International Trade Committee on April 22nd, 2013

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Shipley, the floor is yours for seven minutes.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank the witnesses for being part of this discussion.

The Pacific Alliance, four countries.... I have a question I'd like to ask Canada Pork International.

You represent 99% of the Canadian pork.... You have for 20 years. You have exports to 100 countries. Do you do trade now with each of the four countries—that would be Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru?

[Martin Charron, Vice-President, Market Access and Trade Development, Canada Pork International]

Yes, we do, with all four.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

That was in your comments.

In the last week we've had a number of interesting comments and witnesses. The whole idea is that we get to see a complete picture of where we're moving ahead.

One of the presenters last week was more concerned that this would jeopardize any trade relationship that we may want to have going forward with Brazil. Brazil is a significant country in terms of trade opportunities for Canada. Do you do trade now with Brazil through Canada Pork International?

[César Urias]

Trade with Brazil is extremely limited, basically because of trade barriers.

In terms of the meat industry, Brazil is probably one of our largest competitors abroad. We face competition with Brazil in larger markets such as China and Russia, probably not now because of recent changes in these markets again. But for the meat industry right now, Brazil is not a priority, I can tell you that. Probably for other sectors indeed, but not for ours.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Okay, I think that's helpful for understanding, because the next question would have been how you overcome that. But that isn't a priority of yours, and some of the other trade agreements will flourish in that area.

You mentioned in your comments, Mr. Urias, that you had about two or three requests. First, the quota management in Colombia for Canadian pork products has to be simplified to enhance trade. Just expand on that. Is that a bureaucracy, getting through the logistics? Is it a bureaucracy in terms of logistic travel? Help me with that.

[César Urias]

When the FTA was enforced, the way the Colombian government was able to administer the quotas was quite complex. Exporters and importers in the country have a hard time trying to understand the procedure because it changes every year, and the procedures for the meat business in this market haven't been simplified since we put this FTA in place.

Therefore, we've come up with this request to actually simplify the process to what the Americans have now, which is what we call a first come, first served basis. Given that it is required to have some import documentation available before the Colombian government, we're asking for the same for our product.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Okay. That's a fair comment.

You mentioned that the trichinella treatment should be removed as an export requirement. If people were listening to your presentation, they might look at this and say this is a health concern, or they might not understand it. Could you clarify what that would actually mean?

[César Urias]

Yes, for sure. I know the pork industry samples diseases all over the national herd, to look for diseases present, or not, in the herd. The idea is that we come up with corrective actions for this.

In the case of trichinella, we haven't found any positive sampling, and we would therefore ask for this requirement to be removed, as it would help us improve the sale of chilled product to these countries. Why chilled product? Well, chilled product would allow us to generate more revenue over our exports than frozen pork products.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you very much for that.

One of the other comments that you brought forward was about changing conditions that happen in international export markets. We know there are a number of sometimes non-trade tariff barriers that get put in place.

One of the things you talked about was the latest changes in Russia, China, Japan, and other markets that demand a stronger partnership with countries. How would going into the Pacific Alliance agreement help rectify those within the four countries that we would be joining? Are they pretty much strictly non-trade barriers that we're talking about?

[César Urias]

Most of the time, yes, specifically for the largest net importers. In the case of China, for instance, ractopamine is an issue. It is a veterinary restriction that can be imposed on countries that use it, such as ours. Therefore, none of our products can reach that country. For the product to be certified and accepted as eligible to come into the countries is also very complex. At times, yes, this barrier may be adjusted, adapted, depending on the circumstances of supply and demand for all markets worldwide, but we've seen similar cases in Russia. We've seen changes in import declarations in the case of Japan, which is currently our largest market in terms of volume and revenue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Mr. Shipley, your time is up.

Mr. Easter, the floor is yours for seven minutes.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for coming.

