International Trade Committee on Sept. 20th, 2017

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Yes.

[David Runnalls]

It's not going to happen. It's certainly not going to happen in the near future. What is going to happen, however, is that the U.S. states are going to be more and more fractious on this issue. California is not going to back down from the western climate initiative and neither is New York, and there are others that are going to join. There's going to be a battle royal in the United States about carbon pricing.

The interesting thing to watch, and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere, is that the Republican establishment, Jim Baker and George Schultz, the former secretary of state—

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Yes, we heard George Schultz when we were in California.

[David Runnalls]

—and a whole bunch of them, actually produced this proposal for a carbon tax of $40 a ton. The deal is that they'll loosen up regulation on the energy industry and give all the money back to the citizens of the United States, so it's completely revenue-neutral. I thought that would get a lot more hearing than it has. I don't know whether it's just that Washington is such a mess at the moment that they can't concentrate.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

We were really privileged when we were in California to hear Mr. Schultz in a speech, actually, that he gave to energy suppliers in the room. It was quite fantastic. Our chair was able to participate in a panel with him. We were quite fascinated by that conversation as well, so I thought I would introduce that.

[David Runnalls]

It would be interesting to see if anything happens with that. It would be a very good thing, but it's going to be a long time coming.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Lastly, I think you heard Ms. Dey talking about the fact that what we currently have in NAFTA in terms of the environmental side agreement is not binding and not enforceable, and you've given us some examples of how you feel that we could improve that. Is there anything else you would add to that in terms of improving it or putting some governance around what exists there to make sure, going forward—

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

It has to be a short answer.

[David Runnalls]

Watch out for the race to the bottom, particularly in the case of the United States loosening and not enforcing environmental regulations as a deliberate way of stimulating investment. That's illegal under NAFTA, but it's very elusive.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you, sir.

We're going to move back over to the Liberals. Madam Ludwig, you have the floor.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you.

My first question is actually to Mr. Dungate, regarding antibiotic use. Looking at the use of antibiotics, antibiotic resistance, and antibiotic residue, what is the reporting mechanism within your sector?

[Mike Dungate]

There are a couple of steps. In 2014, we eliminated any preventive use of category I antibiotics, most important to medicine. We made a decision in May of this year that by the end of 2018 we will eliminate category II, and our goal is to eliminate category III by the end of 2020. That's the process we're on.

We participate with CIPARS, under the Public Health Agency of Canada, and we do surveillance there on antimicrobial resistance. We also do it through our on-farm food safety auditing. We check usage and we check resistance in terms of tests they do on a randomized basis, and we compare the results of that with CIPARS.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I'm quite curious about this. When we look at antimicrobial resistance and the regulatory regime around that, how does that compare with the United States and Mexico?

How far are we from harmonizing the standards?

[Mike Dungate]

Nothing is harmonized. We're moving ahead as an industry. There isn't a government regulation in place, in that sense. We're trying to move a whole industry. When we say there's no category I antibiotic use, it's across all production in Canada. In the United States, it will be done on a company-by-company basis, so they'll only affect what they do in their own company.

In neither country is there a government regulation in place at this point. There's talk about stewardship, and we're in line and participating in the government's antimicrobial resistance strategy. We've been in key committees in that, and we support the direction it's going.

Our point here overall is not “raised without antibiotics”. We want to make sure we have efficacy of antibiotics, both for humans and for animals, and that we can treat when necessary, but we're not going to use, as I call it, a low dose from a preventive basis. We're only going to treat.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I think it was not that long ago, it could have been in May, that the United Nations looked at antimicrobial resistance as one of the key areas to be focusing on.

Listening to you, Mr. Dungate, when you talked about the volume of imports of chicken from the United States, to me as a consumer, I think all of us in this room should be concerned about antimicrobial resistance across the board, whether it's in livestock, fish, or humans. I would hope that part of the negotiations would be looking at the harmonization and raising that standard across the board because it's not only our domestic production, but also in our export and also the expectation of Canadians on the import side.

[Mike Dungate]

We've talked about the marketing advantage over here. Some companies are taking a marketing advantage.

You can't raise 100% without antibiotics. That's an impossibility. Birds will get sick. Humans will get sick. Our point is not to use the ones of importance to human medicine and keep the efficacy for both humans and animals. That's our objective.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Do I have more time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

You talked about splitting it, but you have about a minute.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Do you have a question, Sukh? Okay, you go ahead.

Thank you.

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

Mr. Graham, you mentioned professionals moving across both nations. I'm a professional engineer, as well as a land surveyor. I can do that, but if you are telling us that the professionals under your jurisdiction should be able to move freely, wouldn't that be opening up Pandora's box, where every other field will be coming in saying their workers should be allowed. How would it negatively impact?

[Clyde Graham]

I think Canada, the United States, and Mexico have been living in a era where there is a degree of labour mobility at the more executive, professional, and skilled trades levels, which I think has been good. I think we'd like to protect that.

What we have now has not been negative in any way that I know. I think it allows Canadians to have the opportunity to have influence in the United States and potentially in Mexico as well. I think it allows Americans to come here and have a better understanding of Canada, which is beneficial.

Canada, I think, does extremely well. I know in our industry many Canadians are in CEO positions in the United States. They may have gone from visa to citizenship, but Canada has a tremendous influence in the U.S., and hence the global fertilizer industry because our executives and other professionals are very good and in demand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

That wraps up our panel today.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming . We had a very good dialogue.

I also thank the MPs. This has been a week of very hard work. We got a lot done, and we almost went to 20 witnesses, even with the situation in Mexico. Job well done.

Remember, next week we're off to the United States. Bring your passports and have a good weekend.

The meeting is adjourned.