International Trade Committee on Feb. 20th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Robertson. I'm sorry to be cutting you off. You're giving us valuable information but there's only so much time.

Mr. Vidal.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank all the witnesses today for taking the time both to prepare and to come and present today. I know that's a big commitment for many of you.

I also want to thank my colleagues for allowing me to participate in this process today, as obviously this is not my committee. It's a privilege to participate today.

I want to particularly thank you, Mr. Balisky and Ms. Gorski, for being willing to be here today, as you represent people from my riding and people from my community.

My question is for either Mr. Balisky or Ms. Gorski.

You spoke quite eloquently about indigenous ownership and the impact it has on the communities affected by the lack of a softwood lumber agreement and by the tariffs. I would like you to expand on the nine ownership first nations and what the impact that $11 million in money that has been tied up in tariffs since 2017 might have on the 13,000 people represented by those nine first nations.

[Al Balisky]

Good morning.

This is about nation building. As the honourable member Blaikie pointed out, this is about building Canada. There should be no group left behind in this. There's a special group within Canada, the indigenous community, that is working very hard and very diligently to create economies, to be part of provincial economies. Trade action around softwood lumber puts a big wet blanket on all of this.

The impact to the communities is significant. As the big players in the industry generate profits, so do we, as we can, and those go directly back to the nine communities that make up the tribal council. The impact of these crippling duties is significant: $11 million represents $11 million that doesn't go back into education, into health care. Saskatchewan has, unfortunately, been in the news nationally around suicide. Suicide prevention is a big matter. With regard to infrastructure development, housing is always critically underfunded, and there's huge demand on that front. The demands and the needs are many.

Non-program funding and self-generated funds are critically important to first nations across Canada. Particularly in the Meadow Lake area, and with the Meadow Lake Tribal Council, generating these funds and getting them back to the communities annually is a significant part of what we do at NorSask. This is part business and part mission, and we need to have special protection around these measures.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you.

I also had the privilege of touring your facility in Meadow Lake not that long ago. I was very impressed with the investments you've made in technology and in capital upgrades to that mill to keep you competitive.

I know there are many sawmills around our country that are closing because of their inability to be competitive. The lack of a softwood lumber agreement has had a significant impact on that. I would like you to speak maybe, as well, to the impact this lack of agreement might have on your ability to reinvest in technology and capital that allow you to remain competitive and weather the storms you have weathered for so many years.

[Al Balisky]

Clearly, NorSask is a survivor. We've weathered a whole lot of bad outcomes over the last two decades. Very important to us is our ability to stay capitalized. Any kind of trade action where we have tariffs takes money out of our system. Our ability to look to the future and invest in a proactive and positive manner is compromised when we're paying these tariffs. We have to keep up with the changing technology and stay in the game, and that involves technology enhancements.

We do our very best to make sure we have reinvestment going back into the mill that keeps us on par with our competitors and keeps us as a viable part of the Meadow Lake community and a contributing part of the economy of the Meadow Lake Tribal Council first nations.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you.

We've talked a lot about the impact on the indigenous community in northwest Saskatchewan, but you briefly referenced Meadow Lake in your last response.

I would like you to also maybe comment on the impact you have on Meadow Lake and the surrounding community. Meadow Lake is very much a partner in northwest Saskatchewan with indigenous communities, but there's a great impact on the small city of Meadow Lake and the surrounding rural municipalities as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

It will have to be a short response, please.

[Al Balisky]

That's very true. We are a forestry-dependent community. Forestry is a major contributor to the Meadow Lake economy. Our particular facility contributes 100 direct jobs to the local community. Of course, 65% of those are indigenous, which is a wonderful representation of the community. Beyond that, there are the woodland supports. There are truckers. There are harvesters. There are various suppliers. The multiplier effect in forestry is far larger than many other industries, and our ability—

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, sir. Thank you for your answer.

We will go on to Ms. Bendayan.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to everyone for being with us today.

I am always delighted to welcome Quebec witnesses to our committee.

My question is for Mr. Vaillancourt and Mr. Pépin.

I would like to discuss with you the cultural exemptions in the new agreement. You've already mentioned that the agreement protects and modernizes the cultural exemption. As you may know, there was still intense pressure on the minister and our negotiators to get rid of it completely or to weaken it significantly, but we kept it.

The cultural exemption protects our artists, as you mentioned, and preserves our Canadian content. As an MP from Montreal, I am particularly proud that our government was able to keep this exemption to protect our Quebec culture. Digital content will now be able to benefit from these same protections.

I'd like to follow up on a suggestion you made earlier in your testimony. Do you have any ideas about concrete measures we can take to make the best use of the cultural exemption, particularly to promote our Quebec artists and our French-language content?

[Claude Vaillancourt]

First of all, it is mainly about the recommendation. On the websites of the major multinational entertainment companies, Canadian and Quebec products are not very visible. We have to put pressure on them to increase the visibility of our products.

