Evidence of meeting #108 for International Trade in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was canola.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Vice-President, Economic and Northern Affairs, Mining Association of Canada
That's fair enough. In the Canadian context, mining is the largest employer of indigenous Canadians. Companies frequently consult with their communities about the projects that are ongoing within Canada.
Vice-President, Economic and Northern Affairs, Mining Association of Canada
With respect to free trade agreements with other countries, that would not be a subject that indigenous communities have brought to us as a priority of theirs.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
I have another question.
Earlier, you said that Canadian mining industries have the best practices. That means that when you go abroad, you also export best practices. What form do these best practices take? Does this concern the environment, or working conditions?
Vice-President, Economic and Northern Affairs, Mining Association of Canada
In the interest of giving a short answer, I can only go into so much detail, but I'd be happy to give the committee some documentation if that would also be helpful.
MAC has a program called Towards Sustainable Mining. It's a mandatory practice for all of our members' Canadian operations. In recent years, it's gained a lot of international traction. It's now practised by six other mining industry associations in other countries around the world, one of which is Argentina. That program requires site level third party verification of practice ranging from tailings management to indigenous community engagement or local community engagement, to energy and greenhouse gas emissions management, to emergency response, and to child labour. It's a pretty robust program. Companies report against their own achievements and then are audited by a third party, the results of which are made publicly available to local communities, and it's done at the mine site level.
If a local community member has a concern over a particular area of practice of that company or that operation, they don't need to call head office. They can look online, come to our website or to the local country organization website, and see in detail how that company's performing in that area. There are required mechanisms in place to be established for communication protocol so that, if a complaint is made, that company has to respond in a deemed-appropriate way relative to the concern of the local community.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Thank you, sir.
I don't like to make witnesses uncomfortable, because we're trying to get everybody in, and we only have a short window, but if the witnesses ever feel they can't get their total views across, we welcome any submissions you have. Even if you think of something later on, we'll take it here.
We're going to move on to the second round with Madam Ludwig.
Liberal
Karen Ludwig Liberal New Brunswick Southwest, NB
Thank you, and good morning.
My first questions are to Ms. Olson and Mr. Fraser.
Earlier this week, I attended the blueberry growers breakfast, and they talked about the challenge of China. They see great potential with China, and I'm wondering, firstly, are you involved at all with agricultural equipment with the blueberry growers?
President, Agricultural Manufacturers of Canada
There are some of our members who are involved in that element of harvesting, yes.
Liberal
Karen Ludwig Liberal New Brunswick Southwest, NB
They talked about a 30% tariff on wild blueberries going into China, and a 17% value-added tax, versus Chile with their cultivated blueberries, not wild blueberries, that has a 0% tariff going into China and a 13% value-added tax.
If you were looking at the priority between China and Mercosur, would you have one preference over the other in terms of an agreement?
President, Agricultural Manufacturers of Canada
At this time, Canada's comparative advantage is in the harvesting equipment, some of the dryland equipment, and there's also a substantial amount of beef and livestock in Argentina and Brazil. I think the challenges and the market potential there are huge.
Relative to China, a lot of our members are looking at the intellectual property standards there. From that perspective, they're simply not going there, because when they do, they start to see their products. I think Gene may be able to talk about some of their experiences in China, but I would say, between the two, we see Mercosur as being a huge priority. I've tried to say to our members that it's important for us to be here, because a free trade agreement will take six years, speaking conservatively, to get concluded, and some of our members have asked if we could get it done yesterday.
We appreciate the collegiality of this committee, because Mercosur is a huge region for our industry.
Gene, do you have any comments on that?
Liberal
Karen Ludwig Liberal New Brunswick Southwest, NB
I might just jump over to Mr. Marshall, and if we have time, we can come back. Thank you.
Vice-President, Economic and Northern Affairs, Mining Association of Canada
I don't think it's necessarily a question of there being limitations. I would pivot and ask what opportunities there are for increased certainty, collaboration, and co-operation. As I mentioned earlier, to Mr. Allison's question, mining companies have a unique reality in that when they make an investment, that investment is geographically bound within the borders of that particular country. The extent to which investors can have a greater degree of confidence that this investment will be protected and respected creates a greater degree of confidence that this investment will proceed.
There's one other thing I would mention and it builds off some of the comments and questions that were raised earlier. I think it also dovetails nicely with Mr. Sinclair's point that we need to support businesses to be eligible and competitive for international trade. In this country we're currently witnessing a significant crisis in our rail freight market. The ability to move products to shore is critical, because trade begins at home. We can negotiate agreements from now until kingdom come. If we can't effectively get product at a cost-competitive rate from a landlocked province to tidewater, then we're not going to be able to take advantage of any new market share that any agreement's ever going to provide for businesses.
Vice-President, Economic and Northern Affairs, Mining Association of Canada
Bill C-49 that is before the House, in our view, is a lost opportunity to support—as Mr. Sinclair says—local Canadian businesses to take advantage of that type of market share.
Liberal
Karen Ludwig Liberal New Brunswick Southwest, NB
Thank you for that. I would ask you one quick question. Recently there was an announcement for a mining ombudsman. We have heard before the committee some criticism regarding Canadian mining companies internationally. How do you see that working, and how do you make your foreign employees aware of that?
Vice-President, Economic and Northern Affairs, Mining Association of Canada
My colleague Ben Chalmers is the lead on that particular file. I think the best approach for me to answer that question will be to provide some documentation to the committee on the industry's views on the ombudsman.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
We appreciate that.
We're going to move over to Mr. Hoback, who is no stranger to machinery. Go ahead. You have the floor.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Again, welcome, witnesses, to the committee here this morning. It's great to have your evidence being presented here, and it's good to get it on the record.
In my previous life with Flexi-Coil, Case, and New Holland, I spent a lot of time in Brazil, and not so much in Argentina, but in western Europe too. I can remember just drooling the first time I went down to Brazil and looked at the farmland and the capacity and double-cropping. For example, that MacDon header gets used twice a year, where in Canada it gets used once a year.
Maybe give us an idea of what you think this agreement should look like when it's completed. What would you need to have in the agreement to take advantage of the marketplace—tariff reductions, visas? Maybe you can just get that on the record for us. Once the agreement is done, what tools would be required so that we could actually take advantage of it?
Vice-President, Global Sales and Marketing, MacDon Industries Ltd.
I think, from our perspective, being one of the larger members of the AMC, we are in there already. We have been in there for a number of years.
I made reference before to OEM, original equipment manufacturer. We sometimes have products go into marketplaces that are not under the MacDon name, and that's originally how it went in there under the Case and New Holland names.
For us, the certainty around the tariffs.... Today, it's at 14%. The wild part for us is that it could change. It could go to 16% or 18%. I would say the governments there seem to be conducive to wanting everybody to localize in that marketplace today, and the 6% rules of content and value on what they're talking about today is a big thing from our perspective.
Vice-President, Global Sales and Marketing, MacDon Industries Ltd.
The other thing from, let's say, an EDC standpoint is access and distribution to the marketplace's uncertainties. Today, because we don't have a localized product there from a MacDon perspective, we don't get the MODERFROTA and it's offered by FINAME that's in there today. Therefore we're penalized on that side as well.
We have many impediments. I would say finance, the tariffs, and any other certainties that we can bring to the marketplace there would be good.