International Trade Committee on Dec. 14th, 2016

[Steve Verheul]

Let me provide a bit of context. There were three areas of concessions that we made in the issue of international maritime transport. One was the repositioning of empty containers. I have to say that we did not receive any objections to that particular provision. It was viewed as fairly non-controversial. The second area where we did make some changes was with respect to dredging, both private dredging and federally procured dredging. Finally, and I think this is the issue you're talking about, we did make some concessions with respect to feedering that is restricted only to between the ports of Montreal and Halifax.

What we were told during those consultations was that there is currently no one operating any ship traffic between Montreal and Halifax. The goods are being transported by rail or by road, so there were not actual operations going on at that point. For both elements of the feedering that we've done—and we did two elements, a continuous route between Montreal and Halifax, and a route between Montreal and Halifax that was part of a continuous route either from or to the EU—there were restrictions on the types of ships and the ownership of those ships that could be used for those particular routes, so it is very contained. It doesn't apply to anywhere outside of that single route between Montreal and Halifax.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

We have received some briefs around this particular issue from the Canadian Maritime and Supply Chain Coalition, which is requesting some changes because they feel that there is a threat to jobs in Canada. The Seafarers' International Union has been engaging, and I believe they sent a brief to the committee as well, around a similar issue. They are saying that they have serious concerns about these provisions.

You mentioned the dredging issue, which starts in proposed subsection (2.2), and that's also of concern to them as well. Basically, this won't be done anymore simply by Canadian ships or Canadian workers. I do have an amendment to propose around that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

If you want to read the amendment, we can see if it's admissible.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

It starts after proposed subsection (2.6) on page 77. We're going to add a new proposed subsection (2.7), which states that:

(2.7) Any foreign vessel operating in Canadian waterways must operate under the same labour and minimum standards as a Canadian-flagged vessel and any Foreign vessel granted a coasting trade waiver must give employment preference to Canadian workers over Foreign workers

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Can you bring that forward to us?

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

All in favour of this amendment?

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 91 agreed to)

(Clauses 92 to 135 inclusive agreed to)

Now we go to the next one and that's clause 136. We have amendment LIB-4, which was already carried because of a previous one.

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

It's consequential to another one.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Shall clause 136 carry?

(Clause 136 as amended agreed to)

(Clause 137 agreed to)

(On clause 138)

We have a few amendments here.

Ms. Ramsey, do you want to comment on amendment NDP-9?

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

We're just asking—

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

Procedurally there are four amendments to the same clause, so what's the impact of one?

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

I think they fall together.

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

Okay. That's what I'm getting at. If amendments NDP-9 and NDP-10 are accepted, that means amendments NDP-11 and NDP-12 are done.

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

They're already done.

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

Thanks for that clarification.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Does everybody understand? Because of what we did before, amendments NDP-11 and NDP-12 are done. We just have to deal with amendments NDP-9 and NDP-10.

Ms. Ramsey, you have the floor.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

In amendment NDP-9, the change we're looking for, which is in the coming into force piece on page 108, is as follows:

The Governor in Council may make an order under subsection (1) only if the Minister tables, in each House of Parliament, a report containing an economic impact analysis of the potential benefits and costs of the Agreement for Canadians.

No economic impact analysis has been done for many years. I believe the last existing one was in 2008 or 2009, so I think it would be helpful to all parliamentarians to have that tabled at this time. Certainly at this committee we've discussed the impact of Brexit and different things that have fluctuated throughout the European Union, and I think it would be very helpful for all parliamentarians to have an updated economic impact analysis.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Go ahead, Mr. Ritz.

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

Mr. Verheul, as we were analyzing CETA and having witnesses, everybody talked about there being so many moving parts and so many variables and said that basically it would take a computer analysis, with data in and data out and your best guess, to determine who was going to take up what and how you'd actually get a cost-benefit analysis. Would it even be viable to do such a thing that would be accurate or worthwhile?

[Steve Verheul]

Certainly the accuracy would be questionable, because I think in any of these kinds of studies you have to make a whole series of assumptions that could be challenged. The fact is we don't know what exactly the behaviour will be of Canadian exporters, or for that matter of EU exporters to Canada, in the coming years, so there is a limited value to that kind of a study.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Go ahead, Ms. Ramsey.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

We don't have an explanatory memorandum. Because of the way CETA was tabled in the House, we didn't get some of the supporting documents that we normally would, and because an economic impact study was done previously, obviously there's value in doing this regardless of the methodology used. I think it's understood that it is the best method we have in order to have some sort of snapshot of that economic impact. I think this is particularly important because we saw last week that an EU parliamentary committee came forward and said it wouldn't support CETA because it projected the loss of 200,000 jobs in the EU. We need an understanding of what that looks like currently for us in Canada, in terms of what we are facing.

Certainly using a 2008-09 model in 2016 doesn't give us the best ability to have our hands on what we're facing here. Is it normal practice to have an economic impact study or analysis done around a trade deal of this scope? Really this is the largest trade deal we've engaged in since NAFTA. It's quite an ambitious piece for us to do, and I think having all of the information available to us would help all parliamentarians, because I'm certain they won't be able to read all 1,500 pages of it and do the assessment we've attempted to do here at committee.

I wonder if you could speak to that, Mr. Verheul.

[Steve Verheul]

Sure.

When we did the economic study in 2008, it was comparatively easy because we made a lot of assumptions without knowing the outcome of the negotiations. You can assume that all tariffs will be eliminated, for example, whereas the actual negotiated result will be much more nuanced. The same thing applies in services, government procurement, and other areas. When you're doing a study without knowing the final detailed results, it's easier to do. To tailor it in a way that you can actually capture the finer nuances of the final agreement is an extremely difficult thing to do.

Having said that, we will be doing a final environmental assessment of CETA—we're working on it at this point, but it will take a number of months to complete—that will have an economic assessment as part of it in order to conduct the environmental assessment of the impacts. As I mentioned, though, that is a ways ahead of us.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

I just want to be clear, though, that including this amendment in no way impacts the agreement itself or the legislation in any way. This would be something coming into force where we would have this provided to us. I just want to be clear that this doesn't in any way jeopardize the intent or the spirit of the legislation we're looking toward. Would you agree with that?