Evidence of meeting #35 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 lobster.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Keith Colwell  Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Government of Nova Scotia
Terry Farrell  Member of the Legislative Assembly for Cumberland North, Government of Nova Scotia
Chris van den Heuvel  President, Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture
Victor Oulton  Director, Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture
Ian Arthur  Chief Commercial Officer, Halifax International Airport Authority
Jon David F. Stanfield  President, North America, Stanfield's Limited
Osborne Burke  General Manager, Victoria Co-operative Fisheries Ltd.
Finn Poschmann  President and Chief Executive Officer, Atlantic Provinces Economic Council
Janet Eaton  Representative, Common Frontiers Canada
Alex Furlong  Regional Director, Atlantic Region, Canadian Labour Congress
David Hoffman  Co-Chief Executive Officer, Oxford Frozen Foods Ltd.
Lana Payne  Atlantic Regional Director, Unifor
Peter Rideout  Executive Director, Wild Blueberry Producers Association of Nova Scotia
Cordell Cole  As an Individual
Tom Griffiths  As an Individual
Darlene Mcivor  As an Individual
Susan Hirshberg  As an Individual
Michael Bradfield  As an Individual
Brian Bennett  As an Individual
Shauna Wilcox  As an Individual
James Pollock  As an Individual
Angela Giles  As an Individual
Karl Risser  As an Individual
Timothy Carrie  As an Individual
David Ladouceur  As an Individual
Martha Asseer  As an Individual
Martin Bussieres  As an Individual
Christopher Majka  As an Individual
John Culjak  As an Individual

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking

I ask David Gates to come to microphone number two.

Timothy, you have the floor. Go ahead, sir.

11:50 a.m.

Timothy Carrie As an Individual

It's been a while since I've been called Timothy, but thanks.

I'm Tim Carrie, from London, actually. I know the panel didn't come to London, so London has come to you.

Prior to my responsibility as a director of education for Unifor, I was the president of Unifor Local 27 in London, representing auto parts workers.

I'm going to name a few facilities: auto, the Ford plant in Talbotville; auto parts, Siemens; Dana, and I can go on to several others. Those are thousands and thousands of jobs.

I go back far enough to remember the debate on free trade with Brian Mulroney and I go back far enough to remember the race-to-the-bottom argument that we put forward. I go far enough back to recognize when NAFTA came into effect. All of the promises that I heard here and all the wishful thinking, I heard back then. But what have I seen? It has been job loss after job loss after job loss, and in manufacturing, the race to the bottom. The way that we've tried to maintain a few jobs was to negotiate downwards, with workers taking cuts just to keep the jobs. That is not fair trade.

I know when the panel was speaking, Lana was asked, “How can we stop them from going to Mexico?” I'm not going to answer that, but I'm going to tell you a way that you don't stop them from going to Mexico, a plan that doesn't work. When you eliminate the tariffs, when you eliminate the Auto Pact, which requires 60% Canadian content for vehicles that were sold in this country, that is certainly not going to stop jobs from going to Mexico; it's going to enhance more jobs going. When you allow a dollar to get artificially high, any economist who's really looking at it will tell you that it's not going to stop jobs from going. There are ways to stop it, but what I saw was governments always putting in place things to enhance it.

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking

David Rory Ladouceur is going to microphone number one.

Is David Gates here? David Gates is not here, so we're going to go right to David Ladouceur.

Maybe we can get Martha Asseer to get ready at microphone number two.

Go ahead, David.

11:55 a.m.

David Ladouceur As an Individual

My name is David Ladouceur. I wear many hats with the union, but today I'm going to talk to you as a first nations person. I'm Anishnabe. I'm from Shawanaga First Nation.

There was no consultation with any first nations people invited here. Once again, you're leaving out a major component of Canadian society, and this is not a fair deal for Canada if it's not a fair deal for first nations people. You have to take your heads out of your butts and realize where we're at in taking the resources from Mother Earth and not being concerned about the next seven generations, about my grandchildren, your grandchildren, and the children who follow.

