International Trade Committee on Oct. 6th, 2011

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

Anyway, I've not seen a fear on either side, except for fear-mongering, that culture in any way is going to be affected by this. It's just sheer and utter nonsense. But the idea that we will have issues that we won't be able to agree on, supply management, I'm sure, being one of them...and we will certainly protect Canada's interests. The Europeans have a number of issues on their side that we probably won't be able to agree on.

When it comes to the end of the day, you're an expert in negotiations. You've been through these a number of times. I'm not asking for individual issues.

Is that what you would expect? They have sensitive products. They have a number of them. We're not going to be able to gain access on those products. And we will have sensitive products and they're not going to be able to gain access on ours.

But I would say, for supply--

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Let's get the answer there. Time is about gone.

[Steve Verheul]

It's always difficult to predict the very end of the negotiations, because those are the hardest decisions, and most frequently the most politically sensitive as well, but we do anticipate that by the time we go as far as we can go as negotiators, there will be a handful of issues left. At this point, I think we would hope to find solutions, or at least propose solutions to as many of those as possible. But absolutely, there are sensitivities on the EU side, there are sensitivities on our side, and I think it's clear that neither side will get everything it wants in the negotiations. That never happens. The point is you get as much as you possibly can.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much. I want to thank the department for coming in and giving us this briefing. That is very valuable as we move forward on this important issue.

Now, I have distributed to the committee some business that we have to do, which are really some budgets for witnesses. I really don't see the need to go in camera. If anyone here sees a need to go in camera, we can consider it. If not, we'll just do these in a public meeting.

Fair enough?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Okay. We'll do them in three motions.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Can you explain a little bit?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Go ahead.

We'll ask the clerk to explain.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Paul Cardegna]

We've developed three budgets. They are study budgets, each for a study. The first one is the trade commissioner service study. The second study is on the comprehensive economic and trade agreement with the European Union. The third study is on the trade relations with Brazil.

With regard to the first and the third, the trade commissioner service and the trade relations with Brazil, as we don't know how many witnesses the committee is going to hear—and the committee has planned to have only one more meeting on each—we put an amount in for five witnesses, and an unspecified amount we usually put for a witnesses is $1,200 for witness expenses for travel. That, of course, comes out to $6,000. We put in three working meals, which is the maximum we can allocate for any study budget before it has to go to the liaison committee, which come to $1,500. And we put a $200 charge for the event that the committee does report, which is a standard charge that comes from the publications department, which prepares the report.

So for those two studies the amount requested is $7,700 for each. That would be for the trade commissioner service study and for the trade relations with Brazil study.

With regard to the third one, the study of the comprehensive economic and trade agreement with the European Union, we have received a witness list from one member. I do know there is apparently another witness list coming in. As there were more witnesses involved, we decided to do a generic breakdown, which you can see, of two people from Vancouver, two from Calgary, two from Toronto, two from Montreal, and two from Halifax. The reason for that is it's a blanket amount. We can take those amounts and use them with any witness coming from whatever city. It was just to give us an indication of how much we might need.

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

Do they get themselves to that city?

[The Clerk]

No, they actually come directly into Ottawa, but we use this just for budgeting—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

This is for budget purposes so that we can cover the entire country when it comes to reflecting witnesses, but we're not bound by this. It is just a budget number.

Okay, please be very quick, Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I don't have a problem with this, but are we going to have a budget prepared? We did pass a motion on Buy American, which would bring in the ambassador and a number of other witnesses and a report back to the House. Is there a budget being prepared for that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

When we get a meeting scheduled for another Buy American meeting, then we'll address that prior to—

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

On that point, though, we have a motion to that effect, that we have a report to the House, so when are we going to see that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

We don't have anything scheduled on the timing of that. We'll prepare a budget when the next meeting is set by the committee. The motion is there but there is no timing on it, so when we get the timing on it, then we'll deal with that.

Mr. Holder.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I saw nothing in there for video expense, but obviously for some of our guests who we ask to attend, sometimes that could be equally effective. Can I presume that if we want to allocate for that, versus a flight and associated expenses, we could flow it into that...?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

The clerk is saying the video expenses can be taken out of travel expenses. We're not bound by it. These are kind of numbers to be able to allow the committee to actually do its work with regard to these studies, and they are small enough that we don't need to go to the liaison committee. We can do it here. That's why it's here, just to allow the committee to continue with the work.

We would entertain a motion.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I have another point, Mr. Chair.

I don't believe we have timing on these either.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

I believe we do. They are in the motion that the committee adopted on September 27.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I'll go back and look at the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Yes, go back and look at the motion. We do have a date on it.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

As you know, the Buy American issue is crucial. It's immediate. We need government action. We need some responses, and it should—

[An hon. member]

Let me move it—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Excuse me, Mr. Easter. We have a motion on the floor.

We will do them individually. We'll do the first one first, on the trade commissioner.