International Trade Committee on Nov. 29th, 2010

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Again, I was sorry I felt I had to ask the questions.

That brings me to my final question here. Mr. Dade talked about it becoming a financial centre. I guess again it comes down to what you're saying versus some of the other critical stereotypes. You dealt with this in some of your earlier comments.

Is Panama a financial centre that's developing and becoming sophisticated for legitimate uses, or is it this money laundering, corrupt....? There have been some more memorable quotes around this table than I can remember. What is it? Which is it? We have this image of the Swiss bankers in some respects, with that Liechtenstein model you referred to. What is the financial situation in Panama, from your perspective?

[Carlo Dade]

It's one of burgeoning excellence in terms of financial services. You have to be clear-eyed about this. Look at the flow of drugs and organized narcotics gangs throughout the western hemisphere, including, increasingly, in Canada. This is a hemisphere problem. It cannot be pinned on one country. You cannot pull the Cayman's out or Aruba or Panama or Colombia or Buenos Aires or Uruguay nowadays and say this is it, we shut this down, and the problem disappears. It runs throughout the hemisphere, including, increasingly, in Canada.

The largest theft, the largest financial crime, in this hemisphere, on the globe, occurred where? New York City. Bernie Madoff. How many billions of dollars were taken? This is a crime with epic proportions. Bernie has far outdistanced anyone else. And this is New York City. This is Wall Street. So if you're looking for malfeasance, poor regulation, lax oversight, you really can't do much better than Wall Street.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

I'll yield the rest of my time to Mr. Holder.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Thank you.

I have a cornucopia of questions but a thimbleful of time. In all of this, perhaps I'll just ask a quick question to Ms. Nott and a quick question to Mr. Dade, and I'll just let them respond.

First, Mr. Dade, you talked about the multilateral situations. You mentioned the Trans-Pacific, TPP, the issues...I'll say Mercosur, the Latin American arrangements. I think we would like to see more multilaterals. We just came back from the European Union, and while that is technically a bilateral, in fact, with 27 member countries participating, that's as much a multilateral as I might imagine we will probably see in the foreseeable future, because we may have different views. But my view is that Doha is deader than Elvis right now. It strikes me that bilaterals are the way we go.

So my question to you is this. Knowing that we have struck five deals in Latin America, what is our opportunity? Could you imagine a Mercosur coming together? Or would we do those deals individually, as we have in the past?

I've learned this from Mr. Julian. Just ask a lot of questions and then see how the time works.

Ms. Nott, very briefly, you were very clear to Mr. Julian that in fact it wasn't an issue of how much more money promotionally.... It's to do with this deal and to get it going. I would ask you, what if we don't do this deal? That becomes my question to you.

[Joy Nott]

I spoke earlier about the fact that Canadian importers today are, for the most part, also Canadian exporters. I've been in this business 28 years. There was a point in time when you could clearly distinguish between an importer and an exporter. Those days are gone. Companies are both today. Given what's happening globally, taking any market and turning away from it, with some of the positive aspects of it that we've spoken of around the table here today, I think would be a disservice to Canadians. I think it's just the new reality. We have to be free traders.

[Carlo Dade]

Were you to turn it down, I'm sure someone in the EU would be willing to take you out to dinner to thank you very much.

You can do what the Americans did and toss away potential. We don't know how much that would be in the case of Panama, but certainly it would be hundreds of millions of dollars in trade. For what purpose? If a decision by this committee, by this Parliament, is made that we want to turn down these benefits for Canadians, well, it's up to Parliament to decide.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Thank you for thinking of Canadians, by the way.

I'll end it there, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Mr. Trost and Mr. Holder, and for those responses.

I'm going to take one more quick one. We have a guest at committee today, and I'm going to give Ms. Coady a short question.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you very much for allowing me a very quick question. I think Mr. Holder is right; I have less than a thimble of time.

I am a guest here today. I listened intently to MiningWatch, who were here a little earlier and talked at length about this agreement and the concerns around this agreement. I note in particular, Mr. Dade, in his report, talked about the mining industry and Clarke Educational Services. They were online with us and had answered some questions, but we had some technical difficulties.

In the last sentence of your report, you said the “agreement could help Canada achieve progress on important non-economic priorities in the areas of environmental protection and the promotion of workers' rights abroad”. I think the witness from MiningWatch raised those issues as well.

I'm wondering if you could, in as short a time as possible, give your viewpoint on mining in Panama and why this free trade agreement should move forward, even in that light.

[Carlo Dade]

Given the prices of ores, mining and pressure mining are going to continue. If you look around the room, everything we use here, our cellphones, our watches...the demands are there and they will continue. It can be done in a way that's positive, that leads to economic growth, or attempts to lead to economic growth, or it can be done in ways that are more mercantilistic, that have no regard for the people involved.

You can believe that Canadian companies—your neighbours, your friends—in the mining industry are set on going to a place like Panama and trying to, pardon my French, bleep over the population, or you can believe that if given the resources and the opportunities to look at best practices in corporate social responsibility, in engagement, they'll do the right thing. I think what you see with Mr. Clarke is indicative of the positive aspects of the Canadian mining industry.

It's about working with the positive aspects. Yes, we need to punish those who harm people, and we'll be one of the first ones to march with MiningWatch when serious violations do occur. But companies that are trying to do things right, trying to make a difference....

And again, in this we compete with the Chinese. If you think you've seen a company that has really bleeped over the population, that has committed violations, serious violations, well, look to our competitors. You weaken us. You weaken companies that work with people like Clarke Educational Services. You stop them from going in. You create a competitive advantage for companies that don't.

So it's a heck of a chance to increase the bad and reduce the good. Or you can do the opposite and increase the good and reduce the bad. That's what this agreement will do, and that's what companies like Clarke Educational Services will do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you for that.

And thank you for those responses. I appreciate all of our witnesses today. That was very helpful. We've taken a little more of your time than had been expected.

Thanks to the committee, too, for your indulgence.

That's it for today. We'll see you on Wednesday.

The meeting is adjourned.