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.
6:15 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Kram Conservative Regina—Wascana, SK
Okay, I can't resist. Mr. Neil, could you tell us the story of the Super Bowl commercials?
6:15 p.m.
Cultural Policy Consultant, Neil Craig Associates
Thank you.
CTV paid a lot of money for the rights to broadcast the Super Bowl. They did so on the basis of the policy that said they could substitute.... Any Canadian watching it would have to see their commercials. The economic value to CTV was quite high. Some Canadians have complained about that, but the reality today is that you can watch all of the Super Bowl commercials online before the Super Bowl happens. CTV has to spend 30% of the money it earns from those commercials on Canadian programs. That's a lot of money. Ten percent of that money.... If they make $100 million, they have to spend $10 million on drama and scripted comedy.
6:15 p.m.
Cultural Policy Consultant, Neil Craig Associates
A good portion of the money goes to Canadian programming.
Thank you.
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
Thank you.
My questions will start with Ms. MacEwen.
I heard you mention earlier in your testimony that you were with the Canadian Labour Congress. What position did you hold with the Canadian Labour Congress?
6:15 p.m.
Senior Economist, National Services, Canadian Union of Public Employees
I was the senior economist there as well.
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
You were the senior economist.
How long have you been an economist?
6:15 p.m.
Senior Economist, National Services, Canadian Union of Public Employees
I graduated in 2007.
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
As senior economist at the Canadian Labour Congress, you also had experience with other trade deals.
6:15 p.m.
Senior Economist, National Services, Canadian Union of Public Employees
Yes.
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
Currently you are chief economist for the Canadian Union of Public Employees, is that right?
6:15 p.m.
Senior Economist, National Services, Canadian Union of Public Employees
Yes.
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
6:15 p.m.
Senior Economist, National Services, Canadian Union of Public Employees
CUPE represents 700,000 workers across Canada. I work for the national office here in Ottawa. I think the national office includes about 600 people who work for the national union.
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
You mentioned early on, in answer to a previous question, that it is very difficult to make an economic assessment until the deal is done.
Can you explain that further?
6:15 p.m.
Senior Economist, National Services, Canadian Union of Public Employees
There are regulatory changes around intellectual property, cultural protection, or extension of copyright that will have an economic impact.
The past three deals were mostly about tariffs, so you could model what a 1% change to different tariffs would mean, and that was more straightforward. Now, however, we've mostly eliminated tariffs, and our trade and investment treaties are about more abstract things. The specific wording in the deal really affects what its impact will be.
You have to analyze that specific wording and then interpret it to set the assumptions that you're making in your model.
6:20 p.m.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
In your opinion, you would have to wait until after, for example in the case of CUSMA, the changes made at the end of December....
6:20 p.m.
Senior Economist, National Services, Canadian Union of Public Employees
What you could have done with CUSMA is have an internal economic analysis of what you're negotiating priorities were. This could help to form your negotiating priorities. What do we want to get out this? Then, once you have your initial drafts, you would run the numbers again. At that point, you would use that information to determine if you wanted to make any further changes, or if you needed to. If you were to see that this was actually having an unexpected negative impact on the cultural industries in Quebec, for example, and it was a bigger driver than you had thought when you were negotiating, then you would put a bigger priority on making sure that you changed that language.
6:20 p.m.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
Absolutely. I agree with you on the negotiating position and your objective, but when you're dealing with a trade agreement as complex as CUSMA in a political context where you don't know where those negotiations might take you, you agree that, as you said, you would wait until the deal was done to perform any economic assessment.
6:20 p.m.
Senior Economist, National Services, Canadian Union of Public Employees
To do any economic assessment, no; but to have the final economic assessment, yes.
6:20 p.m.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
Thank you.
My next question is for Mr. Neil.
Mr. Neil, you did mention that the cultural exemption in CUSMA is a lot stronger than that found under the original NAFTA. I wonder if you could expand on that a little bit in the short time we have left.
6:20 p.m.
Cultural Policy Consultant, Neil Craig Associates
The problem with the cultural exemption in the original NAFTA was that it was simply incorporating into the terms of NAFTA the cultural exemption from the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.
The scope of that exemption was taken from the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and it was narrow. It was limited to those elements that the FTA covered. There was a giant hole that could easily have been exploited. There were a couple of cases over the years where that became evident. This cultural exemption is clear, direct, and comprehensive. It says cultural industries are exempt from the terms of this agreement, period.
6:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much, Mr. Neil.
A sincere thank you to all of our witnesses; again, always very informative.
I will suspend for a few moments until the next panel can set up.
6:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
I call the meeting to order. Pursuant to order of reference of Thursday, February 6, 2020, we are studying Bill C-4, an act to implement the agreement between Canada, the United States of America and the United Mexican States.
To our panel of witnesses, welcome to all of you this evening. Thank you for coming. I guess I could ask what the weather's like outside because most of us have been inside, but at least you managed to make it, no matter how much snow is out there. We appreciate your being here.
From the Centre for International Governance Innovation, we have Bob Fay, director, global economy; from Kalesnikoff Lumber Co. Ltd., Ken Kalesnikoff, chief executive officer; from Woodtone Industries, Kevin Young, chief executive officer, and Francis Schiller, adviser.
By video conference from Guelph, Ontario, we have Linda Hasenfratz, chief executive officer for Linamar Corporation, and from Vancouver, British Columbia, via video conference, Andy Rielly from Rielly Lumber Inc.
Welcome to all of you. We appreciate your being here.
Mr. Fay, I will turn it over to you for five minutes of comments.