International Trade Committee on Dec. 10th, 2013

[Jan Westcott]

That's the issue. If you don't have the money in your jeans at the end of the day to invest, all the trade agreements that the Government of Canada makes won't do us any good if we can't go out there and seize that opportunity.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

That's what I think is really missing in some of the work we're doing.

Mr. Williams, you mentioned that the devil is in the detail. What do you mean by that for your industry, specifically?

[Russell Williams]

It's particularly in regard to some of the questions that we had a dialogue on already today: what kind of patent term restoration will there be, and how would it work? What does dual litigation mean? How will the right of appeal work? I mean, these are principles. It wasn't an agreement-in-principle, but it will be in the details of all that and how this is actually going to work in the next year....

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Hiebert, go ahead.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Thank you.

I'm going to focus on the drug side of the equation for the three minutes I have.

My question relates to the signal that we seem to be getting from CETA. As it relates to your industry, it seems that the negotiators walked a fine line by providing something to both sides, both the innovators and the generics.

For the innovators, you got two years' extra patent protection, and for the generics, they got an end to dual litigation. Is this not a fair balance? Is this not a way of walking that fine line—not harming one side of the industry or the other side of the industry?

[Darren Noseworthy]

It's not as clear-cut as that. When you mention the end of dual litigation, there are a number of fairly significant components to that equation that I tried to outline in my initial points. We have unique aspects in Canada. We have section 8 damages. Does ending dual litigation mean that the innovators don't have a right to sue for infringement but the generics can still bring actions to impeach patents? Does it mean that the generics are willing to forgo their right to section 8 damages? What does it actually mean?

If the starting point of that discussion is that if in order to get a right of appeal—which is something the generics have, and you don't—to get that equal footing, you have to give something up on the other side, then that's really where we're coming from. That would be unacceptable. When we say end dual litigation, that has a number of very complex components to it, and we're very concerned about the unintended consequences and what the generics are actually giving up in that discussion.

[Russell Williams]

If we recall what was on the table with CETA, there were three requests: patent term restoration, data protection, and right of appeal. In the agreement in principle it looks as if it was two out the three, which is progress, and I'm very pleased about it. But if with one of the three isn't really progress—and again, the devil is in the details, as Darren has talked about—that's not going to achieve what we set out to do, to try to get the environment to attract more investment in Canada.

To me, the balance is to win those contracts to come to Canada. There's lots of room in our health care system for generics and for innovators. But we have to create the environment to attract the investment here. I've always believed the generics should probably be supporting us more, because without our innovation they have nothing to copy. But they do have a role at the end of patent. We have to make sure that we have the environment, that we can do the research, and that it's protected. That's what we're trying for, and that's the balance I think we should be going for, to make sure there's enough in CETA to attract new dollars into Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

That's our time.

I want to thank you very much, Mr. Williams, Mr. Noseworthy, Mr. Helie, and Mr. Westcott, for your time with us this morning and your presentation. We appreciate that.

We will now suspend as we set up the next panel, as we have three panellists, and then we have a little bit of committee business at the end.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

I call the meeting back to order.

We want to thank our witnesses for their time. In this panel we have three panellists. From the Alzheimer Society of Canada, we have Debbie Benczkowski. Thank you for being here; you'll start us off.

Then we'll have the Canadian Organization for Rare Disorders, Dr. Wong-Rieger; and then from the Canada Europe Roundtable for Business, Jason Langrish.

Thank you all for being here.

Ms. Benczkowski, the floor is yours.

[Debbie Benczkowski, Chief Operating Officer, Alzheimer Society of Canada]

Good morning. Thank you very much to the members of this committee for the invitation to appear here today. I'm happy to be here again, and I'm pleased to see that significant progress has been made on CETA since the last time I was here.

Before I begin, I'd just like to take a minute to acknowledge the gathering of the G-8 leaders who are meeting in London tomorrow for a special summit on dementia. This ambitious summit aims to put measures in place that will lead to major improvements in dementia care and research. The Alzheimer Society of Canada will do its part to make sure this happens. In fact, our CEO, Mimi Lowi-Young, is part of the Canadian delegation, which is led by the Minister of Health, the Honourable Rona Ambrose, and includes the Alberta Minister of Health, Fred Horne.

