International Trade Committee on Feb. 23rd, 2016

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

E-commerce is such an important area.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you. When you're splitting your time, you lose a little.

Anyway, that ends our first round.

We have time for another round, not full time for another round but I'm thinking we'd have time for three questions probably at five minutes, if the committee is agreeing with that, because it's hard to have two and a half questions.

Shall we go for five minutes?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Okay. We're going to start off with the Liberals. It's only five minutes.

Mr. Peterson or...?

[A voice]

Let Madame Lapointe go.

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

Since I still have some time, Mr. Chair, can I go on?

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

You use your five minutes how you want to.

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

Very well.

In short, Mr. Beatty, you support the agreement because it will regulate the e-commerce industry.

What opportunities could e-commerce generate? There are a number of sectors. In your view, what improvements could e-commerce bring?

[Perrin Beatty]

Increasingly, growth in our GDP in Canada comes from the services sector. What we're seeing is a significant shift in terms of what generates economic activity in Canada, and that's the case in the world as well.

It's an area where Canada does it well, where we have the opportunity to provide services in other parts of the world as a consequence, as long as we don't find that the global marketplace is partitioned.

Also, by having better protection for intellectual property, it will also make it easier for Canadian businesses going abroad into markets where there is less certainty today.

I don't know whether Mr. Everson might want to add to that because he's been looking at that.

[Warren Everson]

Many nations are involved now in the very parochial regulation of Internet, the data storage requiring local storage of data. There are privacy concerns for us, and it essentially nullifies the whole economic advantage of the cloud that we're all employing now. We're fairly aggressive promoters of free movement of data, and the TPP allows a framework that will lead that.

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

Thank you.

I'm going to turn the floor over to my colleague.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Did you want to...?

[Corinne Pohlmann]

I just wanted to add that e-commerce is essential for smaller businesses. This is a key aspect of the trade deal because that's how they can reach those new markets much more easily. The big feature for a lot of small companies and why they don't get involved in international trade is cost, and part of that cost is the cost of movement. E-commerce allows them to do that much more easily. It's important that these factors are a part of the TPP agreement, so there is a framework where they can work on a level playing field with other countries very much more easily and access those markets much more easily.

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

Thank you.

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

I have a quick question.

Thank you, first of all, everyone, for being here. We appreciate the time and your contribution to this process.

My question is for each of you.

You all represent diverse organizations. I'm wondering what sort of opposition you might have heard to the deal, what concerns were raised, and how you think they perhaps are adequately addressing the deal—or whether or not they are—just so we can get a cross-section on what you're hearing from your members.

Thank you.

[Corinne Pohlmann]

As I mentioned, the areas that we've heard the most from are for specific sectors that feel like this could have a negative impact and those are the supply-managed industries as well as the small auto parts manufacturers.

Certainly, on the supply-managed industries, we have been pushing for compensation for those types of industries that are going to be affected negatively. Some of the proposed compensation that came up as part of the deal that was announced was going a long way in helping to address some of those issues that many of those businesses were concerned about.

We haven't heard as much of a concern since those particular measures were announced. On the auto parts manufacturing side, the small ones are nervous, certainly, about what this means for them going forward. Those are definitely the areas that we've heard the most from.

[Mathew Wilson]

Very quickly, we've heard the same. I'm not sure there has been any resolution, specifically, on some of the auto provisions that are out there. It's a political decision that needs to be made with maybe some better economic data than we have right now on what the true impacts are going to be. Again, what are the impacts if we're not involved regardless? I don't think anyone has a really good handle on that yet.

[Perrin Beatty]

We are also hearing, obviously, from the automotive sector and it varies. Some elements of the automotive sector are very strongly in favour of TPP; others are concerned about it. It's important to pull back though and take a look.

The first decision that you have to make as parliamentarians is what the net interest for Canada is, on balance. When you add up the advances we make and the trade-offs that are there, is it in Canada's net interests? I think the answer strongly is, yes, it is.

The second one is what the sectors are that are adversely affected and what measures can be put in place to assist them. You will remember at the time of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement there was a belief that Canada's wine industry was going to be wiped out. We were producing wine with labrusca grapes, which are better suited for making jam than making wine. We discovered that others could produce poor quality goods at a lower price than we could.

Leaders in the sector came forward and asked the government for assistance in a transitional program that allowed them to upgrade their quality and today there are more acres under cultivation than ever before, they're winning awards, and the sector is more profitable than ever before. The focus of government should be how do we work with those sectors to ensure that they can successfully make the transition.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Mr. Ritz.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for the presentations. It's always interesting to chat with you.

I'm in a little bit of quandary. The last presenter we had from the Business Council of Canada said that their modelling showed a $60 billion gain with TPP. I asked, “What's the downside, what's the erosion factor on jobs and investment if we don't ratify TPP?” Does anybody have a comment on that?

[Perrin Beatty]

If you're looking for a quantified figure, I can't give you a quantified figure.

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

No. I'm not looking for a quantified figure, Perrin, I'm just looking for—

[Perrin Beatty]

The downside is very clear and it was what I alluded to earlier.

We're looking to attract investment into Canada, particularly in our manufacturing sector. We want plants located in Canada. Part of our pitch is that we have a free trade agreement with Europe, we're in NAFTA, and a plant located in southwestern Ontario has access without tariffs to those markets.

If our NAFTA partners, the United States and Mexico, go into TPP and we do not, somebody looking to locate a plant in North America to get the advantage of NAFTA is going to look at those jurisdictions that can give it access to the TPP markets, which are massive, as opposed to going to Canada.

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

Our auto sector could actually destabilize faster by not taking part in these global supports through TPP.

[Perrin Beatty]

Absolutely.