International Trade Committee on April 19th, 2016

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Yes. I have a brother-in-law who's an artist, and I'd agree with you. Some of his stuff may not be worth a lot of money until he moves on and passes on. His family should have the benefit from that.

[Allistair Elliott]

“New use” is a phrase that's used in the industry. You create something and you sell it, and it's used for a particular subject. Somewhere along the way in the future, someone wants to use it for something else. We want to make sure that those things are protected and people are paid for each use, not just the original creation.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

As far as the labour mobility side of things goes, I understand your concerns about musicians coming into Canada. TPP should level that playing field so that Canadian musicians should have the same ability to go into TPP countries. Would that not be beneficial for our musicians to expand their horizons a bit more and get outside of Canada even more?

[Allistair Elliott]

Sure. It's a very delicate subject, and there are definitely two sides of the coin. You get creative with more creative people around you, and there's a benefit to that. If we look at the entry-level jobs in the bars and the clubs where musicians are playing, especially in cross-border towns, our concern is those kinds of jobs will diminish and Canadians will lose that opportunity. It's an entry-level living, if you like, but that's what we want to make sure we're protecting.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. McMillan, you talked about labour mobility. I can give the example here of something that happened in Regina three years ago, when a company was trying to relocate a logistics facility there and couldn't build it. They literally said, “You know what, we can't do it. We can't find enough people to run it. We can't find the people to build it.”

How many projects would not have been built if we had not had the ability to have that temporary labour come in and fulfill the labour requirements so we could actually complete a project?

[Tim McMillan]

That part of the labour component, I think, was essential on many projects over the last several years. I couldn't quantify it with an exact number, but we have seen substantial build-out in many sectors in Canada over the last decade and—

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Is it fair to say a lot of those projects that wouldn't have had access to that labour would not have gone forward, and that those Canadians who were also working on those projects would not have been working?

[Tim McMillan]

Yes, I think it's a fair statement that you could certainly find projects where that was essential.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Ms. Ference, as far as labour in your sector is concerned, what is the access to labour, the labour pool? Are you finding challenges in those scenarios?

[Erna M. Ference]

Since all the farms are pretty much family owned, I don't believe there's a labour shortage in our industry. There are in other supply-managed ones, such as dairy. In the further processing industry, that's been a challenge for sure.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

By that, you mean processing side, the guys who actually take the chickens and do what they do with them?

[Erna M. Ference]

That's right. To take it further, it's an issue even into the food service sector, the restaurants. That's a huge issue for them.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I know we've heard stories of that, going back to the good days—which I hate to say—when restaurants were only opening for two or four hours a day because they couldn't find enough labour to stay open beyond those hours, and couldn't afford to pay the labour to stay beyond those hours. There were very unique circumstances, creating a scenario in which services that we came to want as Canadians couldn't be provided by Canadians. If we didn't have that labour mobility, basically that growth and economic opportunity, that $81 billion investment that you're talking about would have stuck at around $30 billion. That would have prevented a lot of opportunity for Canadians to have a better quality of life.

When you look at the chicken industry, some of my friends in Saskatchewan are saying that they're looking for more opportunities to export. You touched on it a little bit more. Have you looked at TPP? Have you done any analysis to say where we could find some export opportunities? Is there something there wherein you could go beyond your normal comfort zone and say, here's an opportunity we can actually be profitable in?

[Erna M. Ference]

That's one question I had, but I don't believe I received an answer, on our ability to export to the same level as we import. I don't know whether that exists under the TPP or not, so I won't comment on it.

What I will say is that in Canada, we are a high-cost producer. We have to heat our barns. We live next door to the largest exporter in the world, the United States. They view us as 10% of their market. It's hard to compete with an industry in the United States that doesn't have to heat its barns. Again, we have the same issues that the oil and gas industry has, as far as access to waterways and export venues is concerned. Those are real deterrents.

Will we look into them in the future? Possibly. But at this point—

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Hoback. Your time is up.

We'll go over to the Liberals and Mr. Fonseca. Go ahead for five minutes.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you for your presentations. You're such a diverse group and so informative about your different sectors.

Earlier today we had the Alberta Federation of Labour here. They have some very serious concerns about chapter 12 and labour mobility. When I think about labour mobility here domestically, within our country, to have people able to move back and forth, and also about foreign labour coming in, the concerns of the labour federation and our focus in looking at the TPP is that it will be a net benefit—not not just to Canada, but to Canadians, in creating those high-quality jobs, high-paying jobs that we want in our country.

