International Trade Committee on June 2nd, 2016

[Phil Benson]

Going back to NAFTA, that did not allow construction workers to come to Canada. Where I was working at the time, I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get Americans and Mexicans, Americans mostly, out of the country. If you look at chapter 16, the business guide, there's an entire two pages on trades. I helped draft that. This is unprecedented. It's temporary foreign workers on steroids.

As for labour protection, side deals on labour, to be blunt about it, in trade deals they are worth nothing. We have these labour standards, etc., and they are all nice words. We have it in NAFTA for Mexico, and we have it in other trade deals for other countries, and not a darn thing has happened to elevate anything.

At the end of the day, with the other trade deals.... When their grain goes to market, I guarantee you it's a teamster taking it to market. But you have to look at the entirety of the deal. From other deals, there's 400,000 manufacturing jobs that have been lost over the last 30 years. Wages are stagnant. With all due respect, agriculture is a very small part of our economy. It does not employ a lot of people. I'm talking about total GDP. It's okay, and I totally support them, but to sign a trade deal that benefits that industry but hurts this one, this one, and this other one, that's a little problematic for us.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

All right. Thank you.

Mr. Wayland.

[Matt Wayland]

I think Mr. Benson and Mr. Smillie covered most of the points. It's the first time we've seen a trade deal where we've had to deal with labour mobility between those countries. We've looked for labour mobility between Canada and the U.S., and we haven't been able to get that, even though our trade practices, our codes, are very similar. Being neighbouring countries, it would be a big help, but outside of that, what we see in the TPP as far as the flow of labour is concerned is not advantageous.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

In my experience with temporary foreign workers in New Brunswick most of them were in the lower-skilled area. It was my understanding that with the TPP the mobility of workers affected the higher-skilled area.

I have a question for Mr. Chopra.

The use of rBST in the U.S. has been approved since 1993 and commercially sold since 1994. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not consider rBST to be a threat to cows or human health. What research can you tell us that the Americans have done to show whether or not there is a damaging effect on human health?

[Shiv Chopra]

I don't know if I fully heard the question. What did the Americans do?

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

They have approved rBST since 1993 and have commercially sold it since 1994. It's been in their market for decades. What research has been done on the consumer side and the animal side as a result of it being in the American market for so long?

[Shiv Chopra]

In Canada, rBST is simply not allowed to be used in Canadian cows. That's what happened in Canada.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

What about on the U.S. side? It is in use there.

[Shiv Chopra]

On the U.S. side, it was already approved back in 1993. We rejected it here in 1999, and the European Union rejected it right after.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

I'm sorry, your time is up.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Is there any study or any research that you can draw upon?

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

The time is up, folks.

[Shiv Chopra]

Those studies showed that it was toxic and it was potentially harmful to people, and certainly harmful to cows.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

If you could submit those studies to the committee, that would be great.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

I like lively dialogue back and forth, but it's not good when it's in the last minute or last few seconds. Try to get your lively debate going at the front end so we can hear all of it.

We're going to move over to the Conservatives. Mr. Van Kesteren, you're up.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and my thanks to all of you for being here. It's a great discussion.

I want to clarify something. Mr. Smillie and Mr. Wayland, you mentioned the safety aspects.

Mr. Smillie, you made an interesting comment. You said that it's very difficult for us to go into the United States. The one aspect you are forgetting, and Mr. Ritz alluded to it too, of being in the construction business, and we all know people who talk about the standards in this country. Are you seriously suggesting that people from Vietnam—I know you are going to mention Australia, but that's a long way away and we have a reciprocal agreement there—but Vietnam, or even Japan with its serious aging problem, are going to learn our standards and be able to meet them and compete with electricians right here in Canada?

Give us a short answer, please.

[Matt Wayland]

I'm not saying that at all. Under the TPP, what could happen is they'd have carte blanche to come over. They have a licence in that country; they'd come over. There's no meeting our codes or making sure they get to our codes or training.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

I would challenge that. Nevertheless, wouldn't it stand to reason that local authorities would just come right in and say, “What are you doing? You're putting different...”.

[Christopher Smillie]

We'd hope so, but we have an enforcement problem as it is in many of the jurisdictions today.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

So you don't really have a concrete thing that we can point to and say....

Mr. Wayland, I know that you talked about it. I'd be interested to know exactly what the circumstances were. But we're not seeing a flood of immigrant workers who are competing against our electricians, which have the highest standards in the world.

[Christopher Smillie]

What I would say is that safety is about training—

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Well, I agree.

[Christopher Smillie]

—and it's about the training people have received. In Peru, in Mexico, and in Japan, they do not have an apprenticeship system that is equivalent or equal to our system.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

You're proving my point. I'm not seeing too many Mexicans coming here. We've had an agreement with them for years. I'm not seeing too many Mexican electricians. I don't think I've seen any, quite frankly. I just—

[Christopher Smillie]

It's because they're not able to.