International Trade Committee on Sept. 26th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

We're going to go to Madam Lapointe for five minutes.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to welcome the witnesses who are appearing before us today. I am happy to be here with you in New Brunswick.

My question will be more for the representatives of the Grand Manan Fishermen's Association, as well as the Connors Bros. representatives.

Is it difficult for you to recruit workers?

[Bonnie Morse]

For the commercial fishery, during the very busy peak times, it is a bit of a challenge, particularly because we're on an island and we have a very limited workforce. There are times when it is a problem to find workers, but throughout the season, it generally levels off. Because the economy on the island is so good, in general, finding workers has been a problem. We have a lot of openings, particularly in the service industry.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you.

A bit earlier, witnesses told us that they had a fairly available workforce, but probably not on the island. It is difficult for you to recruit workers.

[David Lomas]

The answer from the processor's side is, yes, we do. That reflects, in some ways, the interest level of Canadians in working in a fish plant. This has been something that has been well publicized before, when there are restrictions placed on temporary foreign workers coming in. The short answer is yes, we are challenged in finding sufficient employees who will work in a fish processing plant.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you.

If the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement was ratified, we could assume that exports from New Brunswick would increase. In that context, would it be even more difficult to recruit workers?

[David Lomas]

As I said at the outset, from Connors Bros.' perspective, our challenge is we're constrained on resource right now. While we would love to be able to export a lot more—

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

So there are some problems with the supply.

[David Lomas]

Yes.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you.

Earlier, we talked a lot about food security. Do you think that adopting the TPP agreement would help us increase sales to Japan?

That country accepts and prioritizes the food safety standards we apply here, in Canada. Earlier, you talked about Vietnam and Malaysia, but Japan really appreciates our food security when it comes to our exports. Do you believe that exports from New Brunswick to Japan could be increased if the tariffs were removed?

[David Lomas]

Historically, we've only had very nominal sporadic exports of our products into Japan. The issue very often transcends just simple tariff issues and some of the regulatory aspects. It also speaks to what products you have to sell that are of interest to that market.

Within fisheries there are certainly many areas, but within the herring side of the business from the Bay of Fundy area it has not been an important market for us at all just by the nature of products that we provide. I'm sure in other sectors of the fishery that would not be true. There is certainly a very active trade with Japan. I know from the west coast there certainly is, but insofar as our neck of the woods in the herring side is concerned, it's very limited and I don't see the TPP would dramatically change that.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

You have half a minute.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

I have a question for you, ladies.

You said that this agreement was signed behind closed doors. Were you consulted when consultations on the TPP began last year? My question is for the Council of Canadians representative.

[Leticia Adair]

Before the agreement was signed by the Canadian government, personally, we weren't. We don't know whether our national organization was, but, no, we were never....

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you, Ms. Lapointe.

We're going to finish up with the Conservatives.

Mr. Ritz, you have five minutes.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your presentations today. As you can see, the diversity of opinions is actually very good. It ends up with a stronger agreement at the end of the day.

Mr. Lomas, you said that most of the fisheries, and maybe I'm paraphrasing a little, that you're export driven. The vast percentage and the last groups that we had basically said the same thing. Is it not important to have diversity of markets? You rely a lot just on the American market and I understand, and you made the comment about Japan. The point with Japan is they want fresh fish. They don't want it canned. That's the difference there.

Is there any strength then in having diversity of markets in keeping the Americans honest? We found that when we were negotiating with them on country of origin labelling, on beef and pork, and we also found it on softwood lumber, which is still under discussion, that if you have other markets that create demand, then the Americans tend to toe the line and become fair traders rather than just free traders. Is there strength in having that diversity?

[David Lomas]

The answer would be yes.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Yes, the easy answer.

[David Lomas]

Again, just to qualify this in respect to the Connors Bros., historically, we've been exporting for well over 100 years. In fact, there was a sales sheet I saw from 1923 which said that at the time Connors Bros. was exporting to over 50 markets around the world. At that time the tariff structure into the U.S. was very prohibitive, so the U.S. was not a very important market to Connors Bros. Uniquely, perhaps, as the result of our long history, we have always developed a very diversified branded seafood outlet business. We've always been very diversified.

Now today, yes, certainly, the U.S. market through our brands in the U.S. is very important to us. We are export driven. We look for those opportunities and we look to optimize the returns on the products that we have available to sell from this area. So, CETA, TPP, in theory, if the playing fields are level, then, yes, it would be a positive thing.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

There was also talk about the chapters that were closed when Canada started to take part in the negotiations. I can assure you, all of those chapters were opened and discussed. There were changes made within those chapters.

A case in point from an agricultural perspective, cheese compositional standards were taken away in one of those closed chapters. We were able to open it and bring that back into Canada's favour. That's worth about $800 million to our dairy farmers. There were a lot of discussions.

You made the comment about quasi-slavery on some of the catching boats around the world. There are chapters in there on labour standards, environmental standards, and on food safety as well. The countries exporting product into Canada, in order to gain our market, have to do it to Canadian standards. The labour that they pay on their boat has to be to Canadian standards; the environment that they're working in has to be to our standards, and of course the food safety has to be to our standards as well, to keep us safe so that we're not importing stuff that is less than what we expect in Canada. It is very important to have those chapters in there.

When you folks from Grand Manan talked about not having a proper briefing, have you asked for one now? You have a local guy who is the Minister of Fisheries. I'm sure Dominic would be happy to sit down with you, or your parent organization will call him, to run through everything.

[Melanie Sonnenberg]

At this point we haven't because we're letting him get his feet under him in his new portfolio, but now that we're into the fall, yes, we will be asking for it.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

He has officials who have their feet under them and have been involved all the way along. He's a tap dancer; he's fairly quick at being adept in it. We look forward to that.

Thank you for your presentation, Dr. Tippett and Ms. Adair. You mentioned that our drug costs in Canada are second in the world, on the wrong end of the scale, and have gone up some 26%. To what do you attribute that? What's to blame?

[Leticia Adair]

Many of the drugs that are being introduced into our country have been introduced through back doors, like many of the pharmaceutical companies I was mentioning before. They've prepared this training, or presentations for the doctors. They're basically enhancing the new preparations. It's a fact; I couldn't really tell you exactly what because—