Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Montreal.
My name is Guy Jobin and I am the vice-president of Business Services for the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal.
The board speaks for the city's business community. It has more than 7,000 members. We organize 250 events yearly, through our service entity the Montreal World Trade Centre; about 60 of these focus on international trade.
Our position on free trade has always been roughly the same, and that is that we have always strongly supported the government's initiatives in negotiating free trade agreements. Canada is a nation of traders. Our exports make up more than 27% of our GDP. Employment, competitiveness and prosperity depend on international trade. That is why it is crucial that we maintain our exporters' access to offshore markets.
We also have to remain a part of global value chains. The board believes that the TPP will contribute, like other free trade agreements Canada has entered into, to our collective enrichment. We support the estimates that were done according to which the TPP could stimulate, on average, growth of 1% in the GDP of its members, and could add US $223 billion to the world economy by 2025. Most of all, the TPP promises our exporters better access to markets where we did not have a free trade agreement. These are emerging markets with sustained economic growth, like Vietnam and Malaysia, and major beacons of the world economy like Japan, Australia and even Singapore.
The board's main concern would be the cost of not entering into the agreement. Regional agreements bring together member countries, but exclude other countries from the preferential measures granted to members. If this treaty is duly implemented, Canada cannot afford to be excluded from it, or its businesses will be at a competitive disadvantage in many very promising markets, some of which are growing by leaps and bounds. One has only to think about the free trade agreement between the United States and South Korea: the Canadian pork industry suffered greatly from not being a part of it.
The cost of Canada not being in the TPP would be far higher than the cost of concessions. The TPP is a new generation agreement and it is an unprecedented opportunity to take part in an agreement which will tackle, more than previous agreements, non-tariff barriers that impede our businesses' attempts to move to the international stage. That is important for business. In fact, it will make it easier for business travellers to obtain visas. It is important for the service trade sector. Seventy-six per cent of Montreal's economy is based on the service trade, and the agreement should facilitate the temporary entry of professionals and technicians. One has only to think of Moment Factory or gsmprjct°, businesses whose professionals need mobility.
The harmonization of intellectual property protection regulation is another important aspect. Since Montreal is a knowledge and creativity metropolis, it is very important for video game enterprises and for the fashion industry. Ms. Gendreau spoke about this earlier.
Increased transparency and the harmonization of regulation have an effect on health, the environment and consumer protection, all sectors that can be affected by trade. All of this means that this is very important to us.
In conclusion, on behalf of the Montreal business community, the board encourages the Government of Canada to ratify the TPP by the February 4, 2018, deadline. The board also encourages Quebec enterprise to prepare for the implementation of the TPP. For our part, we will be organizing information and training sessions as well as commercial missions to help our businesses derive as much benefit from this as possible. However, we would like to recommend certain measures to the government to facilitate preparation for our businesses; provide information on the business opportunities in the 11 other member countries in the TPP; explain to them how to proceed and how to prepare—I think we talked about this earlier; clarify the advantages in the TPP in terms of facilitating business development procedures and exports; and especially, provide our businesses with the means to avail themselves of these advantages.
One of the main criticisms the board hears is that there is very little information on the agreement in question. There is more information on the American website than on the Canadian one.
That is all; I believe I have not gone beyond the five minutes I was allocated. Thank you.