International Trade Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Well, you've just lost it.

Mr. Keddy, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome to both of our witnesses here today. It's an interesting discussion.

Mr. Trew, I have a couple of points to make. I'm going to ask for a very short, succinct answer on a couple of them.

You talked about groups of folks across Canada who are against the CETA with the EU. You mentioned labour and farm groups. Labour? that may be so. But we met with the beef industry, we met with the pork industry, we met with the grains and oilseeds industry, we met with the GMO-free guys, we met with organic farmers. All of them are supporting this. So I question very seriously who you're talking about when you are talking about farm groups, outside the National Farmers Union.

You also said that in the October briefing the DFAIT negotiators were not taking notes. Were they taking notes or not? Were they possibly not taking notes? What's the answer? Were you in the room? Or was it a conference call?

Were they taking notes or not? I just need an answer on that.

[Stuart Trew]

I was told very explicitly that they weren't taking notes.

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

But you weren't in the room.

[Stuart Trew]

No, but the negotiator told me he was not taking notes.

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

You say that potentially procurement could be on the table, or potentially the European folks were briefed on procurement. Again, I just want to drill down a little deeper here. Were they briefed on procurement or not?

[Stuart Trew]

I'm sorry--was who briefed on procurement?

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

I mean the European parliamentarians.

[Stuart Trew]

I don't know. I just understand that they have the documents related to services and investments.

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

Well, it's important that we all stick to the facts. Then we all know what we're talking about.

Again, a little further on in your summation you talked about the investor state provisions and the fact that both jurisdictions have a strong court system, which I absolutely agree with. My understanding of investor state provisions—and I've never had a problem with them—and of having clear rules to govern trade so that you don't become tied up in the court system and it doesn't take forever.... You don't go to the lower court and appeal that to the higher court and appeal that to the supreme court of the local province or state and then appeal that to the supreme.... It would take you ten years to get through the system. This way, even though it still drags on and still takes time, you can actually get an answer.

Just very quickly, what is wrong with getting a clear answer on a clear question?

[Stuart Trew]

In relation to the CETA and the investment protections, we understood from speaking to the negotiator that Canada was attempting to tone down the version of investor-state protection we have already. They wanted to do that to weed out the so-called frivolous cases, they said. These would be cases against regulations--health regulations or environmental regulations, for example. In fact, the European Commission has received a mandate from the member states that would go further than what NAFTA has proposed in terms of regulatory expropriation and other kinds of protection for investors.

We're concerned also that Canada may want to weed out frivolous cases but may not be able to in these negotiations if the commission has no mandate.

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

With respect, you're concerned we “may” want to. That's little better than fear-mongering. We may do this or we may do that when there's no reasonable evidence anywhere to prove that.

I'll give you an example. You talked about the government losing its right to regulate because of investor-state provisions. It's exactly the opposite of that. The government absolutely has the right to regulate. The municipalities absolutely have the right to regulate. The Province of Quebec regulated pesticides. It was as simple as that. They may have lost the case, but they won the right to regulate pesticides. That's over. They're not going to pay ever again. It's said and done.

So they absolutely do have the right to regulate. Actually, investor-state provisions backed it up.

You're talking about water. Well, water's not a commodity, and water's not an issue. If a local region wants to privatize its water supply, that's up to that local region. Democratically elected councillors would decide on this and vote on this, and they'd make a decision to move into it.

The example you use is that France actually brought their water services back in-house. To me, then, the system's working. You have the right to privatize it if you wish. That's up to the local region. We don't have any examples of that in Nova Scotia. Your reason for not doing it is exactly the reason to show that the system actually did work. If they privatized, if they weren't happy, if they weren't getting a good water supply or the price was too high, or whatever the issue was, they were able to reverse that.

So, with respect, I think the system itself works.

Finally, we met with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. We had the chairman of their trade committee on conference call. As is the case for any group.... And I'm sure every NDP person is not against free, fair, and open trade. Most of them seem to be, but I'm sure there are some who are not. There are probably members of my own caucus who don't agree with everything that I say, but you have reasonable debate. So of course there will be some members of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities who don't agree. You just can't make blanket statements like that, with respect.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

It's called democracy.

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

But I do have a question on supply management for—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Make it very tight, because time is up.

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

This is the shorter round, isn't, Mr. Chairman? Okay.

Supply management's been a fair system for farmers. I grew up on a farm too, and I appreciate your farm background, but I take exception to two things on supply management.

It's never prevented us from negotiating an agreement. But as for the $100,000 net on a 150-cow herd, if that's average, that's an investment of about $3 million. My God, these guys aren't making a fortune for working 365 days a year.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Okay.

Now I'll tell you what I'm going to do. Our time is about gone and we have two more on the second round; we have Ève and we have Mr. Shory. I'm going to allow two minutes for each, and we'll start with—

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Before my time starts, I'll just invite the witnesses to put on their ear pieces, because I'm going to be speaking in French.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

A point of order. Go ahead.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

We had two sets of questions, and now we're going to have two more sets of questions, and we haven't had a lot of responses from the witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

I can't help it. If the questioners haven't asked the question in time, then I can't help that. If the question is asked in time, we get an answer. But I'm going to treat everyone the same way.

Go ahead, Madam Péclet.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

My first question is for Mr. Lee.

I admire the fact that you have stated that you wish to remain neutral politically. On the Carleton University website, however, I read that in 1993, you were a candidate for one of the leading Canadian parties. I did a little research and discovered that this was the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.

Are you the Ian Lee who was a candidate for the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in 1993?

[Prof. Ian Lee]

I was a candidate for the Progressive Conservative Party in Ottawa Centre in 1993.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

You also worked for the Privy Council Office during your doctoral studies. Was that during Brian Mulroney's mandate?

[Prof. Ian Lee]

Sorry? Say that again.