International Trade Committee on Dec. 14th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our trade committee.

As everybody knows, we're dealing with Bill C-30 in clause-by-clause study today. Fortunately, it got through the House and everybody got to speak to it.

I welcome the officials.

It's good to see you and your team, Mr. Verheul. This is your baby, for a lot of you guys, and you did a lot of work.

Before I get started, Mr. Hoback, I'd like to pass on from the committee best wishes to your colleague Mr. Fast. I've heard that he has some health issues. Mr. Fast did a lot of work on this file in the many trips he made to Europe. Our thoughts are with him. If you could pass that on, I'd appreciate it.

Are there any questions from the committee before we get rolling here? Hopefully, we'll have a very productive next couple of hours, and then everybody can enjoy their evening Christmas party.

Without further ado, we're going to start this off. We have our trusted clerk with us—

[Philippe Méla, Legislative Clerk]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

—and our legislator, right?

[Philippe Méla]

I'm the legislative clerk. You are the legislator.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

I'm the legislator and you're the legislative clerk. Okay. If I run into any problems, you're going to let me know real quick.

We'll start with the short title, which we will postpone pursuant to Standing Order 75. Everybody has their homework done today, hopefully, and we're going to start rolling through this.

If it's the will of the committee—you have the same sheet in front of you as I have, I take it, or very close to what I have—is it agreed that when we have a grouping of clauses without amendments in between them we will group them together? Is that okay?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Without further ado, shall clauses 2 to 6 carry?

(Clauses 2 to 6 inclusive agreed to)

(On clause 7)

That takes us to clause 7 and amendment NDP-1. Everybody has that in front of them. Is there comment on amendment NDP-1? Can the NDP move that clause?

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Yes. May I speak to this clause?

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Yes, sure. Go ahead.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

For the first portion that's there, the change is:

Canada and the European Union, while attempting to preserve the

The language that exists says “while preserving”. We can't ensure that it will preserve, so I think this change is an attempt to preserve that.

Do you want me to keep going?

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Yes, go ahead.

I didn't get the last part of what you said.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

What I'm saying is that we're changing the language to “attempting to preserve” because you can't ensure that you will preserve. The language in the agreement says:

while preserving the right of each of the parties

—and then in next piece, paragraph 7(f) says:

provide adequate and effective protection and enforcement

We're saying at the beginning there, to:

provide additional protection and enforcement

We think it's important to put that in so that it's not just “adequate and effective”, so that we're talking about additional protection to ensure that happens.

When we look at paragraph 7(g), we see nothing enforceable in what exists there. It says:

(g) protect, enhance and enforce basic workers’ rights, strengthen cooperation on labour matters, and build

We'd like to change that to:

protect, enhance and enforce basic workers' rights through voluntary mechanisms,

This is incredibly important because of the changes to the cabotage, which we'll go through later when we get to the Coasting Trade Act. People are quite concerned about workers who will be coming in under flags of convenience on those ships and who will be impacted by, unfortunately, what they know to be true on those ships, which is that the labour conditions are not anywhere near the Canadian conditions, so changing this to the language we have here strengthens it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

Mr. Dhaliwal, do you have a comment?

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Mr. Chair, the amendment paragraphs (a), (b), and (c) do not accurately reflect the objectives set out in the CETA text agreed to jointly by all parties, so I would not be able to support that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Okay, I guess—

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

May I ask a question about that?

How do you think it doesn't accurately reflect it?

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

The proposal in paragraph (a) of the amendment would result in a lack of consistency between the text of CETA, the text of the joint interpretive instrument, and the text of Bill C-30.

With regard to paragraph (b) of the amendment, it is inaccurate to state that “additional protection” was an objective of the intellectual property provisions in CETA. While CETA provides for supplementary protection for certain patent-protected pharmaceutical products, this is only a very narrow subset of intellectual property provisions in CETA.

As to the amendment under paragraph (c), it is unjustified and inaccurate to suggest that CETA provides Canada, the European Union, and all its member states with the discretion to voluntarily enforce basic worker rights.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

To go back to the first point, which was about paragraph (a), you said that you were referencing lines in the declaration that are counter to that. Can you tell me what lines in the declaration go counter to that?

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

I would ask the chair if we could look for the opinion of the experts here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Okay.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Go ahead.

[Steve Verheul, Chief Trade Negotiator, Canada-European Union, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development]

With respect to the interpretive instrument, there is a reference, in paragraph 6(a), on the protection of investments, that:

CETA includes modern rules on investment that preserve the right of governments to regulate in the public interest including when such regulations affect a foreign investment, while ensuring a high level of protection for investments and providing for fair and transparent dispute resolution.

This is in the purpose section of the bill. The purpose was not to attempt to but to ensure that we would do that.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Is there any more comment on the amendment?

Go ahead.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

I want to go back to paragraph (c) in the amendment.

The lines in here are really important to workers in Canada. I heard Mr. Dhaliwal say that they're unjustified and inaccurate. I'm wondering if he could tell us why he thinks that's so.