International Trade Committee on Nov. 19th, 2013

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

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

I'm going to go back to Mr. Dias, the previous witness.

I'm a little disturbed when representatives from any organization simply support or oppose outright any political party. In August 2013, when he was asked what the union's strategy would be in 2015, Mr. Dias' answer suggested that the CAW's existing approach to elections—endorsing strategic voting—is likely to prevail. Then he said, and I will quote, “The outlining issue has to be, how do we best defeat a Conservative?”

My question to both our organizations is whether your organization has taken any such position to support or oppose any political party.

[Jayson Myers]

Let me start off. We have a very clear idea about what a good strategy for our membership is, and that's what we pursue. We've been known to be fairly critical of all parties, and we've been known to be fairly critical of this government—at times. As I say, we're supportive of this agreement because we think it's a good agreement. We think it's a good agreement for Canada's industry, for manufacturers and exporters, and I think it's a good agreement for their employees too.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

What about you?

[Jean-Guy Vincent]

I am often asked that question. I am told that I lean more one way than another and vice versa. Personally, I can say that I lean in one direction, and that is for agriculture. If it is good for agriculture, everyone has to give their support.

In the pork sector, an agreement had been reached a few years ago and we needed all the political parties. That helped us. We have to tell it like it is. For the pork sector, regardless of which part, when I speak, I speak not for one part alone but for the entire sector and it is good for the pork sector.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

I thank the—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

You're done, but we're going into the second round. We'll split the time.

Mr. Davies, go ahead. You have three and a half minutes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you. With that limited time, Mr. Chairman, I'll have to be brief.

I must take the opportunity to say a few things by way of introduction. The NDP regards this trade agreement with Europe as a very important issue for the Canadian economy. We're on record as saying that we believe we should be deepening and broadening our relations with the EU. We believe they're a good trading partner. We'd like to diversify our trade to them, and we're in favour of a good agreement with the European Union.

What we're doing is saying nothing more than what you've just said, Mr. Myers. I'm going to quote you. You said, “A lot still has to be worked out in terms of the details in the text”. You've mentioned the rules of origin and ISDS. With respect to rules of origins, you said it is “particularly important to get these right”. I agree with you completely.

You also said that, “One of the reasons that I'm so positive about this deal is that we were there in the negotiations, we were consulted”. Of course, as the official opposition, we have not been consulted about the deal. We were not present in the negotiations. We have not been privy to any of the negotiations with Mr. Verheul, signing a confidentiality agreement or not. We are not aware of what the rules of origin regulations will be. We have not seen the text. We have not seen the details. We're taking what we believe is the only responsible position for a political party, which is that once the text is revealed we will read it, consult widely, and if it's a good deal we will support it.

I feel obliged to say this because Mr. O'Toole and others on the Conservative side continue to try to misrepresent the position of the New Democrat official opposition by pretending we're opposed to the deal when in fact we're open to the deal. I just want to be clear so that you can tell your 10,000 members and the Pork Council can be clear that we are more than open-minded about this deal, and we'll support it if we believe it's of net benefit. I want to be clear about that. We believe this deal is too important to Canada to play silly partisan and spin politics on it. I want to be clear because I think that's what the Conservatives are doing with this important deal.

In terms of jobs, we're very interested in these. Mr. Myers, you're an economist. You said you think this will create jobs. Do you have any study you've done on behalf of your members that you can share at this committee that may help us get more detail on that? This could help us quantify which manufacturing sectors we can expect, or hope, for more job creation from, in what numbers, and by what time, as opposed to just throwing out 80,000 jobs from a study done five years ago before we had any shape or detail on the deal.

Do you have anything you can share with us, Mr. Myers, that'll help us in that regard?

[Jayson Myers]

We were part of that study. If you look at the study and the analysis that was done, it was pretty much based on whether we can quantify what we know about tariff elimination, areas where we can quantify and take a look at that and work that through the economics. Then those would be the jobs. It's broken down by sector. I think some of that is even in the analysis that was provided after the deal was signed. We're still working on those numbers as well.

