International Trade Committee on April 18th, 2016

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Crawford, if you want to comment on Mr. Ritz's comments about the wine industry and the importance of importing and exporting, take that opportunity now.

[David Crawford]

We don't have any members in that space, but if you look at the growth of tourism in the Okanagan Valley, it speaks for itself. It has really become a destination for active tourists, but also for that combined with wine tourism, of which we see evidence. There are direct flights daily from Los Angeles to Kelowna, both summer and winter now. That's yet another example of diversification of a market.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you for that.

First of all, thank you, everybody, for your presentations. They were very informative. We appreciate the time and effort you have put into this.

Mr. Crawford, did you mention that 98% of your members are small businesses, or that 98% of the...?

[David Crawford]

It is 98% of the businesses in British Columbia—

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

—the businesses in British Columbia, so that's—

[David Crawford]

—and our membership is roughly the same.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Yes, so that's obviously a significant number.

I think we can agree, or at least our position is, that this trade agreement may open doors or will open doors for businesses, but do you see a role that the board of trade can play in helping members walk through that door, so to speak? Obviously exporting is a good business approach, and there seems to be a capacity for more B.C. businesses to export. Do you see a role that you can play in marketing the importance of exporting to your members?

[David Crawford]

Part of my message today is to think forward. Should the Government of Canada choose to ratify the trade agreement, think forward about how to maximize that. To be blunt, I don't think large businesses need much assistance. But there is certainly an opportunity in rural Canada to encourage small businesses that are export viable to bridge the gaps that are there because they just don't know what they don't know about exporting.

I think that organizations like ours could play a role in delivering a service like that, which is tailored to businesses and small business owners who are stretched because they're running their business.... Many businesses grow because of effort and hard work and some forward planning that's tailored for small business. Again, we would point you to the Toronto Region Board of Trade and their trade accelerator program, to customize a program like that, which could be rolled out across Canada and make it easier and simpler to engage.

The part that our members struggle with is risk analysis. They don't understand it. Generally, the finance piece will solve itself through a number of existing programs. But delivering it to business owners who are on the cusp and don't want to establish a brand new factory in another country—they really want to export under a joint venture or licensing arrangement—those opportunities are untapped. When we looked at the research that The Conference Board of Canada did for the Toronto Region Board of Trade, 5% of export-viable companies are exporting. If we can move that by 2%, 3%, or 4%, the economic impact will be significant.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Boon, I have a question for you concerning Australia.

Australia already has free trade with Japan. I think you've indicated or at least implied that this is having a prejudicial effect on the ability of B.C. cattlemen and Canadian producers of beef to avail themselves of those same benefits. Hypothetically, let's say that TPP isn't ratified by any of its members. What steps do you think should be undertaken by the Canadian government to get Canadian beef into that market?

[Kevin Boon]

I think it's imperative that we have, especially.... For us, the crown jewel has to be Japan; we know that. If we do not enter into TPP, or if TPP does not come out at all, we think that government needs to be taking secondary steps to do a bilateral deal right now with Japan. These deals were started prior to the TPP; we think there has been some work done in that method. It is very important to us to have that deal, so as to be competitive within those markets.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

I have a quick question for Ms. Sayers.

In an ideal trade deal, what components would you like to see present to make sure that indigenous rights are upheld?

[Brenda Sayers]

Well, that would be arrived at through consultation with first nations across Canada, but offhand I could say that if there were a clause in there that protected aboriginal rights and treaty rights, that would be quite powerful.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

The last question is going to you, Mr. Hoback. Go ahead, for five minutes.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Well, thank you, Chair. I feel honoured to be the last questioner of the session, for sure.

Ms. Sayers, thank you for being here today. I think it's important that you've been here, and I'm listening very carefully to what you're saying. I agree that I have more to learn on this aspect of trade agreements and first nations.

Have you done any work looking at what opportunities would be available for first nations businesses in this agreement that you could take advantage of in using this agreement to improve the quality of life in the first nations community?

[Brenda Sayers]

Well, there are several first nations across Canada that do business with other countries, definitely, and I'm sure they could expand. However, because we weren't consulted during the making of this agreement, it's difficult to say what we could have lent to the content of the agreement that would have assisted us in expanding that.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Okay, so you haven't done any analysis since the agreement has been ratified and signed to see where the opportunities are that you could look at to say “we could take advantage of this”, or “this might be an item we should be spending some more resources on”. Have you done any work like that?

[Brenda Sayers]

As far as I know, no. As an individual I have not, but there may be first nations across Canada that have. I can't speak on their behalf.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I'd like to hear from them, if they did, for sure, because that would be a very interesting aspect.