This group will work with other G-8 health ministers to explore how we can put more funds towards dementia research and drug development. The G-8 summit on dementia is our once-in-a-generation chance to conquer this fatal disease. The Alzheimer Society is in London to ensure that meaningful action takes place long after this meeting is over.

The G-8 summit is relevant to our discussion today. Member countries of the G-8 are rich with innovative ideas that will lead to more research and development so that more effective treatments are produced to help Canadians living with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.

If you were at my last presentation, you may recall that the theme to this committee was about creating an environment in Canada that produces the best research and the most innovation. While it has been a couple of years since I last spoke to you, my message has not changed. It is important to remember that agreements like CETA have the ability to significantly improve the quality of life of individuals with chronic diseases such as dementia.

Recently the Alzheimer Society of Canada had the opportunity to meet with ministers Rona Ambrose and Ed Fast in Ottawa to discuss CETA. We're very pleased that this important committee is interested in hearing from the Alzheimer Society again today.

I'd just like to take a moment to tell you a little bit about who we are, what we do, and why research and innovation matters so much to the more than 747,000 Canadians who are living with dementia today. The Alzheimer Society is Canada's leading nationwide health charity for people living with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. Since 1978 the society has served as the voice for people living with this disease. We are present in over 150 local communities across Canada where programs and services are delivered directly to people with dementia and their caregivers. Our mission is to alleviate the personal and social consequences of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias and promote the search for causes, treatments, and a cure.

I'd just like to speak briefly about the size, the scope, and the implications of dementia in Canada today. Dementia, of which Alzheimer's disease is the most common form, is a huge threat to our public health system and to our nation's productivity. By 2040 Canada will be spending $293 billion a year on this disease alone. Today the combined direct and indirect costs of dementia total $33 billion a year.

While we have the best minds in Canada and around the world dedicated to finding a cure and new interventions, we still need a fully coordinated response to curb increasing costs and meet the crushing needs of individuals and families impacted by this disease, which is profoundly life-altering and ultimately fatal.

Over the past few months, the Alzheimer Society of Canada has been meeting with our federal government and MPs, including some of you, about our solution to Canada's dementia crisis. Research and innovation are clearly part of our solution. You will keep hearing from us about this in the months ahead. Specifically, we have proposed that the government create a Canadian Alzheimer's disease and dementia partnership to lead and facilitate the development and implementation of a national dementia strategy.

How does this all fit with what I'm here to talk to you about today? Research is at the core of what 747,000 Canadians living with dementia need. Intellectual property issues will have an enormous impact on the development of new medications as well as the ability of industry to invest in our research efforts here in Canada.

It's crucial that Canada continue to take a leading position in research and development to ensure that Canadians have access to the best and most innovative treatments possible. These opportunities can only have a positive impact on our health care system and our economy, and spur investment in further research. This in turn will help pave the way towards more effective dementia treatments for Canadians, and possibly even a cure.

Diseases like Alzheimer's are so complex that we need to significantly increase our investment in research and development. We fear that without a clear demonstration of Canada's support, promotion, and nurturing of innovation, key industry partners may abandon research into Alzheimer's disease altogether in Canada.

In order to ensure that our country is on even ground with research efforts around the world, including Europe, trade barriers must come down to encourage research and development in Canada. People with dementia and their families will win.

We don't know the cause or the cure, and we do not have effective treatments for the progression of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias—yet. That's why CETA matters. Canadians want and deserve the same access to innovation as our American and European counterparts. Innovation means support for more research, drug discovery, and, importantly, access to key clinical trials.

As a significant investor in research for the past 25 years, the Alzheimer Society knows this as well as anyone. We need to continue to take up the challenge and maintain our role as international research leaders.

The last time I presented before this committee, I left you with a quote from the February 2011 report of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. It's important, and I would like to take a moment to repeat it:

Despite having only .5% of the world population, Canada produces 5% of the world's new knowledge in Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, and over the past four years, 15% of the most influential publications.

We cannot afford to let that kind of momentum be stopped. The long-term investment in drug development matters. We believe that reforming IP standards for medicines in Canada will position our country as a world leader and will result in increased chances of Canadians getting access to newer medications.

I'm thankful for the hope that you as legislators are giving today to those living with complex conditions like dementia, and I'm thankful that Canada will lead in research development and in innovation for the long term.

