Evidence of meeting #12 for International Trade in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cusma.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
Approximately how many of your clients—Canadian businesses that you help export—are exporting to the United States and/or Mexico?
Executive Director, CanadaBW Logistics Inc.
Our client base is a little over 70 clients whom we work directly with here, who actually touch ground in Niagara itself. I would say roughly about 60% of those would go into the U.S.
Into Mexico.... We don't have very many who go that far down the pathway, but we do have clients developing their pathways into Brazil and into Britain. Through the free trade agreement with Ukraine, we have that pathway developed, as well as China and other Asian countries that we're working with.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
You mentioned that you're located in the Niagara region. I saw that your location is about one hour away from three different border crossings with the United States. Was that location strategically chosen to be close to our largest trading partner?
Executive Director, CanadaBW Logistics Inc.
It was, very much so. I was born and raised in Niagara, so I'm very lucky to have that option here. Within a ten-hour drive—basically a truck's drive away from Niagara—we have over 140 million people from the North American consumer market available to us. That's a significant portion. Not only does it help our local businesses develop those trade routes into the U.S., which we've relied on, it also allows us to build those partnerships and manufacturing opportunities with international companies to grow our community here as well.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
You touched on an earlier question on the need for stability and certainty. Does the existence of a certain agreement, like the one negotiated now—the CUSMA agreement—help businesses such as yours? Would you say that there was concern or anxiety around the situation in which we found ourselves when the United States indicated it did not want to continue with NAFTA?
Executive Director, CanadaBW Logistics Inc.
Very much so. Basically, business went into a holding pattern. We weren't sure what the climate was or how things were going to be moving forward. Is it going to be ripped up and not ratified? Are we going back to basically the default of the World Trade Organization, which has lost a lot of its teeth in its ability to actually enforce any of its rules and regulations?
We had a lot of people sitting on their projects and sitting on their money. International investment was reduced because international companies never saw the advantage of investing in infrastructure or manufacturing in our region, because they never knew if they would have access to the market they were attracted to.
This uncertainty just puts us in that pattern. We need to know. We understand it's not going to be perfect for every sector. It's going to be a living document that's will need to be ratified, developed and evolved, but at least it gives us a pathway and a firm base to help build those conversations.
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
Madam Chair, I'll be splitting my time with Mr. Lewis.
I want to put something on the record as well. The parliamentary secretary continues to put on the record that the Democrats and the Republicans voted for this deal in the United States and, of course, they would. When the United States did their economic impact study, CUSMA was a net positive for the United States, a $68 billion net improvement.
The last time I checked, we're Canadian MPs whose job it is to analyze this agreement for Canada, and I don't know if the witnesses watched earlier, but we just got the economic impact study today from the government
The C.D. Howe organization last week was quite clear that this deal, compared to the deal we already have, is a net negative of $10 billion U.S., which is $14 billion Canadian. What we're trying to do on this side.... Mr. Jacobi, I want you to know that the deal will pass. It's going to pass this week and move into the Senate, so we are going to be moving this along, but unfortunately we have to... Well, I'm not saying “unfortunately”, but fortunately we are going to do our due diligence and make sure that for the families and businesses negatively affected by the deal, at least we'll hold the government's feet to the fire in making sure that programs and supports are there for them.
As far as Mr. Tully is concerned, you are right. Ten years ago Mr. Harper did negotiate an exemption for Canadian companies from buy American, and there was an opportunity in this agreement to do the same and, unfortunately, because of the weak leadership of our Prime Minister, he didn't do that.
I want to make that clear because I hear over and over that the Democrats and the Republicans supported this and that's why we should do. No. We're Canadian MPs. We're here to do the job for Canadians, to make sure Canadians' interests are looked after in this agreement.
Mr. Lewis.
Conservative
Chris Lewis Conservative Essex, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to my colleague, Mr. Carrie. I echo his words.
Mr. Perez, again, this morning we finally did get an economic analysis study from the government. The interesting thing was that they did not compare it to anything. They didn't compare it to NAFTA or to the low, or how.... They didn't compare it to anything.
It might seem a bit odd, but specifically with regard climate change, the way it's written in CUSMA, we don't know if it's going to meet the targets or what it's going to do, because it wasn't compared to anything.
What would you like to see it compared to? Would you like to see it compared to NAFTA? Do you have thoughts on that front?
International Policy Analyst, Climate Action Network Canada
There's no climate reference in the current text, so at this moment we can't have any kind of analysis on how this trade deal impacts climate and Canada's objectives related to the Paris Agreement, for example, or other multilateral environmental agreements that are not mentioned in the revised text.