The short-sighted deals have done nothing for the Atlantic coast and they have done nothing for Canada. It's time we started realizing that. It's terrible.

A lot of learned people have been up here speaking before me, and all I can do is speak from my heart. I watched my brother-in-law pass away from cancer last year, just in February, as a matter of fact, and the bills for medication were outrageous. I have a sister who is now battling a brain tumour. These are all issues that we're going to have to contend with, right? How are we going to pay for that? How are we going to cover that?

As a union member, I'm told to carry the line, but sometimes when that line is crossed, you have to speak from your heart. I'm asking everybody here to look at this deal and to look at it with your heart and see if we're going in the right direction. I don't think we are.

Does that white paper you're showing me mean that I have 30 seconds left?

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking

No. Go ahead, sir. You're doing a really good job.

11:55 a.m.

As an Individual

David Ladouceur

I thought you were surrendering, the way you were holding up that white paper.

11:55 a.m.

Voices

Oh, oh!

11:55 a.m.

As an Individual

David Ladouceur

I work down at the shipyard. I just got on there. We're trying to represent workers down there and trying to get equity in there, and this is going to go in the face of everything we've been fighting for. This trade deal sucks, just like the rest of them do.

Thank you.

11:55 a.m.

Voices

Oh, oh!

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking

I'm trying to get on track here. Martha is supposed to be at mic number one.

Martin, you can go to mic number two.

Martha, you're up. Go ahead.

Noon

Martha Asseer As an Individual

I'm here as a regular Canadian citizen. I'd like to speak to two points that were brought up by that gentleman in particular and that lady.

At this point, I think most citizens around the world are increasingly concerned about these trade deals. While we all want strong countries and we all have established companies that have been trading, increasingly there are hidden multinational corporations.

You said that America could pull out their car manufacturers and send them to Mexico, and we could make these trade agreements and then find out that all of these corporations suddenly magically appear and there's no protection.

The American citizen is not aware that 80% of all drugs are exempt from legal liability. This is as passed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Eighty per cent of pharmaceutical drugs are exempt from legal liability. Our press did nothing to cover that. We were not informed about it.

Why is this important? Well, the gentleman here just spoke about our farmers. Monsanto has just acquired CRISPR, and then they're going to be bought out by Bayer. Bayer was found to be involved with AIDS-tainted drugs. You have an agricultural multinational corporation being bought by a huge pharmaceutical company, and we have no knowledge of how they can impact not only trade but also products that are increasingly dangerous. Our neighbours are wide open to adverse health effects that are, increasingly, warnings of heart attacks, internal bleeding, and things that we're not even aware of.

I am against this agreement simply because we want it investigated. Exactly what highest level of secretive corporate transnational deals are being made and how are we being protected?

Thank you.

Noon

Voices

Oh, oh!

Noon

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking

Martin, can you go to mic number one?

Christopher Majka, can you go to mic number two?

Martin, you have the floor. Go ahead, sir.

September 29th, 2016 / noon

Martin Bussieres As an Individual

Good morning. My name is Martin Bussieres. I am a father.

Someone said earlier that all everyone would be on a level playing field. Personally, I wonder whether the cheese slice I give my children will be edible and whether they will be able to eat it. Will the farmers in Nova Scotia or Canada have to change their standards and adopt the same standards as other countries?

We have already had enough problems. Products have been imported into Canada. I am thinking of the children's toys that were defective, for example, that came from countries that want to be part of the TPP.

Are the standards going to change in those countries? Are our own standards going to change? Am I going to be able to give my children an edible cheese slice?

Thank you for your attention.

Noon

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking

Thank you, sir.

Before we go to our next speaker, for anybody who wants to send any comments, we're going to post the email address out there on your way out if you want to write it down or punch it in.

Right now we have Christopher.

Our next speaker, who will be ready at mic one, will be John Culjak. John could be ready at mic one.

Christopher, you're up. Go ahead, sir.

Noon

Christopher Majka As an Individual

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak.

My name is Christopher Majka. I'm a writer and ecologist. I will be brief.