We at the Alzheimer Society also recognize the important work of this committee as it relates to furthering Canada's trade agreements and the impacts they have on fostering research and innovation for new medications. Together, we can ensure that our country leads the way on research and development to create effective treatments for Canadians who are living with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. They need to have hope.

Thank you for your attention.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you for your presentation.

We'll now yield the floor to the Canadian Organization for Rare Disorders.

Ms. Wong-Rieger, the floor is yours.

[Dr. Durhane Wong-Rieger, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Organization for Rare Disorders]

Thank you very much.

I am Durhane Wong-Rieger, the president and CEO of the Canadian Organization for Rare Disorders. I'd also like to acknowledge Maureen Smith, the secretary of the board of directors, who's here with us today as well.

We really appreciate the opportunity to present before this committee on truly a very important measure.

I would first like to acknowledge what Debbie was saying. My father died of Alzheimer's almost 40 years ago. Sad to say, even though quality of life and treatments in terms of symptom management are much better than they were when he was diagnosed, I think we're no closer to a real cure. We strongly endorse everything she's saying there and certainly acknowledge the Alzheimer Society for their amazing work.

I'd like to present a little bit of background on the Canadian Organization for Rare Disorders and put into context what our comments are with regard to CETA.

CORD is the national network of patients and patients organizations for people who are affected by rare diseases. A rare disease is defined in the EU and in the pending regulatory framework in Canada as a condition that affects no more than one in 2,000 persons.

There are probably 7,000 to 8,000 rare diseases. It affects one in twelve persons. So really, there are about 2.7 million Canadians who are directly affected by a rare disease. Even though each disease itself is very small, in aggregate it affects a very large number of people. About 50% of these conditions affect infants and children. Many of them actually die before the age of two. About 80% of them have a genetic origin, either a mutation that's passed on or a spontaneous mutation in the genes.

The good news is that about 3,200 of these disorders can be identified today by a very high-technology process, the most sophisticated of which we actually have in Canada: next-generation exome sequencing. It's not widely available yet, but we believe it will become much more available. It can really lead us on a great step forward in terms of identifying patients who are in fact affected by a rare condition, and even carriers.

The sad news is that fewer than about 400 of these 7,000 to 8,000 conditions actually have treatment. This is one of the reasons why, of course, many of the things we're doing are so very, very important. Many of the treatments we have currently are really only symptom management, mitigating the life-threatening condition, and sometimes avoiding some of these problems with very strenuous things like nutrition control or other kinds of symptom management.

In the decade prior to 1983, that entire decade, there were fewer than ten new drugs for rare diseases. In 1983 the U.S. passed the Orphan Drug Act, and it provided incentives for research and development into rare diseases. In 1999 the EU introduced their legislation to also support research and development into what they call orphan drugs. They're called “orphan” drugs because in many cases the drugs would be developed, but because it isn't very feasible to bring them to fruition, they are abandoned.

With the introduction of legislation in both the EU and the U.S., there have now been more than 425 new therapies for more than about 300 conditions, in fact benefiting worldwide more than 10 million patients. This is amazing. Canada, of course, has not been part of this. Up until now, and even today, we still do not have a definition for rare diseases and we do not have supporting regulations.

This has been a real challenge for us, not only because we don't get the same level of R and D in terms of rare diseases in Canada, but also because it means that drugs are being developed elsewhere. Because we don't have a definition and because we don't have a pathway for the regulatory approval of these drugs, they're very slow to come to Canada. Only about 50% to 60% of the drugs that are available to patients worldwide actually are available to patients in Canada. They don't come to Canada. We often have to call up companies and beg them to come to Canada. They see it as a burden in terms of trying to get their drugs approved and getting them available to patients.

The challenge for us, and the solution of course, is the harmonization of regulations and the ability to make sure that as drugs are being developed elsewhere or as we're developing the drugs in Canada, we're going to be able to have worldwide regulatory approval and worldwide orphan designations.

The lack of access early on in terms of clinical trials is not insignificant, because it means that in many cases, especially for patients with life-threatening conditions, they're not going to be in that first wave of therapies. Sometimes even 50% to 60% come to Canada. Sometimes they don't come to Canada until two, five, or even ten years after they're available elsewhere. This of course is not acceptable to us.