In the presentation of Canada Pork International you say, “As a result, Canada Pork International strongly supports Canada's membership to the Pacific Alliance”. As Don said, some of us have a real concern about what we're doing as a committee on this Pacific Alliance issue, because nobody seems to be able to tell us what the concept of being a member of the Pacific Alliance is going to do for us in any fashion, other than to have a nice discussion.

You're saying “strongly supports” a membership in the Pacific Alliance. What would you think it would do for Canada that the trade agreements are not doing, or that further discussion on trade agreements, in terms of improving them, wouldn't do? Some of the witnesses have clearly told us, if you're a member of the Pacific Alliance, does that mean you bring down our labour standards to theirs? We're all going to be in this little wonderful group together—your labour rates, your environmental concerns. So what do you think this membership in the Pacific Alliance is really going to do for us? It's not a trade agreement. They already have those.

[Martin Charron]

What we perceive as being a benefit would be to standardize the conditions of access to our product among a number of countries, to make standards the same across the board.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

But, Martin, is that part of this Pacific Alliance? Wouldn't you do that under a trade agreement?

[Martin Charron]

At the moment, each trade agreement has its own set of conditions.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

That's true, so within the Pacific Alliance, they are doing that within their own grouping? Is that what you're saying?

[Martin Charron]

This is our hope. The more countries, the more markets we have applying the same standards, the easier it is for the industry to navigate it.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

But couldn't you do that under your trade agreements as well?

[Martin Charron]

If each trade agreement were to allow easier access, yes.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Ms. Katz, there is a view, and I include myself in this view, that once you sign a trade agreement with a country you have more leverage to put pressure on human rights in the country. Do you have any evidence to show—and I assume we'll get a copy of the presentation eventually, Mr. Chair, because I think you had some interesting points in that presentation, so I want a copy of it—that human rights have worsened in areas where Canada has signed FTAs? I know you mentioned the 12 million impoverished in Mexico, but what kind of evidence do you have to stack up to show that even with an FTA, human rights are still getting worse or staying the same?

[Sheila Katz]

This is a very important question, and it's a very interesting question. It's not an easy question to answer because linking human rights violations to the articles and details of a trade agreement is very difficult to do, which is why we at the Americas Policy Group worked with this committee over a period of a year or so to develop a recommendation for a human rights impact assessment to answer those very questions: how will the trade agreement affect the human rights in a particular country? In this case we were talking about Colombia.

A lot of research and academic work has been done, particularly by De Schutter.

[Brittany Lambert, Coordinator, Americas Policy Group, Canadian Council for International Co-operation]

Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food.

[Sheila Katz]

He's done a number of studies. He's made a number of recommendations about states taking responsibility for the impact of their free trade agreements on the human rights of their trading partners.

Other academics at universities in Britain.... There's a large body of really good, sound information that shows that governments should carry out human rights impact assessments before the agreement goes into effect. As well, they should monitor and define very carefully, from a scientific point of view, where the areas are that need to be looked at, so that after the agreement is in operation you have a baseline from which to assess whether the effects actually happened.

As you know, Canada's trade agreement with Colombia was distorted somewhat, and the way it got passed and ratified in Parliament is that the Canadian government made an agreement with the Colombian government to carry out a human rights impact assessment after the agreement was in place.

Maybe your question can be answered on May 15, when the Canadian government is legally obliged to present its second report. Its first report was vacuous; it had no information about free trade. All it had was the actual contents of the trade agreement. This upcoming May 15 report should have some concrete data about whether they take the study seriously.

We've seen no indication so far that they are taking it seriously. Nobody, either at the embassy or in Foreign Affairs or in other places, has been able to tell us what their process is and what their plan is, and whether they have a strategy for carrying out the human rights impact assessment. So we have to wait and see what the government comes up with.

Part of that agreement was that both governments were going to carry out human rights impact assessments of the trade agreement in each of the countries. So far we've seen no evidence that Canada is assessing the impacts on human rights in Canada, and the Colombian government has been silent on it. They did nothing the first time around, and we don't expect that they'll do anything the second time around.