Evidence of meeting #14 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 industry.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Thank you.
We're going to wrap it up with a couple of minutes from Madam Lapointe.
Go ahead.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much to the witnesses for being here today.
Mr. Milne, the company you built with your employees is very interesting and inspiring.
Mr. Nelson, you said earlier that this agreement is very important for Canadians, but that you are not so sure about the United States. In your view, it is not necessarily their first priority to be resolved with Canada.
As my colleague said, the presidential elections are in the fall. We don't know what the outcome will be, whether the Republicans or the Democrats will win this time. Do you truly believe that we will be able to conclude an agreement before next November?
Prof. Harry Nelson
Honestly, I am unsure. I know that the Canadians, both from the industry and from the federal government and the provinces, have been happy to speak with the Americans about this over the past year, even pre-dating the expiration of the agreement, but you need two people to be at the table to reach an agreement. Part of that in the U.S., because of the politics down there, is heavily driven by the interests of the U.S. industry.
As for what brings them to the table or whether they feel that they may do better or worse with a new president, I can't speak to that. I think in some unfortunate ways we are waiting to hear on that. From our perspective, we can simply press where we can to follow up on the commitments made by the President and the Prime Minister to try to reach an agreement sooner rather than later. Nobody likes uncertainty.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Thank you for that good question.
That wraps up our second panel and that wraps up our lumber study.
Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us this morning. Thanks for the information and, hopefully, all goes well.
Thank you for coming.
Fibre Supply Manager, Harmac Pacific
It was our pleasure. Thank you very much.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
The meeting is suspended. We're only going to break for about four or five minutes, and then we're going to go in camera to do some future business.
[Proceedings continue in camera]