International Trade Committee on Sept. 25th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Is everybody okay with the procedure so far?

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

There's some confusion. This says, “end of each year”, so are we talking about the fiscal year? It's not clear there. With respect to the three-month time frame, I don't know how it's technically going to work when we aggregate these expenses, whether it's even practical or feasible. Wouldn't these expenses already be public by some other means?

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Go ahead, Ms. Ramsey.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

I'm happy to refer it to the officials and have them get back to us, but it isn't published anywhere else. There is no reporting of this. I'm open to an amendment that says, “within three months after the end of each calendar year” if that clarifies things for you. It could be “fiscal year”, whichever you suggest. It would have to reflect the way Statistics Canada captures this type of data so that there's a similarity with what they are using, whether they use “fiscal” or “calendar”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

I have a quick question, Mr. Christie. Is it common in our agreements to have a clause like this?

[Bruce Christie]

No, it isn't. In the case of CPTPP, we haven't yet finalized how the costs of the joint commission will be reported. We don't know whether it will be by some period of time stretching over two calendar years or by calendar year. We haven't finalized those details yet. This is typically not specified. This information is always accessible through an access to information request.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Does this fall within Treasury Board guidelines, as a trade agreement, that we specify..., or is it not a problem?

[Bruce Christie]

The information would certainly be found in our department's budgetary processes, but it's not typically published in any other free trade agreements.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Unless there are more comments, the suggestion from the floor is that if we're going to proceed, we have to vote first on clause 12 as it is. Then we have to add a new clause 12.1 with this amendment.

Go ahead, Mr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I have one more question, to clarify. If I'm understanding this correctly, for our other trade agreements the information is available. It's just not published, so we would have access to it if we wanted it. It's publicly available.

[Bruce Christie]

The information isn't broken out like this. They don't separate. In another joint commission that administers the implementation of a free trade agreement, the costs of the joint commission are certainly published, but not the specific costs of Canada.

To clarify another question raised earlier, we're not suggesting an additional clause. We're just suggesting that for clarity we renumber clause 12 as 12(1), and the new proposed amendment, if carried, as 12(2).

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

So it's still all under one clause. It just has a new number on it.

Okay, that clarifies that. If there are no more comments on the amendment, we'll go to Ms. Ramsey.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

This is about accountability and transparency. I think we're hearing from the officials that although this isn't something that has been done before, it is something that can be done here. It doesn't change the spirit of the agreement whatsoever, or the responsibilities of the other member countries.

I really think that at this moment, in terms of trade and where we're going, people are looking for this type of transparency. Certainly, Canadians are. This would be a small amendment that is quite allowable and within our purview to be able to add, so that we would have an understanding of exactly how much is being spent on the CPTPP. This is certainly not the case for other agreements, but I would actually say that I think this should be part of other trade agreements going forward. If we're truly going to be accountable to Canadians, to their jobs, to their livelihoods, and to their communities, then we need to be open and transparent about how much it's costing us to implement some of these things we're signing onto in trade agreements like the CPTPP.

I would ask my colleagues to reflect on that when they vote. This is an opportunity as well for the trade committee to have a piece added to the CPTPP. Out of all the good work that we've done, we've certainly heard from the 400 witnesses on the TPP and essentially in every agreement that we've discussed here around this table, people want transparency and accountability and they're looking for some things to be changed in trade agreements.

I would ask you to consider that when you vote. I also request a recorded vote, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Okay. We'll vote on the amendment to the new subclause12(1).

Do you have a subamendment, Mr. Sheehan?

[Terry Sheehan, Sault Ste. Marie, Lib.]

Just for clarification, it's clause 12, or whichever one we're going to vote on first, and then we're going to vote on the amendment second, or are we voting on the amendment to the clause? Please clarify that.

[The Clerk]

The first vote would be on the subamendment, then on the amendment, and then on the clause.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Okay, we're first doing Mr. Allison's subamendment.

(Subamendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Amendment as amended negatived: nays 5; yeas 3 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 12 agreed to)

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Okay, folks, that's it for the clauses. There are 13 schedules. Do you mind if I group the 13 together?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

(Schedules 1 to 13 inclusive agreed to on division)

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Shall the short title carry? Clause 1 is the short title.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Why don't we change it back to “TPP” and call it what it really is?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

No, let's not go down that road.