Evidence of meeting #10 for International Trade in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was ceta.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
I just wanted to make sure that was the reason, or whether you had to change your name—one of the two.
10:15 a.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance
No. I already had it before I applied.
I used to work for the dairy industry, and no no one ever commented on my name then.
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Sorry, I had to ask.
You represent members from every region across the country, I assume.
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
I wasn't sure.
You were being a bit contradictory, and I want to clear something up. When you came to your slide, you were talking about how we're falling behind competitors by 40%. I assume it's not only about tariffs.
You stated that there's limited investment, but then you said there's more than enough investment available out there.
Can you clear that up?
10:15 a.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance
The decrease in competitiveness is not related to tariffs. It's strictly related to a regulatory legislative policy framework that the other countries have, a more enabling framework than we have here.
Most of the same companies invest in Canada, as they do in other countries, so they're global companies. When they have discussions about where to invest, Canada gets maintenance dollars and not new dollars because there are no new projects, no production—
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
The investors here have a choice.
They can either invest in Canada or invest—
10:15 a.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance
Absolutely.
Most of our companies—
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
10:15 a.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance
—are investing in Canada. They're also the same companies that are investing in Scotland, Norway, and Chile. The money is going elsewhere. But the money is there.
When the discussions around the board table come around—
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
So this is not about CETA, but it's about the regulatory framework here in Canada.
10:15 a.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance
That's exactly the limitation. Because of the growing demand for seafood and the high quality of Canadian products, we'll be able to capitalize on CETA if we can expand production.
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
What do you need to improve the regulatory framework that your companies are under right now?
10:15 a.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance
We are now working with the federal government on a work plan, that hopefully is going to see some success in terms of regulations that make sense from our industry, and also not duplicate what is going on right now. There's a lot of duplication.
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Was that part of your input with CETA when you had discussions with negotiators?
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
10:15 a.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance
That and a national agriculture act.
If we can get those kinds of things, then CETA will then add to—
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
I'm sorry. Your time is gone.
Mr. Hiebert and Mr. Holder are going to split the last questions, and we will have to cut this whole session a bit short because of the bells.
Go ahead.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank our guests for being here today.
I was thinking, frankly, that after the next election Charlie Angus might be looking for a new position. My concern is that he's going to change his name to “Charlie Tuna”, so Ms. Salmon, I'd be a little concerned about that, if I were you.
That's just to give you a little heads-up there.
10:20 a.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
10:20 a.m.
NDP
10:20 a.m.
An hon. member
You're being callous this evening.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
If you don't like it, that's just bad Cape Breton humour.
First I'd like to thank you both, the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance, and of course the Canadian council, for your great support of CETA.
I think this is really all about allowing job creators to create jobs. As I heard you both say, you already do business in Europe, to more or less degrees, and if we can find ways to take tariffs out of the equation and make regulations more compliant—and Ms. Salmon, I certainly heard you say that with some strength—it would be beneficial to your industry, which means beneficial for Canadians and for jobs in this country.
If I could, though, Ms. Salmon, I really appreciated your references to global trends. I'm going to focus on that for a moment. When we think of where the world is going, and this affects the canola industry as well, with its great growth, and the aquaculture, which is not...and that concerns us.... But if we imagine where the world is going population-wise, and who's going to feed the world, Canada has a huge opportunity. I might even say it's a moral obligation to do its part as well, as the world grows. I think we're well positioned to do that, which is why I was struck by your comment that aquaculture is the fastest growing food industry in the world and Canada has not yet capitalized on it.
One of the things you pointed out in one of your slides was that with tariff rates of up to 25%, the EU has not been a priority export market. I get that. In fact, when this committee was in Halifax, we heard from one witness, who indicated, for example, that with fresh fish the tariff rate is at roughly 8%, and for processed fish it's in the mid twenties. That's consistent with what you've said here.
What this does with the greatest majority of tariffs—well over 90% being removed immediately on signing and the balance over several years—we think, is to create an opportunity. I'll touch on the regulatory in a moment, but my question is, will the focus change?
Ms. Salmon, I'm not sure what percentage of the aquaculture industry stays within Canada or is exported. I'd like to know that precisely. Secondly, to what extent—again, notwithstanding the regulatory regime, but the removal of tariffs—will that assist your industry going forward?
10:20 a.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance
We have certainly been an export-oriented industry. One of the main reasons for that is that we're so close to one of the major seafood markets in the world, the U.S. That has been the easiest place to do business because of the proximity, and we can provide fresh product in a very short period of time.
However we do have the opportunity to grow both in export markets in other countries, such as the EU, as well as in our domestic consumption here. We've not focused on that. Again it's all to do with our limiting production, we're in the same place now as we were 13 years ago.
We have been an export-oriented industry. We will continue to be that. Seafood is a global commodity, but we do have the potential to increase, particularly in the EU, as well as in our domestic sales.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
How many years has the United States been an important market for you?
