Evidence of meeting #17 for International Trade in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
2:10 p.m.
Liberal
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses for being here today.
I want to ask a couple questions to Mr. Andexser, from the Canadian Alliance of British Pensioners.
Thank you for mentioning the all-parliamentary group for MPs both in Canada and the U.K. that's led by Sir Roger Gale. I have participated in that, and I know that other MPs have as well, regarding this inequity in pensions.
Were you aware of any consultation process that occurred as we led up to this agreement?
2:10 p.m.
Chairman, Canadian Alliance of British Pensioners
Just recently, basically since Brexit has happened, Canada has made an official request again to the British government that this situation with the frozen pensions be addressed. As it sits at the moment, the British government has not responded, which is, as was pointed out the other day in the U.K.-Canada MP discussion, rather rude on behalf of Britain.
I think it behooves all aspects in Canada that we use every facet that we can to encourage Britain to officially respond to that request.
The matter has been raised formally and informally for many years at all levels. Stephen Harper raised the matter with his counterparts at every G7 meeting during his time as PM. The matter has just continually been ignored by Britain using, for many years, the argument that they were not signing any new agreements. Of course, as we discussed this morning, that has just completely gone out the window because of Brexit, where they've had to sign 23 new agreements.
They're basically ignoring Canada's request. It's time that Canada, as a Commonwealth country, stood up and said, “We should not have to support your pensioners any longer.”
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Thank you.
One of the parts of this agreement is that, after it's ratified, the countries have to get to the table to start discussing a new successor agreement, and then come up with the new agreement within three years. However, it's not binding. Is that a concern to you?
2:10 p.m.
Chairman, Canadian Alliance of British Pensioners
Anything that would not bring this into a level playing field for all pensioners around the world is going to be a concern. The situation that exists right now under the European Union, where they've agreed to continue to index pensions, was basically to save face. For most of the people living in Europe, who are much closer to the United Kingdom, if they found out their pensions were going to be frozen, it would be very easy for them to return to the U.K. and put an awful lot of pressure on the health system, because we are seniors, and on housing and everything else. They couldn't let that happen; therefore, they've made this agreement that they will continue to index pensions.
That's only in existence for those people who are in Europe at the moment. I feel that it is extremely unlikely that they will not make the policy that all pensioners in the European Union will continue to receive an indexation.
They should be encouraging people to leave the country. It has been proven that every pensioner in the United Kingdom costs 1,700 pounds to the state every year, with health care costs, subsidies for bus licences, and so on. Therefore, rather than discourage emigration, they should be encouraging it.
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Thank you.
I have a question for Ms. Pohlmann of the CFIB.
Thank you very much for sending your document ahead of time.
One of the parts you had in here, and you mentioned it briefly in your opening address, was around ensuring favourable trade conditions for small businesses, and specifically internally, so presumably that would be within Canada. That was part of the survey you did.
Can you outline what some of those issues are and what some of those recommendations might be?
2:10 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, National Affairs and Partnerships, Canadian Federation of Independent Business
Obviously, trade for small businesses is both international and domestic, so internal trade is another very big area that needs to be worked on. Probably the issues are similar. In fact, what we found is that a lot of small businesses will start trading within Canada, and if they have trouble with that, they think, “Well, if that's going to be tough, I'm not going to bother going international.” Therefore, fixing internal trade is also, I think, a stepping stone to getting more firms involved in international trade. That means reducing barriers between provinces. That means aligning our regulations a lot more easily across provinces, which is very similar to what we need to do when we start negotiating trade agreements with other countries.
The other added feature, of course, in an international trade agreement is the trade processes, the customs processes, that you have to go through, which can be extremely complicated. That's another key piece of all of this that, I think, is now starting to be addressed more and more, but is often forgotten because the duty is sort of at the top echelon of the issues. Sometimes, for our members, duties are important, but at least they understand them, whereas the trade processes can be very complicated.
Those are some of the things that need to be really looked at in order to make it easier for small businesses to get involved in international trade. Within Canada, it's really about making sure that those trade barriers between provinces—so, the regulations, the weird standards that can happen from province to province—start to be eliminated across the country.
2:15 p.m.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
They are certainly integrated. As we're looking at this particular agreement—and we do know that we'll be working on a successor agreement that's actually part of the agreement—do you have any really quick thoughts on that? You have said that you want this agreement to go forth. Then maybe really quickly you could give us what your top priorities would be moving forward.
2:15 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, National Affairs and Partnerships, Canadian Federation of Independent Business
For us, it's really to make sure that there is a small business chapter incorporated into the U.K. trade agreement with Canada, because that is something that was missing in the CETA agreement. While they did some work on small business as part of a joint committee, there was never a specific mandate within the actual trade agreement to look at the unique nature of small businesses and trade. To us, that would be a very important aspect, and it would be sort of building on what's already been done in CUSMA and CPTPP—which are good, but they're stepping stones.
