International Trade Committee on May 13th, 2016

[Rob Wildeboer]

I have reports I can give you on a call to action. There's a whole CAPC group, including all the OEMs, parts suppliers, and Unifor, that has made some recommendations on that.

Ultimately, in order to be competitive, you have to look at your all-in costs, and those are part of the competitiveness in a manufacturing sector. All-in costs can include the costs of quality, the talent you have, access to markets, labour costs, pension costs, and so on.

Ontario has a lot to deliver, and I won't get into the whole list, because it's there. One of the biggest problems is that we don't sell it well enough. I think one of the key things is that our federal and provincial jurisdictions have to work together in order to show the world that we're open for business. You have labour behind you, and that includes the people I represent. It includes some Unifor shops and some non-Unifor shops. It includes business, and it includes service industries. If we get our act together, we should be able to sell.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I know what you mean. I know that when I worked with Flexi-Coil and Case-New Holland and we were looking at a new product line, you actually had to sell it to the gods above you in order to get it into your facility. I know just how important it is to be able to sell that full package. I would think that in terms of trade agreements and market access Mexico has done very well in selling that to those gods above us. Would you not agree with that?

[Rob Wildeboer]

Well, as I was preparing today, I got an email saying that the President of Mexico is coming to Ontario. He wants to visit my head office. He wants to see a plant, because we're also a big employer in Mexico.

The Prime Minister of Canada has been there a number of times. Sandra Pupatello has been in most plants in Ontario, and Kathleen Wynne is going to visit one of our plants as well. We get that, but we have to get our game together so that we market it. It's an “all hands on deck” thing, and if we compete, we can win.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Is it fair to say, then, that if we sign the TPP and we sign CETA—I'm looking two or three years out—we should be going into Japan and saying that we recognize they can't build that stuff there but they can do a global platform here in Ontario, because we have X, Y, and Z, and that's why they need to be here? Will that not be the blanket or the platform that will actually expand this region?

[Rob Wildeboer]

We have to support the local champions. Ray Tanguay did that in Japan and said, “I want you to build the Lexus in Cambridge.” It's the only plant outside of Japan that does the Lexus, and it's in Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Hoback. That wraps up our third panel for today.

I thank the witnesses for coming and for their good presentations and the good dialogue with the MPs.

Now we're going to move on to the audience, but we're going to have a five-minute break.

We'll suspend now for five minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

We're going to get started. There are a few housekeeping rules. This is a forum that we've been doing across the country. We open up the last hour for comments from the audience.

We have a long list of speakers and we're going to try and get everybody in, but we're going to have to ask for your co-operation. We're going to give you two minutes each. If it's shorter, that's great.

There are a couple of things. We don't want any heckling. We don't want any personal attacks. I will not accept that or I will cut you off at the mike. You're here to talk about policy, your beliefs, and what you feel. Don't make any personal attacks on an individual. Don't jeer anybody at the mike.

If this goes fairly smoothly and quickly, I'll be able to get most of the people on this list.

For anybody in the audience who doesn't get a chance to speak, and they have an opinion on this, we have an email address that you can send your comments to and it will be put in the report.

Without further ado, we're going to start off with Patricia Evans.

[Patricia Evans, As an Individual]

Thank you for the opportunity. I'm here with two other members of the Grandmother's Advocacy Network.

While we're women of a certain age, our concern is with drug costs in Canada, but more importantly, for our purposes, is the impact of the TPP on people in poorer parts of the world.

There are two specific concerns I want to identify very briefly. One, the delay of generic drugs onto the market will have a very deleterious impact. Generics were one of the most important reasons why the price of ARVs for HIV/AIDS went down from $10,000 a year to $150. That's really important.

We know that the Global Fund, to which the Liberal government, our government, has just generously supported, is one of the agencies that is going to be impacted by the price of drugs to poorer countries going up.

The other aspect, and I think this may be a surprising thing for many of us, is that the delay of generics actually can impede the development of innovation. For example, if a generic company wants to develop a paediatric formulation of an HIV drug or if they want to develop a heat-resistant, good for sub-Sahara and Africa, form of the medication, they could be denied the opportunity. This will delay.