As I say, happily much of this dismal scenario is really primed for change. Over the past three or four years, CORD has been working very closely with Health Canada to develop Canada's first orphan drug regulatory framework. It's been designed really well to be closely aligned with the EMA and the U.S. FDA. The beauty of it is that as drugs are being developed, orphan status can be applied for simultaneously in Canada, the EU, and the U.S. This means we can implement clinical trials with the same conditions being set elsewhere so our patients and our clinicians can get in early. It means that as we're developing research and development in Canada, we can have worldwide application immediately. It makes a huge difference when you're talking about these very small patient populations. The regulatory framework was announced by the Honourable Minister Aglukkaq in October 2012. We were very hopeful that we would have the regulations implemented at that time. We were hopeful they were going to be implemented this year. We are truly counting on them being implemented in the first quarter of next year. We think we're on track for that. We're very optimistic about it.

This leads us to our support for CETA and why it's so very important for us. We are even more optimistic now that we've seen the announcement for the comprehensive economic and trade agreement. It will bring us even more closely into alignment with the EU, especially with patent restoration. We've had companies that have not wanted to bring their drugs to Canada because there was going to be a delay in the clinical trials. They were not going to be able to get them approved in time.

We're also very supportive of the proposed rights of appeal to address duplicate litigation under the patented medicines NOC regulations. After some 30 years of the Orphan Drug Act, we're now seeing the first generics for rare diseases. It is very important that there be a good balance between innovation and generics, which are going to give the best options to patients in Canada.

I would say the one thing we are concerned about is that CETA doesn't really fully harmonize the Canadian and EU intellectual property regimes, first in terms of data protection, and second with respect to a very important provision for orphan drugs, which is market exclusivity. It's seven years in the U.S. and ten years in the EU. That gives drug companies exclusive marketing rights for that period of time. This we believe is very beneficial to ensure that we're going to have that same access that other countries have.

We're very supportive of moving forward with Canadian-based R and D, and we think CETA will really help to get more companies in Canada committed to doing that level of research. We are very confident in the long-term benefits of it. We know there are some concerns about the potential health care costs, but we recognize that in the long term, this is going to be much more beneficial.

In closing, we do support the general provisions of CETA. We are very supportive of the measures to compare data collection, analyses, and practices, and we hope those will actually lead into an application into the regulatory framework for drugs as well.

We are very happy about the way the agreement will actually benefit orphan drugs and ultimately patients in Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll move to Jason Langrish, executive director of the Canada Europe Roundtable for Business.

You're no stranger to the committee. Thank you for being here. The floor is yours.

[Jason Langrish, Executive Director, Canada Europe Roundtable for Business]

Thanks, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for the invitation. I remember when we started on this process in 2006, every six months the composition of the committee changed. It's nice that there's been some stability over the last few years.

I want to talk about the geopolitical implications of this agreement. Now, I will echo that our organization supports the position of both women and their organizations, although it would be indirectly through our membership, composed of companies that do the primary research. We are supportive of the intellectual property provisions, but we're much broader than that.

As an association, we're funded by 50 Canadian and European companies. In pretty much every case, these companies have significant operations in Europe or Canada. If they're a European company, they have significant operations in Canada and vice versa. We've been active on this file for several years. We also have the written support of about 120 chief executives of the biggest companies from Canada and Europe, so it's quite a broad coalition.

I'd be happy to answer any questions about the specific benefits of the CETA for different industrial sectors, but, as I said, from a geopolitical perspective, Canada is a country that exports two thirds of what it produces. Obviously, this agreement is going to be offering what Canada needs, which is access not so much to a new market but a market where substantial opportunities are still available.

But the more important part of this agreement, or at least as important part of this agreement, and where it is groundbreaking, is the way in which it goes behind the border. That reflects the reality of business. Here I will cite the example of centres of excellence, though I don't know if it's a concept the committee is terribly familiar with. Take a company like Bombardier. They produce one thing in one location, taking advantage of the favourable conditions that that location provides. For example, they might make landing gear in one place, assemble fuselages somewhere else, and rolling stock somewhere else. That's what's characteristic of international trade. Over half of international trade now is components that pass back and forth through a supply chain. In many cases, they go back and forth many times and value gets added increasingly until you have the final product.

