International Trade Committee on March 23rd, 2010

[Steven Shrybman]

I don't agree that it's protectionism. I think we should--

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

No, no, sir; I ask the questions. I'd appreciate your--

[Steven Shrybman]

Yes, and I'm answering your questions. I'm saying that if you describe local preferences--that's what I'm talking about--as something that Europe has, China has, Japan has, but we don't have, then we should have them.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

No, we do have them. We still maintain that.

I'm going back to the point. Do you believe that we ought to be encouraging and supporting the Americans in their Buy American effort? Should we be introducing a Buy Canadian type of approach here, and in fact increasing barriers to trade between Canada and the U.S.?

[Steven Shrybman]

Well, I don't accept your definition of them as trade barriers.

When Ontario procured photovoltaic cells, it insisted that the company providing them had to create jobs in Ontario. Was that a good thing, in my view? Yes. When Ontario bought rolling stock for its transit system, it favoured a Canadian company. Was that a good thing? Yes. Would I like to see more of that in Canada? Yes. Do I have any complaint about the U.S., Europe, Japan, and China doing the same thing? No. Do I consider them to be trade barriers? No.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

There will always be some of that, but structural trade measures--deals that specifically limit access to our procurement by foreign companies--come at a very significant price to Canadian jobs and competitiveness. I want to make the point that the real competition down the road is going to be China, India, and Brazil. I think that the more we do to balkanize our Canada-U.S. markets, which seems to be the doctrine you are convinced of, the greater the cost will be, ultimately, in lost North American jobs, and I think we have to be awfully careful on that.

[Steven Shrybman]

We can disagree about the right policy--

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

I'm sorry, but the five minutes have expired. We're going to have to move on.

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

Mr. Chair, I think it would be appropriate to allow Mr. Shrybman to answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

I'm sorry, but we've established five minutes and seven minutes, and we've been doing reasonably well today. I can't accept making exceptions for one, Mr. Julian, other than for you, which we often do.

We're going to go to Mr. Keddy now.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome to our witnesses. I think it has been an important discussion. Obviously the dynamics and the opinions are a little different among all the players, but I think that's important as well.

I want to go back to Mr. Trost's question and find the advantage in signing this contract. I don't think anyone's tried to say it's perfect, and I've certainly not heard the government saying so. Putting a trade agreement together in a little over six months is almost impossible; I'd say it's unheard of anywhere on the planet. We were able to bring the municipalities and the provinces onside, and that's a job all by itself. As well, we were able to work a deal with the Americans. We know a lot of the dollars were out the door, so we were trying to save what dollars are left. What I want to look at, again taking direction from my colleague's question, is how this bodes for the future.

As an aside, I quite agree with everything Mr. Brison said. Every once in a while we're totally in sync, as we are on his comments there.

The issue here is not just what we save from this deal; the issue will be how quickly we can get to the bargaining table the next time the Americans do this. They're a protectionist society. I used to joke that Americans are vaccinated with a protectionist needle, and quite frankly, they are. We have success stories here, such as Cherubini and other Canadian companies that are competing with the Americans toe to toe and doing extremely well. There are lots more success stories like that straight across the country.

I want to go to Mr. Buda for this. Where do you think this puts us in the next round of negotiations with the United States? Surely we can get to the table more quickly. Where do you think it puts us? The European Union negotiations have been mentioned; they are extremely important and have the potential to be as big a market as the United States is. Down the road, where do you think it puts us two or three years after negotiations come to fruition, hopefully, with the EU, and with additional negotiations and additional programs by the United States?

[Michael Buda]

We're sure not experts in international trade negotiations, but certainly our understanding of previous international trade negotiations was that they have not included sub-national procurements. Therefore, in general, provinces and definitely municipalities really didn't have much of an interest, nor did they need to be consulted that much.

If sub-national procurement is a direction in which the government is going to go in terms of inclusion in future trade agreements, then there's no doubt that this experience has already laid the groundwork for a more expedient and frankly more open process.

I think you're right, the fact that they have 13 provinces and territories signed on in six months is nothing short of remarkable. Each province has a different set of exclusions and exemptions and carve-outs. Our understanding of the agreement is that each province and territory has excluded a number of industries. In Ontario transit is excluded. It means that Toronto can continue its practice of sourcing domestically, which is one of our principles.

So I think that the relations that have been created and the lessons learned are going to make it easier to ensure that if this is a decision the government wishes to take, to include sub-national procurement--we don't have a position on that, but if they do--then some of the connections, contacts, networks, and knowledge have been created so that at the very least that deal is effective and efficient with as few unintended consequences as possible. As I said, we don't have a position on whether or not that's a good thing.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

I have a final question, if I have time, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

You have 40 seconds. Were you going to give another speech?

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

I'll try to take a breath and ask the question.

There's been some discussion about the potential of $33 billion worth of Canadian procurement that's on the table. I would argue that there will be the equivalent of $33 billion worth of contracts on the table from the U.S. The real numbers right now might be slightly less than that, but I think those are the glass-half-empty numbers, quite frankly. So I think we can roughly say we balance.

What does that bode for the future? Here's the situation: we got to the table once; it's always easier to come back the second time. Look, not just because I'm a government member, but I think this is a great agreement. I think we made tremendous headway, and I think the possibility of ongoing reciprocity in the future is before us, which means Americans at the table.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Mr. Keddy. Sorry, we won't have time for an answer to that last speech.

We are going to go vote. The bells are ringing. I appreciate everybody coming. We're going to have to wrap it up and get over to the House to vote.

The meeting is adjourned.