International Trade Committee on Dec. 6th, 2012

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

It would seem to me, Mr. Lindsay, that if your members are conscious of being environmentally sustainable and are already investing the money and the resources in making sure that their products are produced in an environmentally sustainable way, they would not want to sign an agreement with another country that allows goods produced there which do not have to meet the same standards to come into our country. That's the purpose of my question.

I want to move to the FIPA. Apparently, Canada and India have negotiated a FIPA but have not yet signed it. Do you agree that the FIPA, covering the investment component is an important part of our economic relationship with India? If so, do you think we should have some study of that at this committee?

[Jean-Michel Laurin]

I think the challenge is when you're in negotiations such as trade negotiations or negotiating a FIPA, you always like to come here and share your views and some of the key asks that you've made to your negotiating team, but as you're in the middle of negotiations, you always have to be careful. Each country has its own negotiation agenda, so making that public is not necessarily the wisest thing to do.

I don't know if you get, for example, briefings from trade officials in camera, but in the case of the FIPA, I understand that the negotiations have been going on for quite some time. They were very close, and I would not have been surprised if a deal had been announced.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I think we heard, if I'm not mistaken, that a deal has been concluded, but not yet signed.

[Jean-Michel Laurin]

Yes, my understanding is that the unions are reviewing the way they've negotiated those. We're certainly in favour of transparency once the agreement is concluded.

My personal advice would be for the committee to share with our negotiating team before or when we enter FIPA negotiations with another country, to say, for example, that we'll support a deal that includes x, y and z. That's how the Americans do it. Congress typically tells the administration, under a fast-track authority—they don't have it right now, but they've had it in the past—that they'll support a deal that includes the concerns x, y and z. Once a deal is tabled, assuming that it meets the concerns of the committee, in the case of Congress, it's the ways and means and finance committees, and the Senate....

To us, that kind of approach would be more constructive than, once we've concluded a deal, to say, “We don't like that part. Why don't you renegotiate it?”

That makes for what we think is a very efficient situation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Time has expired. Thank you very much.

Mr. Holder, to finish this off.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and I'd like to thank our guests for being here today.

It's rather interesting and always a little bit fun being recognized after some of our colleagues opposite. It gives me a chance to reflect more thoughtfully about what's been said.

It's interesting, Mr. Lindsay, that you are with the Forest Products Association of Canada and you mentioned that railway service agreements would be helpful. It makes me think of what my Cape Breton mother used to say, that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, and the next best time is today. It's rather interesting, as I reflect on the last 20 years, it seems to me, as I heard my colleague from the Liberal Party talk about his concerns about railways and he seems to harangue the current government on this issue, that for two-thirds of the last 20 years this has been a problem there was a Liberal government in power that might well have fixed the problem and didn't.

The good news, though, is that in fact we will be fixing it, because we recognize that the rail service is critical, so take some confidence in that. I'm confident that when that comes forward as legislation we will get unanimous support from all colleagues opposite to make that work.

I have a question for you, Mr. Laurin. You talked about skills development being a challenge. You've been in front of this committee before, and it's rather interesting that in a few minutes we're going to hear from the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. What's the responsibility of the CME in this? I ask this because when I was in Chile not so long ago there was a Canadian corporation there that does a very good job in terms of corporate social responsibility, and they decided, as a result of the lack of skilled labour, that they would establish their own basic school to train people very technically.

It's always interesting that there's some comment about where governments fit in. Where is your organization's responsibility in ensuring that the skills development challenges that you discuss are resolved favourably?

[Jean-Michel Laurin]

That's a very good question. What's our responsibility? I think it's a shared responsibility. I think we're always being careful. It's easy to criticize government, and we're certainly never shy to do it when it's needed, but in the case of skills, it's as much a responsibility of the provinces, the federal government, industry, colleges, universities. It's really a shared responsibility.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

I'm going to stop you there.

Does the CME take a formal position in terms of how they proactively support colleges and universities for this purpose, to deal with the skills shortage issues?

[Jean-Michel Laurin]

Yes. We've actually done quite a few reports over the years on this issue. We have some recommendations as to how companies, the education sector, governments, can better work together to ensure that we have more.... I think there are two issues here. One is looking at making sure we have a talent pipeline that's going to fill our needs going forward. The other thing is—

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Mr. Laurin, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I am a little limited for time. Does the CME put financial skin in the game in this?

[Jean-Michel Laurin]

Meaning...?

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

In terms of supporting, say, colleges in terms of programs and the like.

[Jean-Michel Laurin]

Some of our members do. I know some sector associations have their own initiatives.

In our case, we're facilitating some of those linkages, but we're not necessarily directly involved as an association.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

It would be very interesting to see maybe your most recent report, the one that's most thorough. I'd certainly be interested in seeing that. If I could ask you to send that through the chair, I think it could be very useful.

Mr. Lindsay, I have a question for you, and perhaps for Ms. Des Chênes, as well.

Congratulations on our certified forests percentage. It's interesting, I heard another member opposite talk about giving the perception that all we do is export raw resources, but I think you made it very clear that it's a lot more sophisticated than that. In fact, you said nothing comes from Canada raw, whether it's a two-by-four at its simplest level, or exporting—what did you call it—cell-level molecules in a tree, and quite frankly, I have no idea what this is, but the scientists around this table might well know.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I have a point of order.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

My question for you is—

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I have a point of order.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

It's one thing to—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Just a minute. We'll see if it's a point of order.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Lindsay said that there was nothing coming from his members. We've already heard other testimony from other witnesses on raw logs, but not from his members.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

That's fine.

Go ahead, Mr. Holder.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

I think it's important when you talk about the forests in terms of the trees that you harvest, do your members have a very formal reforestation commitment to Canada? I'm very concerned about that, because from an environmental standpoint, what we taketh away, we must giveth in another fashion.

Could you help us to understand better how you do that, please?

[David Lindsay]

Again, that's a very good question.

One of the fundamental tenets of third party certification is that a third party auditor comes in to validate that you are harvesting with the most benign or least damaging footprint, protecting the streams and the contours of the land. Your reforestation practices come in right after that. You must maintain those for at least a period of five years until, as the foresters will tell you, they are free to grow. You don't just throw on a bunch of seeds and walk away. You actually have to maintain it until it's in a growing state, and that's part of the certification process. It is not just that the companies do it; they are audited by third party auditors to make sure they're doing it.

It's in the interests of the companies to make sure they have product in years to come.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much. That closes off our first hour.

I want to thank you for coming and sharing your information with us. It was very interesting. We look forward to a deal that will be comprehensive and quite timely. Thank you for your intervention.

With that, we will suspend and bring forward our next panel.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

I want to thank the witnesses for coming forward. It's our second hour.

We have some committee business at the end of this, but we will start with our witnesses.

We have Mr. Paul Davidson, from the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. From Export Development Canada, we have Todd Winterhalt and Mark Bolger.

Thank you for coming forward.

Mr. Davies, do you have something?