The way we tend to evaluate our exports is by taking the final product to customs and then assigning a value to it. But the problem with this analysis is that a lot of trade has already occurred in creating that final product. Even if you have a low tariff, even one around 2% or 3%, it gets added every single time. Implicitly, it's a tax. You may say, “Oh well, the final product exported has a 5% tariff”, but it may have embedded tariffs of 10% already, so you could be looking at a 15% markup. Removing tariffs does matter. But if these products are moving back and forth through supply chains all the time, then moving your people matters, having your investments protected matters, and having access to things like proper procurement and protecting your intellectual property matters. That's why this CETA is so valuable. It tackles all of these issues.

I just came back from about a week in the European Union. I was in London, Brussels, and Berlin in particular. Sometimes people say, “Oh well, CETA doesn't get a lot of press, it doesn't get a lot of coverage over there”. On the street, that's probably true, and the attention is focusing on the negotiations with the United States. But certainly from the point of view of continent's decision-makers, CETA does matter very much. It shows that Canada and the EU are making common cause, setting progressive terms of trade. The WTO did manage to achieve an outcome, although fairly a limited one, and I think it's the type of ambition we should probably get used to in terms of what we could achieve with lesser-developed economies or emerging economies. In some cases, they have emerged, or some parts have emerged, some parts have not. I think we need to temper our expectations as to what we can achieve with those economies. Certainly, we're not going to be able to do the same things with those economies that we're able to do with the European Union and vice versa. For an example, if you look at Brussels, they see CETA not only as an important agreement in its own right—a breakthrough on all these fundamental issues that characterize 21st-century trade and investment—but also as a template for their future negotiations, notably with the United States of America.

The reason this is so important is that a EU-U.S. agreement will have a very profound impact on Canada as well. It will clean up a lot of the outstanding rules-of-origin-type issues within the Canada-EU agreement. But also it's an opportunity for us to modernize our relationship with the United States. Sometimes when you can't do things directly, you have to do them through other vehicles. We've tried for many years to do things directly with the United States. There has been some success, but you can't do these things in the same way you can do them in these big comprehensive negotiations.

So CETA positions us well with the European Union. It gives us preferential access to the EU market and to the U.S. market. We've also created the template for the broader NAFTA-EU integration that's ongoing. This is an opportunity we should also grasp.

In particular, when we're in the European Union, we should be selling our expertise not only in how we've been able to deal with the EU but also our experience in dealing with the U.S.—in negotiating the FTA with the U.S., in negotiating NAFTA, in dealing with the executive, in understanding that in the United States you have to deal with both Congress and the White House. It's not all one and the same. Sometimes that's a message the Europeans aren't terribly familiar with.

Going back to the negotiations with Asia, there's a lot of talk to say, well, Europe's kind of a slow-growth market, so we need to be focusing on the Asian markets. Yes, we do. We have to be focusing on the Asian markets as well as the European markets. But we also have to be realistic about what it is we're able to do in the Asian markets.

My take on it is that in many cases we don't need a free trade agreement to sell them the things we want to sell. That's a question of business going out and developing those markets and Canada developing the infrastructure to get our product to those markets and to take advantage of those markets.

Let's take China as an example. Yes, it's a rapidly growing market. Yes, there are opportunities within the market. But if you participate in China, and let's say you need to have a foreign partner, you have to share your intellectual property. It's not protected. As many times as not, that intellectual property gets taken or stolen and then gets used against you.

So there are opportunities, but there are also pitfalls in those markets. Let's also look at that. Let's continue to focus on those markets but let's realize that this is not a reality that we will have to face in terms of dealing with the European Union. That's very reassuring. It also underlines that what we've negotiated with the European Union is something that's very much based on shared values, shared levels of development, shared institutions, and shared outlooks on things. It's very much a negotiation amongst partners, a negotiation of equivalency. It's not a race to the bottom.

To recap, I think the CETA, in and of its own right, will bring significant economic benefit, but it positions Canada to be a leader in international trade, both directly through the Canada-EU agreement but also by giving it an integral position in the NAFTA-EU integration that's ongoing. It's also an integration that will force the Asian countries to come to the table and negotiate seriously for fear of losing out to what, if it's completed—I'm talking NAFTA-EU—will represent over 60% of the world's economy and be by far the largest agreement ever negotiated.

We should take this thing at face value, but we should also see what it offers down the road, and what it offers potentially down the road is very significant for Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to our question time.

