International Trade Committee on Sept. 27th, 2011

Evidence of meeting #2 for International Trade in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was procurement.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Canada-United States Trading Relationship – Draft "Buy American" Provisions

Committee Business

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Jon Allen Assistant Deputy Minister, Americas, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

Laurent Cardinal Director General, North America Trade Policy Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

Kevin Thompson Director, Goverment Procurement, Trade and Environment, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

1:10 p.m.

Assistant Deputy Minister, Americas, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

Jon Allen

It's Ambassador Doer in Washington. It's our consuls-general in our various missions right around the United States. Here in Ottawa at the officials level, it would be Louis Lévesque, the Deputy Minister of International Trade, and the assistant deputy minister for trade policy, and me. I do the advocacy. Ian Burney, who is the assistant deputy minister for trade policy, coordinates the substantive elements of it.

Everybody is on this file. It is up there as one of the highest priorities, along with Keystone XL. Right now, those are the two highest priorities vis-à-vis our relations with the U.S.

1:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield

I want to thank you for coming in and giving us this briefing. It's been a real valuable insight.

It's a bit of a comfort in the sense that what you're doing, to the committee.... I'm sure they all feel the same way. What's striking for me, as the chair, is that the committee is pretty unanimous in their concern about this issue and their concern about Canadian jobs, because it's a fallout that could happen if this were ever implemented as worded today.

With that, thank you very much for coming in.

We'll call the meeting adjourned.