Good morning, and thank you for inviting me here, on behalf of Canada's 90,000 manufacturers and exporters and our association's 2,500 direct members, to support the ratification of Bill C-100 and the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement.
I would like to thank the Prime Minister, Minister Freeland, the chief negotiator and all of their staff, for their efforts negotiating CUSMA.
Being part of the process, we understand how difficult these negotiations were, and also how critical the outcomes were for Canadian businesses and all their employees. The negotiations were important because CUSMA is not simply another trade agreement. North American trade is the basis on which Canada's manufacturing sector and its 1.7 million employees operate. It is why the Canadian manufacturing sector is responsible for more than two-thirds of Canada's exports. It is how the sector competes against the rest of the world, at home and in foreign markets. It is critical to our future and current success.
As such, CME fully supports the ratification of this legislation, and urges the government to ratify the deal as soon as practical. The primary reason for immediate ratification is based on the opening statement. It is the foundation for modern manufacturing in Canada. CUSMA preserves the integrated manufacturing operations that allow the relative free flow of goods and services between the three markets, and that collectively build products for sale domestically and internationally. Going into negotiations, our members made it clear that the primary objective must be to do no harm to this integrated manufacturing in our economy—which has happened.
We believe CUSMA preserves many of the key elements to the original NAFTA, which were targets of the U.S. for elimination, not the least of which are the dispute settlement mechanisms and the business traveller visa exemptions.
Aside from preservation, CUSMA updates several key areas of NAFTA to bring it into the 21st century. For example, the new digital trade chapter recognizes that the Internet now exists—something the old agreement obviously didn't—and establishes a framework for e-commerce within North America. The customs administration and trade facilitation chapter will also go a long way to modernizing customs procedures throughout North America, better enabling the free flow of goods.
Last, my colleague touched on chapter 26, the new competitiveness chapter, which has not garnered much media attention, but is, in our estimation, one of the biggest accomplishments of CUSMA. It will set up a framework to allow the three countries to become a coordinated trade bloc. It will do this by promoting better coordination and integration of our manufacturing industries, so that we can tackle global trade challenges together. This is a significant accomplishment.
As CUSMA courses its way through each of the three countries' domestic ratification processes, we believe we should immediately get to work on implementing parts of the agreement that do not require legal changes. We should be looking to make early progress by establishing committees for North American competitiveness, and good regulatory practices outlined in the agreement. This would show Canadian leadership, signal to our other partners that we take CUSMA seriously and enable us to hit the ground running, once all three countries ratify the agreement.
In the final analysis, CUSMA is a good deal for Canada, and, given the very challenging negotiations, an impressive achievement. Now that the unfair and punishing section 232 tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum have been lifted, we urge the government to move forward with ratification as quickly as practical.
Thank you, and I look forward to the discussion.