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

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here today.

I've been always taught that details matter. Somebody in the testimony earlier today even went so far as to say that the devil's in the details.

So have you seen the devil? Have you seen the details of the CETA agreement?

[A voice]

The devil?

[Jason Langrish]

I don't know; I'd have to go back several years through my life. I guess at times I may have. I'm assuming this question is focused at me, or...?

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Have you seen the details of this agreement?

[Jason Langrish]

I haven't seen the final text, but I've been following this agreement for several years. I'm fairly comfortable with what's in it.

Now, we couldn't give our unequivocal support to the final agreement until we see it. There are some questions as to exactly what the intellectual property provisions will look like, exactly what will be covered under the government procurement provisions. But generally speaking, I think I'm familiar with 90% to 95% of what's in that agreement.

On behalf of our members, we're comfortable with what's in the agreement and we're supportive of what's in the agreement. However, there are some technical issues still to be resolved.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

We've had a large trade deficit. We had a trade surplus of $26 billion back in 2006, and we have a $62-billion trade deficit right now. We have a large trade deficit with Europe. Especially, we export a lot of raw materials. Seven of the top ten materials we export are raw materials, whereas we import more finished products from Europe. Do you see the trade deficit being narrowed and whether we will we be exporting more processed goods with this new agreement?

[Jason Langrish]

It's difficult to say. I'm not sure that's necessarily the right focus. If you look at Canadian firms, you see that sales of foreign affiliates in Europe are over four times what we export over there. These data don't really capture trade in services very well, which accounts for 70% of our economic activity. So yes, based on conventional measures of goods passing through customs, basically, we're running a trade deficit with Europe; however, this doesn't represent the majority of our economic activity with Europe.

Another point to be added is that we tend to have a focus on whether we are exporting more than we're importing, but imports matter too. Imports are what we use in our production processes, so sometimes running a trade deficit isn't necessarily a negative thing. If it's sustained, it could be a problem. But there's no indication yet that with any of our major trading partners we have what's called a “structural deficit”, which is a deficit that, no matter what we do, we'll never be able to change it and we'll never be able to get it positive.

I think it's too early to tell, but it's not something I'm particularly worried about. Will it be balanced? I wouldn't know. I think it's too difficult to answer that question.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

You mentioned that we have a large Asian market, and we can go in there even though we don't have a trade agreement with some of the countries. Part of what you talked about was that you need to have domestic enablers to help our exporters. Can you talk about those enablers and how we can help our exporters?

[Jason Langrish]

I think the very first thing—and this was touched on by a coalition of business groups—is that we have interprovincial barriers in this country, which are ludicrous, quite frankly. With these, we put ourselves at a competitive disadvantage. This is quite a bizarre situation. So at a minimum, for instance, the benefits that we're extending to the European Union, we should be extending interprovincially. That would be a first starting point.

As well, the second starting point is our critical infrastructure, notably for export, but things like rail, ports, airports, and those types of things. We could do much more in terms of developing those and utilizing that export capacity to penetrate the European market.

I'll give you an example of how you could switch those deficits over in a heartbeat. I don't know what our trade situation is with Japan, but we could be running a deficit with Japan of $7 billion. If we get one LNG plant up and running, all of a sudden we're going to go into surplus. In many cases, that's the nature of the beast. If you can facilitate certain industries, they can swing the numbers so much, and certainly when you have a more limited relationship with certain countries, that can have a more significant impact than negotiating a comprehensive trade agreement can.

But the thing is, to go back to the European Union, the nature of our relationship is different. The export and import of goods is the minority; it's the smallest part of the relationship. The biggest part is the investment and the services pieces. The conventional statistics are not capturing those properly. Or if they are, they're not being translated properly; they're not reflecting the reality of our relationship. We're too focused on what we put on a boat and send to Europe, and not focused enough on what we are actually doing in terms of economic activity in that market and, reciprocally, what the Europeans are doing in our market.

Whether or not you're opposed to or supportive of the oil sands, in the last 10 years, the majority of the investment that's come in has been from European firms. It hasn't been Asian firms. It's been Shell, Statoil, BP, and Total. They're the ones who have been putting in the money. They're the ones who've been putting money into our economy and creating jobs. That gets ignored when we talk about our relationship with Europe.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

You mentioned that you represent companies in Europe and in North America.