I will introduce myself. I am Martin Fournier, Executive Director of St. Lawrence Shipoperators.
We represent ship operators—in other words, Canadian commercial vessel owners—on the St. Lawrence. We represent a fleet of more than 130 Canadian ships and Canadian crews that handle shipping between the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence, the Atlantic, the Arctic and the U.S. east coast. Those are our primary markets.
Our members' activities are made possible through the Coasting Trade Act, which protects marine transportation between two Canadian ports.
Although we wish Canada would negotiate and conclude trade agreements with various countries, including the TPP, we still have a few concerns over opening up coasting trade to foreign ships, as the case has been in the economic agreement with Europe. In fact, under that agreement, European ships with European crews can now or will be able to come do coasting trade between two Canadian ports with on-board crews whose cost is only about 33% of the Canadian crew costs. Therefore, it is impossible for us to compete with them.
We are worried that the TPP will continue in that direction when it comes to the domestic marine industry. We would actually like for coasting trade not to be opened up under the TPP agreement.