Second, I think we must continue to subsidize culture. We are a small market here. This cultural exemption allows us to have more grants to help artists. This will help maintain the vitality of Quebec and Canadian culture, which is already exceptional. We could go further in that direction.

Our third proposal is this: we would like to see greater tax participation by the large companies that benefit from the market here, meaning, a market that consumes their products. However, these companies pay very little tax. That would be the best contribution they could make. We need clear, vigorous and firm measures that go in that direction.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Thank you.

Do you have anything to add, Mr. Pépin?

[Normand Pépin]

No, he's the expert.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Okay.

My next question is for Mr. Robertson from the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

Thank you very much for your testimony earlier. To follow up on a question from my colleague the Honourable Ed Fast with respect to your statement, which I believe was that this is the best agreement possible under the circumstances, would you, having reviewed the agreement in its entirety, agree that it is a better agreement overall for Canada than the original NAFTA was?

[Colin Robertson]

I think, grosso modo, it updates the original NAFTA, which was absolutely necessary. There are parts of it that are managed trade—and we talked about autos. There are pieces we would have liked, such as the procurement chapter, for example, but it wasn't going to work. However, given the circumstances, it is the best possible agreement we could have negotiated, and we are much further ahead with it because it's a kind of crown jewel. We have the CETA and the CPTPP, but the critical agreement for us is always having access to the United States. Now we have that security, under a very difficult and sometimes complicated administration.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Thank you very much for that very political answer.

You mentioned the lack of statistics or estimates of the number of jobs in Canada that rely on trade with the United States, but there are some statistics. I'm thinking particularly of the percentage of our country's exports that go to the United States. I wonder if you could speak to that.

[Colin Robertson]

We do have statistics but we need...and you as members of Parliament, when you speak to your constituents, should be able to say, “Look, your jobs....” Again, we hear from Meadow Lake and we know the importance of trade, but people want to know specifically what it means. We can do this now down to the legislative and really the constituency level in the United States. We have the capacity to do it in Canada, and I think we should, because all members of Parliament should have access to those figures. I would include in those the importance of the European and Asian markets, because, I'd point out, we're the 12th-largest exporting country.

Most people don't realize how important trade is to our prosperity. That's what pays for our health care and education. You as members of Parliament could be better equipped if you could get the statistics and make them available. They are readily available because we have the tools to do that with other countries.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much. We go now to Mr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'll be splitting my time with Mr. Kram.

I'd like to follow up with Mr. Robertson. We've actually been asking for the economic impact studies. The Americans, as you know, put out their economic impact studies last April. The minister was here saying she couldn't do that, but no one around the table or in Canada believes she would sign on to an agreement of this importance without having some advice on how this is going to impact Canada economically.

Mr. Pépin, I think, brought up that it's very important that we have these numbers.

Mr. Vanderpol, I can't believe it. We had a witness yesterday, Mr. Geist, who's an expert on the IP side of things. He wasn't consulted. You weren't consulted. It's getting frustrating at this level that the minister obviously has this advice and she's not releasing it.

Mr. Vanderpol, how important is it to you that you have these economic impact numbers, as families make business decisions moving forward and the sector makes these business decisions? Do you have any economic impact studies you could share with the committee? We've been asking the minister over and over since December 12 to release the studies, or if she doesn't have a full study to release the advice she's been given so that we can make sure the support and programs are available for the families that are going to be negatively affected. Do you have anything you could give us?

[Philip Vanderpol]

Thank you for that question.

As an industry, we have some studies, and we have quantified it by the effects on dollars and jobs. That has been shared with the minister and the staff.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Could you let the committee have that, please? We're at such a tight timeline here, and we all want to make sure that we have this in place, as Mr. Robertson was saying. We need to have that information and the minister has not been co-operative. It's to a point where some people are saying, “What is she hiding?”

We don't have that. Could you share that with us, please?

[Philip Vanderpol]

Yes. On behalf of the Dairy Processors Association of Canada, we can share those studies with you.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much.

Go ahead, Mr. Kram.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Thank you to Mr. Balisky and Ms. Gorski for joining us today from Meadow Lake, and for sharing your success story of the Meadow Lake Tribal Council and NorSask Forest Products.

I am wondering if you could provide some insight as to what you would like to see in future trade agreements that would help create employment opportunities for indigenous persons in rural and remote parts of the country.

[Al Balisky]

That's a great question. Everything we can do on that front would be very positive.

Very specifically about softwood lumber, what happens is that the big broad brush gets applied to the Canadian landscape. The federal government needs to make sure there's a more finely tuned approach taken in response. As we've been able to indicate with some of our charts, the indigenous contribution to the softwood lumber issue is non-existent. It's critical that we get special protection, based on some good rationale, and that this be presented in a very cogent manner to the U.S., making sure that Canada stands up for the indigenous community when it comes to any sector across Canada.

It takes so much effort and goodwill to make these things happen, and it takes stability. With these ups and downs in trade wars and so forth—changing the agreements—it's critical that we have that stability built into the system.