But as I say, that really doesn't take into consideration the new investments or the fact that companies are looking at new partnerships. Right now, we can certainly provide some analysis in terms of “if we were to get x amount of new investment as a result of this, this is how many jobs would be created”. But we might as well just work on the basis of the analysis that we have.

I also want to clarify that we were not part of the negotiations. We were consulted throughout the negotiations. The agreement in principle was signed, and the amount of information that I see that has been provided gives a pretty good sense of what we're about to see at the end of the day. The details still do need to be worked out, but from what we've seen in the agreement in principle I don't see anything in terms of some of the outstanding issues that would go very far off that, the analysis that was provided as a result of the agreement in principle.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your support, Mr. Davies.

We'll go to Mr. Hiebert and Mr. Holder.

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

Thank you.

An additional point that you made in your opening remarks, Mr. Myers, is one that I haven't heard before. I wonder if you could elaborate on it. You made the comment that Canadian companies could access “the supply chains of European multinationals” and turn that into a platform for taking their goods, services, and technologies around the world. You listed a bunch of different parts of the world. It's a really interesting idea. Basically, you're suggesting that we can leverage this trade deal for access not simply to the European market, but also to Africa, Russia, Asia, China, India, and Latin America.

Can you elaborate on that?

[Jayson Myers]

I'll give you an example.

VA TECH is one of the largest companies in the business of building electricity generating stations. VA TECH is a huge Austrian company. Their procurement arm is based in New York. We hosted an incoming procurement mission on the part of VA TECH. We put them in touch with about 25 small Canadian technology companies.

One of the companies they looked at was a fairly well-known Canadian company that produces high-speed and very defined cameras. Those cameras are now in VA TECH's emission control systems throughout the world. That's the type of supply chain relationship. We sometimes think of trade in terms of country-to-country exports, but a lot of what we trade is actually indirect, through the supply chains of larger companies.

We've always had a very, very good supply chain opportunity through North American multinationals that have taken our products everywhere, and I think it's the same thing with Europe now.

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

Thank you.

I'll turn it over to my colleague.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Thank you.

Again, Mr. Myers, you made a comment in your text that one of the things that is key to the CETA is that it positions Canada for the future because of its favoured nation status. You said, “In other words we'll be grandfathered, by the EU if it is able to secure any more favourable treatment in its negotiations with the United States” in terms of its deliberations.

But in terms of most favoured nation status, you really meant with any country in the world—not just the United States—where the EU negotiates a trade agreement. Is that correct?

[Jayson Myers]

What I was really referring to are the negotiations that are under way between the European Union and the United States, particularly with respect to rules of origin, because it's going to be important to recognize a North American rule of origin rather than a Canadian rule. Also, in areas like product standards and—

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

But I want to be clear that it isn't just the United States that we get the benefit from in terms of the most favoured nation. It's any other country in the future that the EU does a trade deal with. Is that your understanding as well?

[Jayson Myers]

That's my understanding, but the area we're particularly focused on is the United States.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

I appreciate your focus.

I have a second question and it is this. You said that it is critical, and that it only really mattered to Canadian business, that we know how to take advantage of the new opportunities, so I need to understand this a little better. Perhaps you can educate me. What is the role of the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters in terms of guiding, training, and supporting Canadian business to take advantage of the CETA?

[Jayson Myers]

That's exactly what we're trying to do. First of all is identifying opportunities. I mentioned our Enterprise Europe Network Canada; we're working with organizations in Europe to identify technology and business partnership opportunities. So first is recognition of the opportunity itself and the provision of a qualified lead there.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

May I thank all our guests as well?

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much, Monsieur Vincent, Mr. Rice, and Mr. Myers, for your testimony.

The meeting is adjourned.