The Grandmother's Advocacy Network would agree with agencies like MSF that say the big losers in the TPP are patients and treatment providers in developing countries.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Fiona McMurran, you're up for two minutes.

[Fiona McMurran, As an Individual]

Thank you for this opportunity to speak. I'd like to ask the committee to seriously consider who this deal is good for. We know that it's good for the winners. We know that it's good for the Magnas, but we also know what's happening in this country, that our income inequality is increasing by leaps by bounds, that more and more Canadians are falling into poverty, that we now have one of the highest rates of child poverty in the developed world.

Deals like this are a race to the bottom for most of us. All of you, as well as thinking about the overall GDP, which by the way is not going to increase at all to any great degree under this deal, also have to think about the real Canadians that you represent.

As Mr. Fonseca has said, the TPP needs to be looked at by our parliamentarians holistically and I congratulate all the members of this committee on the extraordinary way you've dealt with this learning curve over the last few weeks.

What about your colleagues in the House? I've spoken to the MPs in my area. We've got two new Liberals down there in Niagara and they're struggling as hard as they can just to learn the job.

This is an extraordinarily complex deal as I know you now appreciate. How on earth are your colleagues going to be prepared to vote on this?

I ask you to please consider this and find some way of extending the discussion and particularly the discussion with ordinary Canadians on this deal or you do us all a terrible disservice.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you

Ms. Elisabeth Rowley.

[Elisabeth Rowley, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

My name is Elisabeth Rowley. I'm the leader of the Communist Party of Canada. We will be making a submission to you before June 30 in writing, but I'm here today to urge the government and urge all parliamentarians to stand up for Canada and to refuse to ratify the deal.

This is a very bad deal for Canada. It's probably a very good deal for multinational corporations, but it's a bad deal for the public interest, it's a bad deal for workers, for women, for farmers, for indigenous peoples, for people who are concerned about the environment—for Canada. This a secret deal, furthermore. As someone mentioned, it's been in negotiations for eight years, but the public didn't know anything about it until quite recently. In fact, the latest polls show that half of Canadians don't know anything about it. But this is a huge deal that will affect every aspect of life. Why hasn't the government and why hasn't Parliament taken this to Canadians to ask them what they think about it? The answer, I think, is because it is so heavily weighted to the interests of for-profit corporations that they know that the public would oppose it.

There were demonstrations across the country at your hearings. Surely you must be aware that there is very widespread public concern and opposition to this deal. At the very least this means there should be a prolonged period of discussion with the public so that people can do more than stand at the microphone for two minutes to express their views about this.

In the interests of Canadian sovereignly and independence, protection of our environment, respect for the rights of indigenous peoples, creating jobs in the secondary industries and manufacturing, instead of destroying them in the interests of protecting medicare and social programs, which will be on the block and subject to investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms in which we are going to see big box stores replace public health care and other public services that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

Adelaide MacDonald, go ahead for two minutes.

[Adelaide MacDonald, As an Individual]

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

The TPP, I think, will be financially reckless as far as Canada is concerned. Canada at the beginning of 2015 was contingently liable for $6 billion as a result of claims under NAFTA, which has provisions similar to what there would be in the TPP. Therefore, the potential financial liability under TPP, where there are so many more countries involved, is far greater.

Secondly, Canada has lost more cases under NAFTA that it has won, and the United States has never lost a case under NAFTA. Therefore, I think that to ratify it would be fiscally reckless.

Democracy and our courts evolved over centuries from the Magna Carta in 1215. At that time a totalitarian king ruled England. Barons began the process towards wresting power from the king. Now it seems we want to create a new king in the form of investors and private tribunals to wrest self-governance from the people of Canada. Their legitimate expectations, a very nebulous term, will decide cases, and Canada and its communities will not be able to enforce core community values.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

Ms. Sylvia Wineland, go ahead for two minutes.