This question could be for everybody.

Mr. McMillan, I'll start with you. Have you looked at a strategy? Now that we're in a bit of a down cycle right now with oil, have you looked at a strategy in other sectors—construction, mining, farming—where you'd be able to pull that labour so that we won't be caught in a situation like we are today or were in a number of years ago when we had to ramp up with our workforce, and maybe we didn't have it, and we had to bring in a lot of temporary foreign workers?

[Tim McMillan]

That work is ongoing and is ever-changing as the dynamics around Canada and the world change. It changes with the opportunities to bring labour from across Canada and utilize it—and doing that as efficiently as possible is crucial.

I think it's a balance, though, and having a good system where governments have the authority to figure out what the appropriate authority is. We need to make sure the credentials are consistent across jurisdictions.

I don't think it's all one or all the other. It's finding the right balance and doing it in a thoughtful way so that we're utilizing it and getting the best for Canadians.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

So a worker who's working on a pipeline can now be working in ICI construction or residential, whatever it is, and can be brought back and forth. I just wonder how you keep touch with all of that labour, that workforce we have here in the country so that we don't have high unemployment in some areas and so that we're able to make those shifts.

[Tim McMillan]

I'm trying to think of the acronym, but there's an oil and gas labour think tank that's partnered with Enform Safety Association that does a lot of the work you're talking about, looking at trends, looking at putting forward where training dollars should be going, so we're training the right people for the jobs coming down the pipe in two, four, six to 10 years.

When we are talking about $10 billion projects, like the LNG facilities potentially off the west coast, the labour demands are substantial. If Canada wants to be in that business, there's a window that you have to hit. If you're going to build a project, it's not the type where you build small and it will grow incrementally. It is a huge labour demand in the short term, but it'll pay dividends for Canada for 30 to 50 years.

I wouldn't be sitting here saying that I think we can beat the system. I think we can find the best path forward for Canada.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Mr. Elliott, how would that work when your artists are on tour, and you've got roadies and others who are part of the whole production. How does that work with that labour mobility?

With the potential ratification of the TPP, are they able to travel to the United States, and Japan, etc.? Would that take away some of those barriers for those professionals to be able to travel, not just the artists themselves, but everybody who surrounds or supports the artist?

[Allistair Elliott]

I will speak specifically about the U.S. because that is what I am most familiar with. Currently, there are pretty good specific requirements for Canadian artists to go across to the U.S. The P2 visa process can include support crews. There is some credibility to go through, but it can include support crews, lighting crews, etc. What we would like to see is just a little more control over what's coming into the country.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Where would your major concern be? Who is coming into the country?

[Allistair Elliott]

Anybody. We would like to be involved in the control aspect, the legislation of it. I will give you an example. It's a little bit of a stretch, but the government offers tax credits for movie companies coming into the country to film movies here. For us, the accountability doesn't go far enough, because there is no accountability for that music to be scored here. They get a tax credit, and then they take that tax credit and go offshore to record using European orchestras, or somewhere else. That's taking those kind of jobs away from Canadians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you. Your time is up, Mr. Fonseca.

We have one more slot, and that goes to the Conservatives.

Mr. Ritz, you have five minutes.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Elliott, I have some questions for you.

I knew the other two people quite well. As a matter of full disclosure, Tim and I were each other's constituents before he was reincarnated as the president of CAPP. It's good to see you again, Tim, and say hi to Ali and the kids.

There's a lot of work to be done on the issues with trades mobility. It's not just about bringing in skilled workers, TFWs. It's also about being able to move that labour force from one part of Canada to the other as the needs come and go. The TPP will alleviate some of that, but there are still a lot of interprovincial trade barriers that have no bearing on TPP. I have a concern regarding the oil patch country: 98% of the energy we produce goes to the U.S. only. There is no diversity in that portfolio.

When we look at the energy demands of Japan, which we've both visited, we see that they really want to suck on that straw that brings them LNG. They really want oil and gas as well, so it's good to have pipelines to make that happen. There is a ready market over there.

Have you done an analysis of how quickly that could happen, and how quickly they would demand our energy products? It's a premium market for every other product we have, so I would think it would be the same for energy.