Fostering trade can certainly benefit both people and the economy. That said, the devil is always in the many details of such agreements, and that is certainly the case with the trans-Pacific partnership, where there are very many hidden devils.

While I applaud many issues that the TPP addresses, the actual provisions in the agreement allow for many concerns with respect to the ways in which these will be addressed. For instance, in regard to environmental protection—something which, as an ecologist, is of particular concern to me—many environmental organizations have pointed out ways in which the agreement could threaten our climate and environment. The agreement provides for new rights for corporations, in particular those related to the fossil fuel industry, that are potentially environmentally destabilizing and could have a massive impact on the way in which we address climate change, water issues, and land issues.

The TPP has also been criticized as being incompatible with the sustainable development goals of the United Nations, a critical international framework for developing a sustainable future for our planet.

I'm similarly concerned with provisions of the TPP that tighten and extend patent laws that would allow pharmaceutical companies to boost prices, restrict access to medicines in the developing world, and delay or derail initiatives to make less expensive generic drugs available. Médecins Sans Frontières and Oxfam have both pointed out that patent extensions and data exclusivity provisions in the agreement could result in a spike in drug prices that could threaten millions of lives.

Finally, the investor state dispute settlement mechanisms that are part of the TPP are perhaps the most concerning aspect of this agreement. These provisions grant enormous powers to corporations and investors and greatly interfere with the ability of governments to undertake initiatives that would benefit their own countries and citizens. They can undermine the judicial systems of member states and weaken important powers of governments to act and legislate with respect to public health, national security, environment, food and drug safety, and in response to economic crises. I would posit that such restrictions to the sovereign powers of governments are incompatible with a 21st century environment, which values participatory democracy and the rights of citizens to determine their future.

For all these reasons, I would respectfully submit that the Canadian government should not ratify this agreement.

Thank you very much.

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking

Thank you, Christopher.

We're going to go over to John.

John, you have the floor. Go ahead, sir.

12:05 p.m.

John Culjak As an Individual

Thank you.

My name is John Culjak. I'm a writer and I represent myself.

In search of a more equitable trade pact, we must ethically reject the TPP. Part of the TPP debate is whether or not jobs will be lost to countries that can manufacture products at a lower cost. We know from past trade pacts that jobs can and will be lost.

Another concern is often less about trade and more about giant multinational corporations finding new ways to rig the economic system to benefit themselves.

The TPP will give multinational corporations the right to sue the governments that will not comply with their wishes to earn more money. It will allow the corporations to sue for potential loss of money due to policy or laws passed by the government. For example, the TransCanada Corporation is currently suing the U.S. government for $15 billion—yes, $15 billion—in damages under NAFTA, another trade agreement, for rejecting the Keystone pipeline.

These same changes are applied to the TPP and will bring about the suing of our government by multinational corporations. By the way, guess who is going to pay for that? We are. The people are going to pay for that—the 99%.

Signing and passing the TPP will go even further, creating a situation whereby our laws ultimately will be determined by multinational corporations under the threat of lawsuits. According to Lori Wallach, the director of the Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, passing the TPP will give corporations the right to sue the government via a tribunal in which corporate attorneys decide if the corporation or the government will prevail.

In conclusion, that's only the tip of the iceberg. Passing the TPP will have a detrimental effect not only on jobs and the economy but also on our health system and the environment. Let's not give the 1%, the huge corporations, the right to dictate to our government what our laws should be in order that they may profit at the expense of the remaining 99%. The government must stand up up to the corporations, protect its people, and do the ethical thing. I implore you to stop the TPP.

12:05 p.m.

Voices

Oh, oh!

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking

Thank you, John.

That concludes our audience's remarks. I thank everyone for their participation.

Everything you say is going to be incorporated into our study. If you have any other thoughts, we have an email address and you can send them to us.

This also concludes our Atlantic tour. We've ended it in the beautiful province of Nova Scotia. It also ends our cross-country tour. We're still going to hear witnesses back in Ottawa. We're going to be putting this report together, and you'll be able to see it online.

Thank you very much. We wish everybody safe travels for the afternoon.

The meeting is adjourned.