Evidence of meeting #7 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 europe.
Executive Director, Halifax Gateway Council
I think that would be something that individual organizations would do on their own. Maybe the data could be aggregated for an overall impact, but the Halifax Gateway Council would not take that on.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
With regard to CBSA, Canada Border Services Agency, right now they are undergoing significant cuts; from 2012 to 2015, approximately $160 million is being gutted from them. Just recently they moved the east coast marine operations to Toronto with regard to intelligence gathering. They also cut the marine dogs from the service. I'm told that significantly affects the speed and capability of getting intellectual property abuses and contraband, in particular, off the streets and keeping it out of our country.
We're also moving on Bill C-8, which is actually going to allow CBSA officers to suspend materials they believe are contraband. Are your members interested in that issue? Contraband has actually been rising significantly in Canada, including not just regular T-shirts and CDs, but it's actually circuit breakers and other types of public infrastructure.
Chair, Halifax Gateway Council
It's not currently an issue that has been raised by our members. It's an interesting point you raise. One of the items Nancy talked about earlier is that it will soon be time for us as a council to regroup our members on current issues and looking forward. Whether it might be raised through that process, I'm unsure, but to my knowledge it hasn't been an issue raised to date.
Executive Director, Halifax Gateway Council
I also think it is a large impediment, though it may be something which as a group we could put on the table to talk to.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
There are some interesting hearings you might want to see through the industry committee right now. The increases on it are quite significant.
Moving to your marketing fund, what other services do your organizations make use of? In my area, unfortunately, the government closed the Detroit consular service. We used to be able to get visitor visas for people from the United States over to Windsor and the area rather quickly, within hours. Now they either have to fly to New York or wait for two to three weeks.
Do you use the trade offices and which ones in particular? They are under cuts as well.
Executive Director, Halifax Gateway Council
For the events that we did in Europe, we worked very closely with the DFATD offices and the embassies. In some respects, the embassies in certain cities were very good, and in others, I believe they are somewhat challenged because they don't have a lot of resources to help with the one-on-one and with the connections, but we do work with them.
The other thing is we want to make sure they have the information at their fingertips and at their disposal to help spread the message of the $115 billion in projects. We want to make sure they have the information as well because they are our first point of contact for companies in the regions they represent. Mainly we work with the European DFATD offices quite quickly.
Conservative
Conservative
Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll share my time with my colleagues.
Ms. Phillips, there were three points that you were looking at. One was better air access. Could you expand on what your vision would be for better air access?
Executive Director, Halifax Gateway Council
Well, I'll also ask Joyce to jump in on where she is with the airport.
We could really benefit from having greater air cargo lift out of this region, a dedicated freighter service. We could also benefit by having direct flight access on a more regular basis into the European community. Our top market of choice would be Frankfurt for that. That's very important. A lot of our exporters are challenged to get the flights and the belly-hold cargo space or the dedicated air cargo space into markets, and they are forced to drive high-value, high-yield seafood products out of this region mainly to the U.S. to get air lift into the markets because we don't have the dedicated services we need.
Chair, Halifax Gateway Council
I'll just add that it's interesting because with the rollout of CETA, we hope to see that change.
One of the difficulties we have out of Halifax is that in order for air cargo to fly profitably by the carriers, it has to be balanced both inbound and outbound. We don't have that today. We don't have the inbound cargo that we need to balance the outbound, which is mostly seafood. That is why you'll see seafood put on the truck and shipped out of the country for lift out of the U.S., a lower value product, obviously, and less fresh into those markets.
We want to recapture that, and we want to recapture it out of Halifax. The way to do that is to build up the inbound. A big opportunity that we see would allow us to do that is through some of the outcomes of the CETA.
On the air service side, Nancy is bang on. We currently have dedicated service into Heathrow. Our market would love to see it also into Frankfurt. It's a market that's really important for us.
When you look at the passenger side, with that comes the belly capacity in those aircrafts as well. It's not just dedicated freighters for cargo; it's also passenger cargo that can carry belly freight into the European market. Some of it will come with the increased business, for sure.
With workforce mobility, one of the big issues we talked about while we were in Europe which we probably should mention is the transfer of workers between Europe and Canada, and the fact that there's a lot of interest in Europe to have workers come to Nova Scotia and to Canada. The megaprojects are the way they see to be able to do that. With the transfer of workers and their families, we see the need for increased air access as well.
Conservative
Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
I think those are very laudable goals and good strategic plans.
Mr. Davies and I come from British Columbia, the Asia-Pacific gateway, and this would be the gateway to the EU. I think it's very comparable.
Conservative
Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Work with your Nova Scotia government. It's a provincial-federal partnership, definitely, as British Columbia has been a great partner with our federal government.
Mr. Hutt, I want to clarify a point where you mentioned two questions. One is about the two-year extension on patent protection.
Are you aware that Canada is just catching up to the international countries as far as patent law in pharmaceutical research is concerned?
Coordinator, Nova Scotia Citizens Health Care Network
I would actually disagree with that. Given the rate of approval in Europe versus Canada, we're just below Europe from the reports. Looking at the analysis of the time it takes to approve patents and drugs in Europe versus Canada, I find it's generally about 10 days shorter in Canada than in Europe.
This number has been a bit compounded by a past report. The Norton Rose report had a number of issues. It compared approving generic drugs in Europe versus new formulas, new drugs, in Canada. It's really apples and oranges. However, when you look at the facts, the approval time in Canada is either on par or shorter.
Conservative
Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
It has to do with patent protection.
For clarification, you said that Canada is going to lose close to $36 billion because of the health accord. If you are aware of the Canada health transfer, the move is to equal cash allocation. By 2013, it will be $30.3 billion; by 2018-19, $38 billion; and by 2020, close to $40 billion, which would be a record amount of health transfers to the provinces and territories.
The provinces and territories and local government—
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
That was more of a statement, at any rate.
Those are just numbers—
Conservative
Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
It was clarification because I think these facts are important.
Conservative
NDP
Robert Chisholm NDP Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be here.
I understand I just have a couple of minutes.
I want to speak to the Gateway Council.
In response to Mr. Davies, it was interesting that you indicated you felt we had room to handle an increase of almost 23%, reportedly, in bilateral trade. I'm curious about that, in particular, the truck and rail traffic through town to Halterm. To me, I saw that as more of an issue. Maybe there are some plans to upgrade that capacity. That was the first thing.
The second thing was that there's certainly the prospect of greater competition from both Sydney and from the Melford port.
I wonder if you could comment on those two issues for me.
Executive Director, Halifax Gateway Council
I can speak to Halterm, the container terminal. They have had infrastructure upgrades. I know they just installed new super post-panamax cranes, so I think they are ready to handle an increase in usage down there.
I know they extended the south end container terminal, so we can now take two super post-panamax ships nose to nose.
NDP
Robert Chisholm NDP Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Right, but are they getting the stuff in and out by rail and by truck?
Executive Director, Halifax Gateway Council
Do you mean from the container terminal?