Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It is a great honour to speak after Mr. Colin Robertson and Mr. Augustin Barrios, who I have known for a long time, as well as Mr. Armando Ortega, who I have not met before.
First of all, I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to present a few points of view relating to Canada West and to the prospect of long-term work with North America.
I would also like to introduce Canada West by bringing greetings from our CEO, your former colleague, who I think has worked with many of you here before, Martha Hall Findlay.
You'll notice that my presentation is much different than in the past. It is more formal. She gave me strict instructions to clean up my act when I came back to Parliament, so given that we have a new CEO, you'll see a change with Canada West.
I had the committee to myself this morning with foreign affairs. I'll cut my much more detailed testimony to something a bit more brief, in light of the news that we just received from Washington this afternoon.
With the informing of Congress by the administration of a written submission on goals by the administration for the negotiation of NAFTA, we have entered what could be called the TPA phase of negotiations. We are leaving the phase or the period of the sole formation of U.S. trade policy being done by tweet at 2 a.m by Donald Trump.
We are now in an era when Congress is exercising control over U.S. trade policy. This does not mean that Trump's influence on the administration will be completely negated, but it does mean that we now have balance. Article I, section 8, clause 3 of the Constitution of the United States, the commerce clause, states that Congress has responsibility for the regulation of trade between the United States and foreign states, among the states, and with the Indian nations.
It is clear that trade is a congressional area of responsibility. The negotiation of agreements is certainly the responsibility of the administration, but the rules on trade, the laws on trade, the rules and laws on tariffs, and anything the administration negotiates has to be approved by Congress. We are now entering an era when Congress will start exercising control. I would not refer to 20 years of U.S. history in trade negotiations but to a month and a half to two months ago.
On March 21, Secretary Ross and acting U.S. trade representative Vaughn went to the Senate finance committee to talk about their plans for trade and for renegotiating NAFTA. Secretary Ross, according to Politico and other sources in Washington, attempted to slip in a notification that they would like to begin renegotiating NAFTA.
The response from Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat, and the rest of the committee, was practically to laugh him out of the room. This is not proper notification.
You have to give a written submission of how the negotiating positions of the administration align with the priorities established by the TPA legislation. The administration then has to listen to input from Congress, and not just respond but incorporate changes from Congress, the Senate, and the Committee on Ways and Means, into what the administration is proposing. It then has to demonstrate how they'll be going forward. That was not done.
The next attempt by the administration was to suggest that Vaughn, the acting USTR, could do this. Again, it was set back, with half of the committee saying, “No, it has to be a USTR.” The recent evidence, the facts and evidence before us by means of Congress strengthening its role suggest that it has never ceded its authority to the administration for trade policy; it has delegated. We're seeing a Congress that in evidence is exercising more influence.
I think we really have to take heed of the role that Congress is playing and will likely continue to play if recent evidence, not of the past 20 years but of the past couple of months, and even the questions they put forward today to the new USTR are any indication.
There are strict calls in the TPA legislation for updating Congress and for Congress to have access to the negotiating documents from the United States and its counterparts in the negotiations. There is every indication that Congress is going to hold the administration to this.
We are arriving at a period of balance. Having to wake up at two o'clock in the morning and worry about what Trump tweeted is going to be a little less important in light of the role that I expect Congress to play.
What does this mean for us and for Canada? There are a couple of things here. One is finance, ways and means. These are the areas of focus for us in Washington. If you are going to Washington, I would humbly suggest that's whom you need to spend time with. Focus laser-like on the members of the committee. Get to know them, and be able to work with them on the negotiations. Work with our Mexican counterparts in doing the same thing, targeting members of the committee. I'm quite sure that Lloyd Doggett, from Texas, would be amenable to talking to the Mexicans, given the importance of trade with Mexico for his district.
There are not just strategies for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade—sorry, I still refer to them that way—but a role for Parliament to play in this, too.
Second, the other opportunity for us is getting to people to whom congressmen listen. When there is a crisis in Washington or when there are issues concerning NAFTA, U.S. congressmen may or may not answer a call from the Canadian ambassador, but they sure as hell are going to answer a call from the Speaker of the state house back home, the governor back home, or the president of the local chamber of commerce. With those ties, we have a unique ability to interact with and influence those people in ongoing relations at the subnational level.
Our premiers and Speakers of provincial legislatures in Canada are in Washington. We are a member of the U.S. Council of State Governments. We are a member of PNWER. We are a member of the Council of the Great Lakes Region. We are a member of the New England governors association. We need to pursue these, and it's something we haven't done in the past.
Part of the problem is.... It's an open secret that the Clerk of the Privy Council has told the premiers that the provinces need to do more in terms of reaching out to the states to exercise their influence. We are asking the premiers and the provinces to do more, but you've seen the Saskatchewan budget. You've seen the budget in Manitoba, in Alberta, even in B.C. We are asking the provinces to do more at a time when we need them to do more but they have less. We've been working with Western Economic Diversification, trying to get them to create a fund to co-finance subnational engagement activities with the provinces to double what we are doing in the states and take advantage of this unique window to exercise influence.
Finally, the other point I can make is that North America is not NAFTA. We often conflate NAFTA with North American integration. Even in testimony here and in foreign affairs people talk about the regulatory co-operation council and they confuse that with being part of NAFTA. We've had continued success on integration with the RCC, with our trusted travellers programs. At a time when we're talking about ripping up NAFTA, there is work under way to combine the Canada-U.S. regulatory co-operation council and the U.S.-Mexico high-level regulatory co-operation council. At a time when we are talking about building walls in North America, we are still working to link our two separate trusted travellers programs into one North American trusted travellers program.
No, these do not offset the potential of a redone NAFTA, or of NAFTA being ripped up, but it is important to note that there are other avenues to advance our economic interests in terms of integration in North America: strengthening the regulatory co-operation council or, as we did in a presentation to the U.S. parliamentary working group, looking at things like creating a North American infrastructure bank. It's the type of small-scale, focused initiative that would help the Americans solve a problem they have with border infrastructure and that could really benefit Canada and give us a leg up on dealing with the Americans.
I'll close with those notes. There are things we can do. Today is an important day, and we need to be prepared for an era of more balance. We can finally sleep through the night and not worry as much about that 2 a.m. tweet coming from Donald Trump.