Thank you. That was the point I needed.
Evidence of meeting #33 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 pei.
Evidence of meeting #33 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 pei.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Good afternoon and welcome.
I had the opportunity to chat a little, but not with you. I have to say that the mussels have piqued my interest.
You said that you are working on diversifying the products and that you export frozen mussels. Are they still in the shell?
12:10 p.m.
Executive Director, Seafood Processors Association of Prince Edward Island
Some are flash-frozen or packed. It's a process. It's a small percentage of the market right now.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Since the product is new, do you think it will be on the rise? Do you think you'll be able to increase sales?
12:10 p.m.
Executive Director, Seafood Processors Association of Prince Edward Island
I'm a believer that the market will lead the way for the product. I think the challenge is a good one for here. There are only so many mussels we can produce, and we're almost producing them at that level. How the market may be changing over time is that there may be greater demand for value-added, and maybe that will make the pricing different for the restaurant or for the chef. They send them in vacuum packs. They take them out of the shell, freeze them, and put them back in the shell. It's quite a neat little process. One of our members is really—
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
It's interesting.
My colleague asked me a question. Are they farmed mussels?
12:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Seafood Processors Association of Prince Edward Island
Yes.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Okay.
Right now, Japan has tariffs. Are there tariffs for the lobster and mussels?
12:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Seafood Processors Association of Prince Edward Island
I believe so, yes.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Okay.
If Canada signs the trans-Pacific partnership, could you see your lobster and mussel sales going up on the Asian markets?
12:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Seafood Processors Association of Prince Edward Island
I certainly see that an influx for lobster is more immediate.
Having said that, our mussel processors are regularly on trade missions and things like that. I think we've made some inroads in Hong Kong, for example. I think the seafood industry is no different from some others. If you want to talk about China, they're trying to find what part of the market they need to be in. They don't just want to be protein and low end. They want to be at the high-end levels. I think the mussel industry is trying to find their niche or their in in those markets.
I do see that making it easier to get our product to the market...I think the market will then drive the product and it will find its way in through there. I believe that.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Right now, where are the mussels you are producing in Prince Edward Island being sent? Are they all exported or are they for Canadian consumption?
12:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Seafood Processors Association of Prince Edward Island
It would be 100% North American. It would be Canada and the U.S.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Thank you, panellists.
We were in New Brunswick and the port authority gave us a tour afterwards, which was very nice. We get panellists, and they talk about their operations or what they're involved with. If only we had the time to visit your places and understand what you're doing, it would be great.
We're short on time and we have to go to Newfoundland tonight, but we appreciate your coming in, all of you, and hearing your different perspectives. We're going to break now for half an hour, and then we'll be back for our last panel.
1:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome, especially the new panellists who we have. This is our final panel for the day.
As many of you are aware, we are studying the TPP, and we're consulting with Canadians.
Our committee is very busy. We're finishing up on the European agreement and we're dealing with many U.S. issues—softwood lumber and agricultural products—but the TPP has been our main focus over the last few months. We've visited seven provinces and we have a couple of provinces left on our Atlantic tour. We've consulted with the territories through video.
We have had more than 125 briefs, 200 witnesses and 20,000 emails. We're one of the first committees in the House of Commons that has opened up to the public for their input, so we have received more than 20,000 emails. We also have an open-mike session at the end for anybody in the general public who wants to give comments. That has been going quite well.
We still have a few meetings back in Ottawa, and we're probably going to be wrapping up at the end of October. Then we have to bring it all together and do a report, which takes at least a month or so, and then we will present it to the House of Commons at the end of the year.
Yes, it's a big deal, as many of you know. It deals with 12 countries, 40% of the world's GDP, and 800 million people. We're hearing everything as we go across the country. We're hearing pros and cons, and some people want things changed in it. Of course we have a watchful eye on what's happening down south. The TPP was brought up last night in the debate between the two presidential candidates. Often what happens down there also has an impact on how we end up doing things up here.
Without further ado, we have the P.E.I. Cattle Producers, the P.E.I. Health Coalition, and the Sierra Club.
The Cattle Producers will go first. We have Brian Morrison and Rinnie Bradley.
If you could speak for around five minutes we'd appreciate it so that we can have time for dialogue with the MPs. If you go over five minutes, I'm going to ask you to wrap it up.
Go ahead, folks.
1:10 p.m.
Brian Morrison Chairman, Prince Edward Island Cattle Producers
Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.
My name is Brian Morrison and I'm the chair of the Prince Edward Island Cattle Producers association.
The TPP, for our province here... We're an exporting province, of course, we do have the only federally inspected beef plant east of, I believe, Ontario now. To make our plant profitable, to make our producers profitable, we need to utilize the whole animal, and in other parts of the world they use different parts from what we do here, so exporting is basically a win-win for our province if we're able to access markets all around the world with fewer trade barriers, for sure.
There are pros and cons to everything—we know that—but Canada by and large is an export country, so the more products that we can move to markets where they want them and appreciate the different pieces of an animal, the better. On Prince Edward Island our provincial government has targeted us as a food island exporter, so we are very much focused on niche markets, whether it be livestock, lobster, seafood, soybeans, whatever it might be. Whatever we can grow and produce here we don't have a large quantity of, so we need to find customers around the world who want a specific product, and grow forward. We're very much behind the trade initiative from an export province, for sure. There are many details and things that are far beyond myself.
