Evidence of meeting #51 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 clause.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Tracey Ramsey NDP Essex, ON
Do you want to come back to that, or are we going through the agreement in order?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
I'm sorry, I didn't understand you.
We don't have agreement to go from clauses 81 to 135, so we'll stop at clause 90.
(Clauses 81 to 90 inclusive agreed to)
(On clause 91)
NDP
Tracey Ramsey NDP Essex, ON
I want to take a pause here at the Coasting Trade Act, because some things have come forward from the seafarers and from a lot of cabotage workers inside our country around the changes being proposed in CETA. In particular, I have the Coasting Trade Act here. The changes being proposed are expanding the scope of foreign-flagged vessels, foreign vessels, flags of convenience, inside our country. Cabotage workers in the country feel that this is a direct threat to their work, that there will be many Canadian jobs.... They estimate 3,000 from the beginning.
We were unable to hear from witnesses from these groups, from these stakeholders, at committee because of the limited meetings we had, so I want to ask Mr. Verheul and some of the experts who are joining us today if they could speak to the changes that are being proposed. The changes start, I believe, on page 75, in proposed subsection 3(2.1), with regard to the repositioning of empty containers. These are significant changes to our current Coasting Trade Act that would expand the scope of foreign ships and what they're able to do in Canada.
I wonder if you could speak to that to give us an understanding of it, because we haven't had the opportunity to discuss it here at committee.
Chief Trade Negotiator, Canada-European Union, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Sure.
To start with, on the issue of repositioning of owned or leased empty containers on a non-revenue basis, this is something that was requested of us by stakeholders—port authorities, the Shipping Federation, others. There is no scope for any enterprise involved to offer this to others. It's only on their owned or leased empty containers.
We did not receive any kind of objection from industry on this issue of repositioning of owned or leased empty containers. It's an issue of efficiency, we were told.
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
On that point, Steve, is this addressing the 30-day exit that we have on empty containers right now so that shippers can actually make use of them on day 32? They don't have to rush them back to port and ship them out empty when there are actually backhauls to be had. Is that the issue here?
Chief Trade Negotiator, Canada-European Union, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
It's the ability to move their containers back and forth so that any particular shipper doesn't have to hire an outside company to move an empty container back. They can move it back and forth on their own. They can't make any money from it. It's on a non-revenue basis. It's just an issue of efficiency for those—
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Yes. It's efficiencies and.... Okay, but that 30-day window of exit is sometimes arbitrarily applied and we lose the backhaul capacity.
Chief Trade Negotiator, Canada-European Union, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
That's right.
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
So this addresses some of that as well.
Okay, good.
Liberal
Chief Trade Negotiator, Canada-European Union, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Yes. We did engage with labour stakeholders as well, including the Seafarers' union.
NDP
Tracey Ramsey NDP Essex, ON
Okay.
Can you speak to the issue of flags of convenience? Was there any concern about or was there an eye to flags of convenience being used in Canada to undercut the work of the Seafarers' union?
Chief Trade Negotiator, Canada-European Union, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Well, that's a broader issue. In most cases, we have not allowed use of flags of convenience; certainly, on any of the feedering issues, you were not allowed to use flags of convenience. We did ensure that labour requirements have not been changed whatsoever. The labour laws that exist now remain in place for those EU operations that are going to enter Canada in these fields. We did maintain protections in those areas. I think that, by and large, we received a lot of support from the sector for these issues.
NDP
Tracey Ramsey NDP Essex, ON
It is expanding, though, because in the Coasting Trade Act it's very clear in terms of the provisions under which a foreign ship or non-duty-paid ships can enter into our waters. It is only under specific circumstances, which largely have to do with approval from the government for things like marine scientific research and different things like that.
Now we're talking about actual cabotage jobs, so we're talking about the repositioning of those containers. There's a lot of mention of the Montreal-to-Halifax connection. Are these the only waterways that are going to be impacted by the changes in CETA or will it open up all Canadian waterways to these changes in the repositioning of empty containers?