Evidence of meeting #21 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 tpp.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Your time is up, Ms. Ramsey. If we have time at the end, we'll deal with the motion.
I'm going to keep going.
Mr. Fonseca, you've got five minutes.
NDP
Tracey Ramsey NDP Essex, ON
I'd like the notice of motion to be read into the record at this time, please.
Liberal
Kyle Peterson Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
It's our time, Ms. Ramsey. You should have done it at the beginning. If it's such a priority to you, you should have used your time to do it.
Liberal
Liberal
Karen Ludwig Liberal New Brunswick Southwest, NB
It's in direct relation to the minister being here.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
If you had done this at the beginning of your five minutes, we could have done this motion within your five minutes. We're not going to take time from the other members.
We've going to move on to Mr. Fonseca for five minutes.
Go ahead, sir.
Liberal
Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
Mr. Chair, thank you very much, and, Minister, thank you for your presentation.
I have to say that this committee for the most part has worked in a very collaborative way. We've had the opportunity to visit with many Canadians in our travels to the west and central Canada, and then we'll be doing Atlantic Canada, and as the chair always likes to say we are pioneering here with our open microphone and that's been quite an opportunity and eye opening. I know everywhere that I've gone in my riding and in travels I ask people about the TPP and many have really no clue about the TPP. They don't know much about it. What we've been doing here at this committee is really shining the light on 6,000 pages of this huge agreement that will touch really every Canadian if ratified or not.
Minister, I wanted to ask back to the beginnings of the TPP. I know we joined quite late, in October of 2012. It was four years after the start of those negotiations in 2008. Do you think that disadvantaged Canada in terms of our ability to negotiate?
Liberal
Chrystia Freeland Liberal University—Rosedale, ON
Thank you for the question. I do also want to point out since time has been taken up by various things that I do only have an hour this morning. Our Canada-U.S. cabinet subcommittee is meeting at 9:30. I am the chair of that committee, and David MacNaughton our ambassador to the U.S., has come especially from Washington to be there. So please bear that in mind.
You mentioned, Peter, the open microphone, and I really do want to, in perhaps a non-partisan spirit, congratulate the committee on having that open microphone innovation. I think that it was a response to your first week of consultations. I have had very good feedback from people about having the open microphone, so congratulations on doing it. I think you've set an important parliamentary committee precedent.
On Canada's entry into the TPP negotiations it's actually something that I raised in the House when I was like you all a trade critic. The reality is we together with Mexico entered the negotiations late, and one of the conditions of this late entry was that everything that had already been agreed we had to accept when we entered the negotiations unless we were able to get unanimous agreement of all the other TPP countries that we could reopen something. An area where Canada was successful in reopening, with Mexico, was that prior to Canada and Mexico entering the TPP had been an English language only document and Canada and Mexico succeeded in adding French and Spanish to the negotiating languages. Although very important for Canada, on really substantive trade issues a condition of entering—and it's the case with very many clubs—is if there's a group that's already there that's negotiated you have to accept what has been negotiated. We can't rewrite history, but I do think that's something we have to be aware of.
Liberal
Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
Minister, can you do a bit of a compare and contrast of the TPP to CETA and how those were managed? With CETA I know that it was very open, transparent. We reached out to our other levels of government, our provinces, municipalities, as well as many stakeholders, and people had a very good awareness of CETA. You've spoken to it as a very progressive trade agreement. Can you give us a compare and contrast on the two?
Liberal
Chrystia Freeland Liberal University—Rosedale, ON
I'm glad that you raised CETA. Let me actually start really at the beginning, which is that, as I mentioned earlier, when we were in opposition we supported CETA. We supported the government in its negotiations. We were very public and on the record and open about that, and I think it helped the government to have our support there when they were speaking to Europe. I did congratulate my predecessor, Ed Fast, when we finalized the legal scrub. It was very important.
The crucial thing about CETA, and a big difference, a big contrast, is the legal scrub was not finalized when we formed government, and in fact although the agreement in principle was very much celebrated a lot in Canada in September 2014, there was really no movement between September 2014 and when we formed government. We very quickly, once we got inside the CETA negotiation, spoke to our European partners. We understood that the agreement was stalled. We believe it's a really important agreement, as I said.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
That's the first round.
Now we go to Madame Lapointe for five minutes. Go ahead.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much, Ms. Freeland, for being here with us today. I appreciate your taking the time to come and meet with us.
I am the only Quebec member on this committee. My riding, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, is located north of Montreal. It includes the municipalities of Deux-Montagnes, Saint-Eustache, Boisbriand and Rosemere. In this riding there are some very good SMEs and some very good exporting businesses. They are very pleased at the prospect of being able to access markets and export their products. In fact, Kinova, in Boisbriand, a firm that makes robotic arms, recently received the Governor General's Innovation Award. In my riding there are also several agri-food businesses that export. There are also, in the Laurentians, several subcontracting lumber companies. This is a very vast area that is adjacent to my riding.
I know that our Prime Minister went to Washington to meet with the President of the U.S. I would like to know, if possible, where things stand regarding the Softwood Lumber Agreement.
Liberal
Chrystia Freeland Liberal University—Rosedale, ON
Yes, that is certainly possible.
Thank you for the question. I hope that my presentation in French was comprehensible.
Liberal
Liberal
Chrystia Freeland Liberal University—Rosedale, ON
Thank you.
As the committee knows, the softwood lumber issue is very important and very thorny. Our government is very much aware of the importance of this issue for all of Canada, including Quebec. We are working very, very hard on this.
As you said, when we went to Washington, it was imperative that we convince the Americans of the merits of our position. The President of the United States said that we had 100 days to settle this dispute. We are at a crucial stage in the negotiations and it was impressive to hear the president speak about the importance he attaches to this issue. He stated that the softwood lumber issue was going to be resolved, in one way or another.
I have frequent talks with Michael Froman, the United States Trade Representative, about this. As I mentioned, on Tuesday I was in Arequipa, Peru, for the APEC Summit. I had a one-hour meeting with Mr. Froman and softwood lumber was our main topic of discussion. Mr. Froman will be meeting with our Ambassador to the United States tomorrow to discuss it further. I don't know if there are any journalists in the room, but I have news for them, which is that American negotiators will be coming to Ottawa next week to continue talks on this.
May I reiterate that we consider this is an extremely important issue. We understand that and we are working very, very hard on it. I also want to point out that that our objective is to maintain stable access to the American market for our industry. We will continue to be in regular contact with stakeholders in Quebec and elsewhere in the country in connection with this. May I also emphasize the fact that we want to obtain a good agreement.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Thank you very much. I appreciate your answers, Madam Minister.