It's really unique. The first nations community has such a gem, and that's themselves. I used to travel to Europe a lot. I used to bring European farmers over, and one of the first things they told me is that they wanted to go to visit first nations, wanted to interact with first nations. We took them to Banff, and they went to a token store and bought siwashes and all this kind of stuff. I felt sad, because here they could have toured the first nations, had a Cree experience or another first nations experience, and they would have been enriched by it, but we've never developed that. Maybe you have more in B.C., but I know in Saskatchewan.... They're starting to, but there's definitely more opportunity for the tourism trade to come in and to take advantage of it. I'm looking to see whether we can do more of it, for sure.

Mr. Boon, when we consider the beef sector, we've heard what happened in Korea: you lost market share. You're not going to get that market share back without some hard work and maybe a hiccup in the U.S. or a hiccup in Australia in order to give you access, back in through the door. If we lose that market share with TPP by not being part of it, I think it's fair to say that we could end up going back to the days of four years ago, when a bred cow wasn't worth anything and farmers were basically in dire straits. In fact, I'll give former minister Ritz credit for finding a market for all those cuts—organs and stuff—that we don't eat or like here in Canada but that other parts of the world like. It added full value to that carcass.

Your analysis, I think, has been fairly thorough. And that's just the beef example. Where would that put our industry, and how would that have a domino effect into communities?

Mr. Crawford, I'm going to come back to you on the domino effect of something like that.

[Kevin Boon]

We do rely a lot on what we call the trickle-down effect, where that top filters down to our bottom guys and our grassroots people. The trickle-down effect may be best explained by the fact that if it's cold outside, and you're wearing wool underwear and wool socks, and you wet your pants, the amount that gets to the toes is about what the grassroots guy gets in the trickle-down effect.

We need to be able to counteract that and to expand it, so that we can get the full intent to all levels. When we talk about Korea, it's a very good example in the fact that the U.S. was there first in the last deal, and we have a couple of years to make up in those deals. It's the same with Australia and the TPP. If we're not there at the start, that catch-up hinders our ability to create trading partners individually with exporters and the importers. If we can't get in there and they've already made deals, it's very hard to break that market. It's crucial to be there either with or before everyone else.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

And I'll stop you there.

Mr. Crawford, you talked 98% of your businesses having 50 or fewer employees. They may not directly know that they're supporting trade, yet a company that's providing parts, doing maintenance, or fixing their truck, is a company that is doing trade. Have you looked at any analysis on just how it trickles through? It's very substantial per Canadian family how the dollars return back to their pocketbooks by allowing that increase in trade to happen.

[David Crawford]

The most visible part that we see is jobs that are attached to goods handling around the ports. They're the most visible part, but you're absolutely right.

We've recently become aware of cases where there are a number of companies, which are already Asian companies, that want to export to Asia. They are establishing manufacturing facilities in British Columbia because of our strong rule of law, if you will. They're establishing facilities specifically to export to other Asian countries, which seems counterintuitive to us. They view the quality of the workforce, and other things that we take advantage of every day and enjoy, as real assets.

We see medium-sized enterprises beginning to look at British Columbia as a launching pad for manufacturing, especially where you have intellectual property involved, because they want to export to certain Asian countries where the rule of law is not that strong. We've begun to see that anecdotally, and to become aware of it.

Certainly when we look at small businesses, there is opportunity in countries where tariffs come off immediately, basically on high-value perishable items.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

That ends our third panel today.

I'd really like to thank the witnesses for coming here. We do have a website. I think some of you are going to give us some more information through our website or our clerk directly. If we can get that information, we can distribute it. Thanks again for coming.

We're going to have a quick 10-minute break and then come back for our final panel. In our final panel, we're going to have OpenMedia.ca, a software developer, and an ecological economist coming up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

We're going to try to get going here.

We've done well the last few panels, and the timing was good, and everybody got to ask questions.

We have three witnesses here with us. We have Chris Brand. You're a software developer, I understand.

We have Meghan Sali, and you're with OpenMedia.

We have Tom Green, and you're an ecological economist.

You may be well aware of the way we do things. We have five minutes for you to do each of your presentations, and then we give each member of Parliament five minutes to discuss your presentations. If you can't get it all in and it doesn't happen, we'll take it later, because we're going to take this back to Ottawa to try to digest everything we heard today.

Mr. Brand, do you want to start off, as a software developer, with your perspective on the TPP?

[Chris Brand, As an Individual]

Certainly.

Good afternoon. My name is Chris Brand. I'm a software developer. I have participated in various government consultations involving copyright and lawful access previously. I appear today in a personal capacity, representing only my own views.

I believe that free markets, with a minimum amount of regulation, give good results. I'm therefore generally in favour of free trade. If the TPP were limited—

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

I'm sorry. I have to sometimes remind witnesses that, because we have translation, you have to slow down a little in case somebody's trying to get the translation. Just take it slowly so that they can get the translation.