International Trade Committee on Feb. 23rd, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Ms. Ramsey, your time is up.

Welcome, Mr. Wilson. It's a good thing you're here. We're going to bring you in with the second round if that's all right with you, because right now we're just going to deal with Mr. Kingston. You're going to be in the second round with the second group, and we might start a little earlier, at around twenty minutes to. That way you can give a proper presentation. Are you fine with that?

We're going to continue on. I think the Liberals have the last six minutes with Mr. Kingston. Then we're going to go in camera for about 15 minutes, and then we're going to do a big round with the four.

We'll go over to the Liberals.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Kingston, for being here. We appreciated your presentation.

I just have a couple of questions about your organization. How many companies did you say you represent?

[Brian Kingston]

There are about one hundred and fifty.

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

There was a consultation process for you to come up with your position on the TPP. Was the result of that process unanimous or was there some dissension?

[Brian Kingston]

Do you mean amongst our membership?

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

Yes.

[Brian Kingston]

There are always going to be concerns with certain sectors and industries, of course. I don't know if you'd find any major trade agreement of this size for which you'd get unanimous approval.

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

I didn't expect it to be unanimous at all. What sorts of concerns or issues did your members raise with you through that process?

[Brian Kingston]

I think the most high-profile one, which you obviously would have heard about already, was from the automotive sector. There have been some concerns there particularly with the rules of origin. We're going from 62.5% to 45% originating content, so that has been one area that's been an issue.

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

Still talking about the auto sector, I take it that the big three are in there, but are the Japanese auto manufacturers part of your organization as well?

[Brian Kingston]

The auto sector is still a huge component of the Canadian economy, of course, and it's reflected in our membership through both original producers and auto parts manufacturers as well.

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

What provisions were made for those concerns, or how were they addressed by your organization? You're obviously here speaking on behalf of the organization as a whole.

[Brian Kingston]

Absolutely.

To give you an example, we would have worked with our auto manufacturers and relayed some of the concerns around the rules of origin and the fact that it had come to such a low 45%, as opposed to 62.5%. That was one area where we raised that concern with negotiators and made it clear that we would have liked to have seen a higher threshold.

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

So we're not to assume that every member of your organization is necessarily a supporter of TPP.

[Brian Kingston]

No, of course not. You'll always find particular issues that a company will have with an agreement.

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

Thank you, Mr. Kingston.

I'm going to give the remainder of my time to Ms. Ludwig.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

There's lots of time, almost four minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for your presentation. It was excellent. I really appreciated your facts and figures.

Of the 150 companies, Mr. Kingston, how many of those are small businesses?

[Brian Kingston]

We actually only represent large companies, so we're a bit unique in that sense.

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

Looking at the export markets, I think we all know that the most common destination is the United States.

How prepared would you say, even though you're not representing specifically small businesses, are they to be looking at other export markets in the U.S., or emerging markets?

[Brian Kingston]

Small businesses...?

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

Yes.

[Brian Kingston]

It's not my area of expertise, but I think it's about capacity building, frankly. I think there are some SMEs that are globally focused and prepared to do that. I think there are others that may not be aware of the size and the scope of the opportunity, and that's where I think there's a role for our government to help prepare them.

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

I have a couple of questions on the importing side, so the flip side of this.

We know we are focusing here on the opportunities for exports. Of the 150 businesses that you represent, what opportunities do you see with the imports coming to Canada for them to be more innovative in opportunities here?

[Brian Kingston]

That's a great question. I think there is huge opportunity for companies that use a number of inputs.

We did a study prior to TPP that looked at just getting rid of Canadian tariff protection completely, unilaterally. We found that there are huge benefits to the Canadian economy, through two channels. First, you lower prices for consumers in all kinds of sectors, and one obvious area is dairy, of course. Secondly, you reduce the cost of inputs into manufacturing goods. The government did some unilateral cuts previously, but there are still gains to be made there.

I think that's a huge area where we'll see benefit.