International Trade Committee on Aug. 18th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Go ahead.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Are you saying you're going to deal with the motion right now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

I guess so; it was brought to the floor.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Chair, maybe I'll speak to the motion.

I look at some of the recommendations we've made, for example recommendation 2, that the Government of Canada ensure that its consultations regarding negotiations for new softwood lumber agreements with the United States include stakeholders who may have been overlooked in the past, especially aboriginal stakeholders and small producers. What we're hearing from the industry is mass confusion. We're hearing that some people have the ability to talk to trade officials, and some people do not. I don't know if that's true or not, so I would like to know what the truth is there.

We're hearing that the U.S. trade officials aren't even coming to the table, that we present a position and they don't even give a counter offer. Again, I don't know if that's true or not. Those are rumours that are circulating around the sector. I would like to get to the bottom of that.

The motion really highlights the fact that 350,000 jobs are at stake here—and they are at risk; don't kid yourself. I come from Prince Albert. I experienced the Weyerhaeuser mill shutdown. I experienced the shutdown of the sawmills in Carrot River, Big River, and Prince Albert because of a bad agreement, or because no agreements were in place, and what can happen to the community. The City of Prince Albert lost $1 million alone from their tax base because of that. This is a very serious issue. I think we should definitely move forward with this motion, considering what's at stake: $20 billion to the Canadian economy.

I also want to highlight the fact that Quebec is asking for an exclusion, because they have changed the way they go about doing their stumpage. That's not being talked about by Mr. Moen today.

I think it's very important that we get this confusion out of the industry so that we know exactly where we are. That's why I think the motion is justified in this case.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thanks, Mr. Hoback.

I would like to limit debate on this if we can, because we brought the officials here and have questions for them. If we can't bring it to a vote now, I'll have to put it forward to future business at the end of the meeting. If there are any new points to add to this, bring them now. I would like to bring it to a vote, and then we can move on to questioning of the witnesses.

Mr. Peterson.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

I think everyone on this side does appreciate the importance of the softwood lumber industry to Canadians and the Canadian economy. However, I think that having a round table may be unnecessary, because these are precisely the steps that the ministry is already taking. They're consulting with the officials from the provinces and industry reps. This work is already being done. We just heard our witness indicate what steps have been taken. I think this would just duplicate the process and would, if anything, slow us down in coming to a reasonable resolution by the deadline.

I do not support this motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Ms. Ramsey, for the NDP.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

I disagree. We know that the large companies are out there and are engaging with the USTR, but where are our small producers? Where are the labour unions? Where are the aboriginal people that we discussed in our recommendations? If we have a round table, we'd be ensuring that all of those voices were at the table. I don't know where they're at. It's part of my questioning, actually, to find out where they're at currently in the negotiations. I think having a round table would bring everyone into the room, and at the end of the day we'll have a clearer picture coming out of that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

For a final few comments, and then we'll bring it to a vote, go ahead, Mr. Doherty.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, these are the small to medium operations that are in your riding, in my riding—the 50-person, 100-person, 200-person mills that are at risk if we don't get this right. There isn't a one size fits all for this. The industry is divided from one end of our country to another, and we're causing nothing but more confusion. By having the meeting we can get industry and the provinces around the table. We can show leadership. It's the right thing to do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

All in favour of the motion?

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Can we have a recorded vote?

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Yes, if you want to.

(Motion negatived: nays 5; yeas 4)

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

The motion's defeated, so we're going to move on.

I think you have just a minute left. Go ahead, Mr. Doherty.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Chair, it is deeply regrettable that this motion was defeated because, as a result, the message that we're sending from this committee is that Canadian jobs and the confusion being caused don't matter. Regardless of what niceties are being said about the relationship with our U.S. counterparts, when you sit across the table from them, the niceties go out the door. We need to protect Canadian jobs, and that, right now, I'm afraid is not being done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Okay, we're going to move on.

We're going to the Liberals, Mr. Fonseca, for five minutes.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for coming in on such short order.

I understand that Mr. Doherty wasn't here for one of our first meetings, maybe our first meeting, when our Liberal member for Surrey, Sukh Dhaliwal, was the first to put on the table the need to address softwood lumber.

Mr. Doherty, it was Sukh who championed this at committee and made sure that this committee, which was working on the TPP, was open to hearing from stakeholders from coast to coast to coast. We did talk about how important softwood lumber is to Canada and those thousands of jobs that you talk about. We did engage with many from British Columbia, as well as all the other provinces and the territories.

Mr. Moen, from your engagement with Canadian representatives and meetings with all of the various stakeholders, can you highlight some of the provisions they would like to see in a new softwood lumber agreement, and those they would not like to see in such an agreement.

[Martin Moen]

We've had a very wide range of meetings, even over the past month, and regular calls with all provinces and a group called the Business Advisory Council, which includes a very broad spectrum of producers from across the country. We have, of course, reached out to first nations and unions as well.

In that context, there are a number of elements that continue to emerge. First of all, there is broad support for the certainty of having an agreement that makes it clear that U.S. producers can't take trade remedy action against Canadian exports, and that this certainty would last for a reasonable period of time. There's no point, we've been told, in negotiating an extremely short agreement. The point is to have certainty for the industry to allow investments to proceed.

We have heard about the issue of optionality; that is, some parts of the country and a large part of industry in those parts of the country believe that quotas can be made to work. In other parts of the country with a similar situation, the concern is that given the particular commercial circumstances it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for a quota to work properly. In that kind of circumstance, we are seeking an agreement that provides for some flexibility in how the fundamental goals of the agreement are met.

There's also concern that the level of market access to the United States be reasonable and reflect our long-standing presence in that market. Certainly, we have heard very loudly and clearly from the Atlantic provinces that because of the particular circumstances in these provinces, the exclusion they had under the previous agreement, and the treatment they've had in previous investigations, should be reflected with an exclusion in the current agreement.

We have also heard from across the country, but particularly from Quebec, a desire to have a provision in the agreement that would provide for the possibility of having an expeditious and impartial review to see if an exclusion for a particular province is warranted in the future because of policy changes or simply because of new information that comes to light.

These are critical elements, but we've also spent significant time talking to smaller producers and have heard from them a particular interest in ensuring that high-value products get special treatment to recognize that they are not central to this dispute. We've also heard from producers that certain very specialized products should be excluded, given that they are very low volume. We have also heard from smaller producers the importance of having special treatment for remanufacturers, that is, companies that take basic lumber materials and make them into something that involves further processing.

These are the sorts of issues that are part of our negotiations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you, sir. Your time is up.

We're going to go to the NDP for five minutes.

Ms. Ramsey.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

I'd like to echo MP Doherty on the concerns of a lot of Canadians, over 195,000, who work in this sector, and their communities, who are understandably feeling deep worry this summer as this date looms and they see this coming.

Have you reviewed the report and its recommendations that we put forward from this committee?

[Martin Moen]

Yes, we have reviewed the report and its recommendations.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Okay.

[Martin Moen]

We're well advanced in preparing a response.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Can I ask you specifically about recommendation number 2. It essentially said that there are many stakeholders who have been overlooked, in particular, aboriginal communities and people, as well as the small producers.

To what extent are aboriginal stakeholders and small producers a part of your negotiations now?

[Martin Moen]

I can assure you that aboriginal groups and small producers are consulted as part of the ongoing work of ensuring that we have an approach that will yield a result that's commercially viable and that makes sense for Canada.

For example—