Evidence of meeting #15 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 negotiations.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON
Yes, if I may, Madam Chair. Thank you.
The appellate body was established in 1995. It's 2020, so I'm sure you and others have a lot of opinions and/or recommendations to update it. We see that there is a Canada-EU interim appeal arbitration arrangement, as well as Canada's efforts to develop the multi-party interim arrangement. How do those align? How do they interconnect?
Also, how do you see the updating of the appellate body moving forward?
Director General, Trade Negotiations, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
In an ideal world, we would be in a position to begin new appointments to the appellate body and would have a legitimate appeal mechanism by which WHO members could seek to appeal panel decisions.
Because the United States has been blocking appointments since 2017, that appellate body can no longer hear disputes. Because of the potential impact of that for Canada, in terms of disputes that we have ongoing right now but also disputes that we might launch in the future, it has been very important that we put in place some form of interim arrangement, or arrangements, by which we can ensure we have some form of appeal mechanism. That was the reason Canada sought a bilateral arrangement with the European Union this past summer, and why, on the basis of that, we are now engaged in discussions with 16 other WHO members to do something on a multi-party basis.
That is intended as a temporary solution until such a time as the appellate body is functional again.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
A few years ago, there was talk of a trade in services agreement at the WTO. That was taking a long time. In the end, we're not sure what the situation is now.
Do you have any information on that potential agreement?
Director, Services Trade Division, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
In fact, the trading services agreement negotiations were effectively suspended in November or December 2016. With the change of administration in the U.S., a decision was taken by the Americans to ask for more time to contemplate their position on this issue. To this end, they have not actually sought the re-engagement of all parties in this process. It was the preference of others, including Canada, to see if additional consultations, and other discussions on this issue could proceed, but evidently, that has not been the case. The negotiations are suspended. They could pick up, but at this point in time, there's no specific date I can mention when this could potentially restart.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
If I understand correctly, the negotiations are stalled but could potentially restart.
I have another question.
Earlier, you mentioned e-commerce and you told us this is an area that hasn't been updated. I know that there are negotiations going on right now. Could you give us some idea of where things stand at this time?
We live in a world truly dominated by web giants, which are literally crushing their competitors. This far exceeds the capabilities of the businesses that work directly in the digital sector. Online commerce has become a widespread practice, but the fact remains that these days the power of digital companies is based on their dominance.
One of the aspects to consider, and one that keeps coming up and creating a lot of controversy, is the gathering of information for commercial purposes. We see small scandals break out here and there, especially when companies have gone too far to collect information.
Many people are worried about this potential agreement, which gives even more leeway to web giants. Do you share these concerns? Do you have any information on this?
Liberal
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
I think we can find a resolution to that, actually, because I'm interested in a similar question.
I would add to that question. We just came off a study where we heard a lot about the new digital economy provisions in CUSMA, and some of the problems with them.
In addition to the question that was posed, would it be Canada's position in these negotiations to have the WTO rules reflect what we just negotiated in CUSMA, or are we looking for something better that's sensitive to a lot of the concerns we heard about finalized in CUSMA?
Director, Services Trade Division, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
The WTO initiative on electronic commerce, and I'll define it a little more broadly as digital trade, because sometimes e-commerce is conceived to be more narrowly about goods bought and sold online. We are talking about something much broader. However, the discussions are very much at an early stage, so the scope of our work and the legal architecture as well as some very fundamental questions are yet to be defined. As in all trade agreements, we certainly take into account what we've done in previous negotiations, learn from it, and try to find new ways to support the interest of Canadian stakeholders.
Indeed, one area we're taking a look at very strongly is on the protection of personal information. We have a concept paper, in fact. I should mention that all of Canada's proposals are available on the department's website, so full transparency is definitely one of our objectives here. Coming back to my response on the protection of personal information, our idea is to ensure that actors and governments don't misuse personal information collected from companies to discriminate against individuals who come from historically marginalized groups on the basis of ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation. These are the types of things we're bringing to the table that perhaps have not existed already in our bilateral FTA agenda.
The bottom line is that the work we're doing at the WTO on e-commerce for digital trade is also very consistent with respect to our domestic regime. We ensure that, on one hand, we're trying to maximize the commercial opportunities for Canadian enterprises abroad, providing for certainty and predictability when they're operating in foreign jurisdictions, and on the other hand, ensuring that the Canadian government has the continued ability to regulate in the public interest on a variety of issues that pertain to the subject matter.
Conservative
Michael Kram Conservative Regina—Wascana, SK
Thank you.
Thank you to all the witnesses for joining us today.
Ms. Hembroff, in your presentation you talked about the Ottawa group acting as a sounding board for ideas and problems. You also brought up the issue of the need to eliminate output-distorting agricultural subsidies.
Has the issue of output-distorting agriculture subsidies been limited to the Ottawa group sounding board, or has that gone all the way to the WTO's dispute resolution mechanism?
Director General, Trade Negotiations, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
For this question I have an expert here, whom I failed to mention in my introductory remarks. Marie-Noëlle is from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and I will let her talk about specifically what Canada has been doing in the agriculture discussions at the WTO.
Marie-Noëlle Desrochers Acting Executive Director, Market and Industry Services Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food
Thank you.
In the context of the agriculture negotiations, Canada has been an active participant from the beginning of the Doha round in 2001. Disciplining trade and production-distorting agricultural subsidies is one of Canada's priorities. To that effect we have provided significant analysis and have engaged with several WTO partners over the course of the years, including towards the next WTO ministerial conference in June.
What Ms. Hembroff has referred to in her introduction is work that Canada has done with the Cairns group, a coalition of agriculture exporting countries. We talked a bit about mid-size economies that depend on agricultural trade, such as Brazil, Argentina, New Zealand and Australia. Canada has co-sponsored a declaration by the Cairns group that sets up a framework to find new disciplines for trade and production-distorting domestic support in agriculture.
Conservative
Michael Kram Conservative Regina—Wascana, SK
Okay.
I'm hearing that it has not gone to the dispute resolution mechanism. Is that safe to say?
Acting Executive Director, Market and Industry Services Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food
In the context of the negotiations, the objective is to improve the existing trade rules. What would go before dispute settlement would be based on the existing trade rules.
The negotiations themselves are there to improve the rules, so in the Cairns group framework there is a common interest in capping and reducing the trade-distorting domestic support entitlements that are given to WTO members.
Conservative
Michael Kram Conservative Regina—Wascana, SK
Okay, so we haven't accused anyone of breaking the rules because the subsidies are not part of the rules. Is that an accurate statement?
Acting Executive Director, Market and Industry Services Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food
There are current rules on trade-distorting agricultural support and there are WTO dispute settlement processes with respect to them. There is one involving China at the moment. Some WTO members have questioned the way China notified its trade-distorting domestic support, so the current rules are also part of domestic dispute settlement processes.
Conservative
Michael Kram Conservative Regina—Wascana, SK
Was it Canada that initiated the complaint or was it another country?
Acting Executive Director, Market and Industry Services Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food
Canada was a third party in that process, but it was not initiated by Canada.
Conservative
Michael Kram Conservative Regina—Wascana, SK
Has that dispute been resolved, or what is the current status of that complaint?
Acting Executive Director, Market and Industry Services Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food
I think it is ongoing, but I will need to verify.
Conservative
Michael Kram Conservative Regina—Wascana, SK
Okay.
Let's shift gears a little. The issue of bilateral free trade negotiations came up earlier in our conversation, so I am wondering if Canada had high-level talks about a free trade agreement with the United Kingdom post-Brexit.
