Evidence of meeting #63 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 company.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
It's all engineered and the specs are there. He's taking a liability is what you're saying.
Vice-President, Sales, ADF Group Inc.
He's going to have to live with it, for sure.
I mentioned the example in Alberta with that Korean steel that came in. Eventually I had a good relationship with this EPC, and they told me that the structure ended up costing them double what it would cost them to buy it in Canada instead of Korea.
Conservative
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
All right, so they learned their lesson.
David, you mentioned the trade remediation things that were in budget 2017. I agree with you it's a good start. The problem I have is I see that as more aspirational than actually being applied, the problem being that as soon as you start..... And we had begun discussions with China, complementarity studies on a free trade agreement, and we did the FIPA and all those types of things.
But as soon as you went to the next step, which we held off on, you have to guarantee China market economy. As soon as you do that, you have a whole different set of countervail and anti-dumping rules and so on. What we have in the budget will be a moot point. By the time we get the budget voted through and passed, if we move to that point with China already on market economy, we need a whole new set of rules.
Vice-President, Institutional Relations Canada, Tenaris
Our view is that Canada is in a very strong position to negotiate a free trade agreement with China, although you would know the details more than I would. In terms of market economy status, however, Canada is a world leader in its policy, because each time we file a case against China, we need to demonstrate that they are not a market economy.
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
I know, but if you grant them that status, you can't use that argument anymore.
Vice-President, Institutional Relations Canada, Tenaris
In reality, then, we should not grant them anything, because we need to prove it. They should be informed as we're negotiating. You already have market economy status; the Canadian producers have to prove that you are not a market economy in status.
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
They go to the WTO. They say they have it, but they don't.
Vice-President, Institutional Relations Canada, Tenaris
I will answer his question a little bit by saying that the particular market situation in the medium term may be a tool that will enable us, if China continues to act the way they are doing, to use the new tools and to find successful cases against them.
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Yes, it's a really fine thread you're walking along.
Liberal
Liberal
Karen Ludwig Liberal New Brunswick Southwest, NB
Thank you all for your presentations.
I represent the riding of New Brunswick Southwest, so obviously I'm from Atlantic Canada. The shipbuilding industry is an important industry for us. It also exists in British Columbia, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Quebec. Has the dumping or the overcapacity of steel products into Canada affected Canada's shipbuilding industry?
President and Chief Executive Officer, ArcelorMittal Dofasco
We don't make shipbuilding products in Canada at ArcelorMittal, though certainly our global operations do. I can't speak to that.
Vice-President, Institutional Relations Canada, Tenaris
I think we could say that in theory a healthier, more competitive Canadian domestic industry will enable and facilitate a healthy and competitive shipbuilding industry.
Vice-President, Sales, ADF Group Inc.
Unfortunately it's not in my scope of expertise, so I'm not able to answer that question.
Vice-President, Public Affairs, ABB Canada
Dumping is a little bit outside our purview, MP Ludwig. I would say that it's a fact of the cost of production, and anything that goes into factoring a cost of production perhaps would have a negative impact on your domestic industry. You're speaking to essentially all of my customers right now in the room, and what I can tell you as a manufacturer—ABB does manufacture—is that we had a Korean dumping case that we had to take to court, and we went to court. There is a “buy Canada” provision. It's either a locally “made in Canada”....
Even globals such as ABB are hurt when you fail to take into account the jobs and the resources in Canada for big projects.
Liberal
Karen Ludwig Liberal New Brunswick Southwest, NB
Thank you.
I'm just going to jump in with one more quick question.
To what extent do the Chinese invest in the Canadian steel industry? Is there Chinese ownership in the Canadian steel industry?
Vice-President, Institutional Relations Canada, Tenaris
Not to our knowledge is there any Chinese ownership of the Canadian steel industry.
President and Chief Executive Officer, ArcelorMittal Dofasco
Likewise, there is not to my knowledge.
Liberal