We have a small soybean plant on Prince Edward Island that ships in excess of 10,000 acres' worth of product to China, so with fewer tariffs and fewer barriers for that business, it boils back down to the primary producer being able to get paid more. We have a small beef processing plant on Prince Edward Island, so we're actively looking for niche markets around the world for product, whether it be Wagyu beef that can be exported, or whether it's just different parts of the animal that other places use, and they don't in North America. It's very important to us as an export province to have trade deals and fewer tariffs in different places.
We are working quite hard as an association on the export of beef. Just today there are six animals' worth of beef in Hong Kong that came from my farm a week ago. We're working very hard to develop relationships in different places of the world that want a specific product, and when you're small scale like we are here, we can adapt quicker to smaller niche markets and hopefully return better money back to the primary producer so that they can expand their....
I should back up a little bit. We have about 400 beef producers on Prince Edward Island, and most are family farms, small businesses, a father, son, grandson kind of thing. We can adapt more quickly to smaller markets and niche markets around the world. That's where our association has mostly been focusing.
Once again, I probably got ahead of myself, but I really want to thank you folks for coming to Prince Edward Island and for giving us the chance to present in front of you today.
I'll turn it over to Rinnie for a second, and then we'll wait for questions.
1:10 p.m.
Rinnie Bradley Executive Director, Prince Edward Island Cattle Producers
I don't have a lot to add on behalf of the P.E.I. Cattle Producers, but on behalf of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association for sure. Our country is largely an exporter, and it's very important to us as new markets open, especially since the BSE, with the challenges that has created for the industry.... Every time another market opens, it does benefit provinces like ours. We have better access to domestic markets as well. We realize what is at stake here with the TPP and the reduction of tariffs on Canadian beef going into countries like Japan and being on a competitive level with Australia.
We hope that going forward negotiations can continue so that Canadian beef is at least as competitive as Australian beef or U.S. beef. It's very important to the industry, as a national industry.
1:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Thank you.
While everybody was eating lobsters last night, I had a hamburger. It was made from P.E.I. beef. It was really good. It tasted like what I used to get at home. We used to have grass-fed beef and I always had a taste for it. But you're right, that sometimes we cannot compete with these big mega-feedlots of the world. It's to get in that niche. With grass-fed, hormone-free beef, there could be a niche out there for you, and that's very important.
Anyway, thanks for your presentation.
We're going to move to the P.E.I. Health Coalition, and we have Ms. Boyd.
September 27th, 2016 / 1:10 p.m.
Mary Boyd Chair, P.E.I. Health Coalition
Thank you for inviting the Prince Edward Island Health Coalition to participate in this hearing.
Our coalition of community and labour groups has been in existence since 1979 and sees huge problems with trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
First, it is very important that Canadians have access to medical drugs when they need them, but currently Canada's pharmaceuticals are the second most expensive in the world, second only to the United States. Canada needs a publicly funded prescription drug plan accessible to all Canadians. It would save Canada close to $11 billion annually, and $45 million for Prince Edward Island.
The intellectual property chapter of the TPP could shadow this by preventing Canada from buying bulk drugs at a greatly reduced price. By extending patents, the TPP would increase drug costs by at least 5%, or $636 million annually. CETA would add another 6.2% to 12.9%, or $850 million to $1.6 billion.
For this province, the CETA costs would increase from $3.8 million to $6 million by 2023, at the same time that 23% of Canadians cannot afford medications as prescribed.
Furthermore, the availability of generic drugs about to enter the market would be delayed by five years. It is reasonable to expect that if both agreements are ratified, those costs would be cumulative.
Ninety-one per cent of Canadians want a publicly funded prescription drug plan with equal access for all. We fear that the TPP and CETA could prevent this and increase costs way beyond the reach of those who are already struggling.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade told us that the federal government would compensate the provinces for some of the increased costs. The same was said about supply management. Why take perfectly good and workable programs that serve Canadians well, destroy them with trade agreements, and then say, “We will compensate them”? It makes no sense. What kind of nation building is this?
Second, our coalition believes there is inadequate protection in the TPP and CETA for our public medicare system. Health care should not be part of trade agreements. It is not a tradeable good nor a profit-making commodity. Provisions in both the TPP and CETA fail to protect health care from the investor-state clauses.
Under the TPP, Canada will be vulnerable to court challenges from large corporations, if they think we are giving preference to Canadian interests. This is already happening with Eli Lilly on patent extensions here, and with the Philip Morris tobacco company against Australia's plain packaging of cigarettes.
The investor-state dispute settlement chapter could seriously limit delivery of Canada's health care and cause a chill effect to policy-makers.
Roy Romanow stated that Canada's public system of health care belongs to the people of Canada. It is the people's program, paid for by our taxes, and it is based on Canadian values of care for each other. We cherish the fact that any Canadian is entitled to free medical care in the doctor's office and in the hospital. We desire the same for people needing medication. We need to expand and improve medicare, not hand it over to challenges and barriers of the free market corporate agenda.
Third, the TPP would pressure Canada to speed up approval of drugs, increasing the 3% to 4% of new drugs that have to be withdrawn yearly because of safety concerns.
Fourth, the TPP would end supply management and open our borders to more milk products from the U.S.A. In Canada, we already fought and won the battle over the rBST hormone in milk. Under the TPP, it would not be traceable or labelled. Canadians don't want this hormone imposed on us.
Taking supply management from farmers would lower our current standard. The TPP is mainly a financial agreement protecting multinational investments and intellectual property. It's not about safeguarding health care. Our trade balance is better with nations with which we have no trade agreement. Canada's health care is too important to be part of the TPP and its negotiating process. The values and principles of our public system of health care leave no room for corporate control. Health care is not a business, and introducing privatization into the system goes against the common good of all Canadians.