[Silvia Wineland, As an Individual]

I volunteer with the People's Climate movement because I care deeply about the environment that we'll leave to our children and future generations. We are very concerned that the dispute settlement provisions of the TPP will impede the ability of the government to take decisive action on climate change and to make good on commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Lawsuits brought by foreign corporations against the Canadian government can derail new environmental policies. Tribunal decisions under the ISDS mechanism can require huge payouts to corporations with no recourse for appeal, and even though the government may have deep pockets, it does come from our taxes.

Also, the chill effect can prevent governments from even pursuing new environmental policies. Just the threat of a lawsuit can be enough to make a government back off, and we've come to this conclusion by looking at cases under NAFTA. It's very clear from NAFTA and other trade agreements that this will happen.

I can only hope that before any vote is taken on the ratification of the TPP the government will seriously consider three questions related to environmental protection.

First, the Liberal government promised to grow “an innovative and clean economy”. How can the Canadian government incentivize growth in Canadian clean tech industries, jobs, and products without being sued by foreign corporations if the TPP is ratified?

Second, how will government decisions taken under federal and provincial, and maybe even municipal, environmental protection laws be safeguarded from investor-state legal challenges?

Third, regarding action on climate change, in order to reduce Canada's greenhouse gas emissions—which we have committed to—the government will have to adopt new policies. If these new climate policies undermine foreign profits, how can Canada meet its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without facing prohibitive investor-state settlement payouts?

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

We have Ben Heywood.

[Ben Heywood, As an Individual]

Hello, everyone.

I agree completely with what she just said, and I was going to speak on the ISDS, but I will talk about supply management instead.

I am 18 years old. I'm from a high school in Toronto.

The TPP certainly does not sit well with me, nor does it with my comrades.

Supply management is a system under threat by the TPP, and although it is not a perfect system, it does give farms a chance to raise organic and ethically produced produce.

I worked on a farm and I got to experience first-hand the importance of rural farming in Ontario and its positive impact on society in Canada. There's strong environmental impact and there's also economic impact.

One of the examples of environmental impact is that here, because of supply management, we're able to have a dairy farm that can support farmers and support us with only 70 to 80 cows; whereas in the United States, because of the high competition, those dairy farmers are forced to use about 30,000 cows, which, I can assure you, is a strong toll on the environment.

Farming is tough, back-breaking work, and because of supply management you're able to make a living. The TPP threatens that. Let's not blow farmers out of the water with the TPP.

It does not sit well with me, one of millions of students across Canada, and I'm terrified about its consequences not only two years from now, not only five years from now when I've graduated university and entered the workforce, but 10 years from now. What are the future consequences for the youth of today? I'll tell you that it's really hard to understand because the TPP is so complex. An average Joe like me can't make it out.

The TPP does not sit well with me or my future.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you very much.

It's great to see young people. Over the last few weeks we've had quite a few young people come to the mike. It's good to see the next generation concerned.

We have Gail Fairley up now for two minutes.

[Gail Fairley, As an Individual]

The next generation is really bright. You should be listening to them.

We all know that the TPP was developed by and for corporations and that it entrenches and expands the rights of corporations. It doesn't protect the public good. Our elected representatives, however, are supposed to have the backs of all Canadians and to make decisions for the public good.

If our elected representatives had run for election on a platform saying that you were going to agree to extending patents and all our drugs were going to cost more money, if you had said that you were going to eliminate the possibility of a future pharmacare program, if you had said that you wanted to sign an agreement that would result in more offshore jobs, or if you had said that you would grant corporations the right to sue our governments for lost profits when we exercise our sovereign right to protect our environment, none of you would have been elected.

[Voices]

Hear, hear!

[Gail Fairley]

The first thing is, you don't have a mandate for this TPP.

Mr. Van Kesteren, when you keep saying to somebody over here, “oh, is somebody in your group, would they disagree with you?”, that's like a stupid thing to say. I work—

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

I'm sorry. I told everybody in the crowd. We're not going to start that, because we don't have a position to go back to. You only have 10 seconds left, so finish it off.

[Gail Fairley]

I work in an organization where everything we do is based on evidence-based research. It's based on data. It's based on thorough investigation before we ever move ahead with anything, and that should be happening with the TPP.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

Ms. Linden Jane Milson, you're up for two minutes.