We can compare it to many things, not necessarily in relation to NAFTA, but for the past two years, the Liberal government and Mr. Trudeau have been travelling around the world to sign new trade deals that are called progressive by including some kinds of provisions, for example, on the environment, labour rights, gender, indigenous rights and so on. If you do that kind of comparison between how Canada signs these trade deals, there is a great discrepancy between what Canada negotiates with the United States and what it does with Mercosur and what it does with the EU, particularly when it comes to the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism.
So at this moment, I think Climate Action Network is asking for a domestic clause so that Canada will have an assessment on how CUSMA either helps renewable energy companies invest in the U.S., or, if there are goods that come from the U.S. to Canada or from Mexico to Canada, that help Canada reduce greenhouse gas emissions. When you start doing that kind of analysis, you already get information that frankly hasn't been there in the past.
And the other element that I would bring to the table is that within the Paris Agreement, Canada has developed a nationally determined contribution, which is the pan-Canadian framework on climate change and the way Canada brings this pan-Canadian framework into force, compared with how other countries implement their climate targets.
So there are many opportunities for Canada to explore and compare how the trade deals it signs with the EU, Mercosur and the U.S. are impacting Canada's objective when it comes to climate change.
February 26th, 2020 / 4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
It is. I always manage to give you a little bit of extra time.
Mr. Dhaliwal.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Surrey—Newton, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
My question goes to Executive Vice-president Tully.
It's my understanding that you provide engineering services as well. Do you?
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Surrey—Newton, BC
When we have had previous agreements, anyone we heard from, such as the architects who came here as witnesses here, said that agreements like this will help engineering companies to do better. Would you agree with that?
Executive Vice-President, DECAST
I probably would agree with that, but unfortunately the engineering that we provide we restrict to our own products, so we're not exporting engineering services. Our services are internal. We are a registered consulting engineering firm, but we limit it to our own products.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Surrey—Newton, BC
That is good to hear.
Mr. Carrie was saying that we should be helping companies like yours. Our government put $125 billion in funding into infrastructure. How does that help companies like yours?
Executive Vice-President, DECAST
Well, the funding is fantastic. I'm going to make a protectionist kind of statement now. It's Canadian tax dollars that are paying for Canadian infrastructure. It would be nice to see Canadian companies have a fair shake at obtaining that work.
When Canadian companies are kind of handcuffed to go to other countries, and those countries are allowed to come in and take those infrastructure dollars, which I am happy to say that I participate in supplying through the taxes that I pay, I get a little upset.
I'm very happy that the government puts all that money into infrastructure funding. I'd like them to protect the Canadian businesses to ensure that they get their fair shake at that.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Surrey—Newton, BC
You said that you employ 500 people directly and 300 indirectly.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Surrey—Newton, BC
For those 500, once CUSMA is ratified, do you think your company will face layoffs, or do you think you will be able to survive?
Executive Vice-President, DECAST
My issues with the free trade agreement are really with the side things that happen. If it were purely free trade, we would probably benefit. We would benefit if you could say that our doors are open to the U.S. participation and the U.S. is wide open to Canadian participation. If that were truly the case, then we would probably benefit because we have a state-of-the-art facility and we consider ourselves one of the best producers in the world and we think we can be cost-competitive and certainly competitive in our marketplaces.
However, as I said, we don't have that even playing field right now, and if there is any way the federal government can ensure that we have that even playing ground, then that's going to be a benefit to all Canadian companies.
Free trade, if it's truly free trade, is fantastic. If there are allowances within an agreement to have these subagreements, as we've seen happen in the past, then that's not really free trade, and we get handcuffed by that.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Surrey—Newton, BC
Okay.
My question is for CanadaBW Logistics.
Mr. Jacobi, you were talking but your time was up when they asked you the question about companies that can take advantage. Is there anything you think you would have said that you couldn't say?
Executive Director, CanadaBW Logistics Inc.
Certainly.
I think the main thing is to look outside. We have great opportunities through our consulates around the world to make connections with entrepreneurs and people who see Canada as a positive place to land. That's not just to land their goods in to sell in the market but actually to make this a second home or to set up a factory.
My company has been growing the ability to show these companies that Niagara is a very positive place to do business, to raise a family and to have a successful manufacturing centre for them to access a very large consumer market.
We're very lucky in Niagara that we have a trade surplus. We export more than we import into our region. We're a pathway for many of those spaces. There is value to that, and I would say there is value to many of our core communities in looking at these other countries and developing those relationships to build their community and bring in new resources and new pathways to help further the other companies around them.