save time here and I want your response for the record—you believe that this trade deal will help address some of the issues that are there today and that will be there tomorrow and the next day, but if we don't move forward on this free trade deal, all we're doing is prolonging the addressing of some of these issues.

Am I correct, sir, in saying that?

[Mauricio Ferro]

Absolutely. You are completely right.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[Mauricio Ferro]

We have to do something and we have to keep working on that in order to achieve results. In the long run, what counts are results.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Excellent.

I'd like to ask Ms. Hallé a question. Do you agree with the trade agreement that Canada has signed with the United States?

[Tania Hallé]

That's a completely different question. My remarks today don't concern the—