Every time a new SME chapter is included in a trade agreement, we'd love to see that it goes that much further to address the actual issues that are confronting small businesses.
2:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much, Ms. Pohlmann.
Now we'll go on to Monsieur Savard-Tremblay for two and a half minutes.
2:15 p.m.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to ask Mr. Poirier the following question.
Earlier, he answered my colleague's question about the investor-state dispute resolution mechanism. On behalf of his members, he mentioned that it is preferable to replicate the mechanism in a form similar or identical to what has been put in place in previous trade agreements.
However, the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement abolished the mechanism. It is one of the first in a very long time to do so. It has been in effect since last July.
Have you seen any major economic problems? Have you seen problems with predictability? Have you seen a decline in investment? In short, in your opinion, have there been any visible consequences since CUSMA came into effect?
February 26th, 2021 / 2:15 p.m.
Director, Trade Policy, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
These mechanisms are meant to protect.... This hasn't been a big concern for our membership yet. The loss of these mechanisms hasn't been felt yet. Mind you, there's been a lot of preoccupation with just trying to meet business operations during COVID, so that might be masking a lot of problems there.
However, the world hasn't ended. It doesn't mean that we won't run into problems down the road, but it's not a major preoccupation at the moment.
2:15 p.m.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
You nevertheless expressed a preference for this mechanism, while mentioning that there have been no major problems without this mechanism in our relations with the United States and Mexico, for example.
Is that a good summary of what you said?
2:15 p.m.
Director, Trade Policy, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
Yes, and I also would add that it's certainly not a deal breaker for us as well.
2:15 p.m.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
I'm sorry, even if the interpretation is always very good, I would like to make sure that I understand one thing.
Could you clarify what you mean by deal-breaker, please?
2:15 p.m.
Director, Trade Policy, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
There's a give and take in any negotiation. We certainly understand that there were some changes in NAFTA, if we're talking about that. In the grand scheme of things, the few concessions that we made overall didn't affect our sector tangibly. To us, in our final analysis, that doesn't mean that we should not pursue a trade agreement because of those things.
2:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much.
We'll go on to Mr. Dhaliwal.
You have my apologies. I skipped over you, Mr. Dhaliwal.
2:20 p.m.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Surrey—Newton, BC
No problem, Judy. You always do great work. I'm always proud of you.
Thank you to all the witnesses.
Mr. Poirier mentioned small businesses. I look at my fellow members here and my friends. In Surrey, I know most of the businesses are small businesses and some of them are into manufacturing as well. Some of them have disappeared over the past many years.
You mentioned the cost of doing business is too high. That's number one. Number two is finding new workers.
I look at this tax policy for small businesses going from 11% to 9%, which is probably one of the lowest tax brackets that we have had for small businesses. For workers, we have one of the best immigration systems, where we are bringing in a million people over the next three years. With all these things in place, where do you think government can improve, particularly when it comes to this agreement with U.K.?
2:20 p.m.
Director, Trade Policy, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
On the exporting side there are sort of two tracks. There's the domestic business capacity. If we make that bigger, better and more efficient, there will be more items that we can manufacture and export as value-added goods. On the trade side, there are a lot of excellent programs that the government currently offers through the various agencies, like EDC, BDC, etc.
The problem is that, especially for SMEs, they don't know that these things exist. It's not a default setting to think to access them. The government used to leverage trade associations like mine and CFIB and others to great effect, to try to leverage our networks and our members to help them connect to government services.
In this trade agreement, on the export side, specifically, if we could apply that, it would just be good generally for all exporters for all our trade agreements, not just exclusively the Canada-U.K. one. That would go a long way to helping link people. Then you can connect them into the larger global supply chains and the supply chains of larger Canadian companies as well. It sort of snowballs after that, so it's all positive in our view.
2:20 p.m.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Surrey—Newton, BC
Ms. Pohlmann, can you comment on that? You mentioned that some of your clients will be affected as well.
2:20 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, National Affairs and Partnerships, Canadian Federation of Independent Business
They certainly are.
I would agree. Our research has found the exact same thing as the CME, which is that small business owners are very unaware of all the supports that are out there that governments provide. I think an important part of all this is to somehow find better ways to connect the two. Very few small business owners know about the trade commissioner service in particular. Those who have used it think it's great and really think it has done some good work, but only a fraction of a percentage of them actually know it exists and what it can do to help.
It's the same thing with many of the different programs that are out there. For example, the SME export program provides subsidies to help businesses with their exporting. I don't know if that many are actually aware of it. We have certainly tried to push it out the door, but I think there's more work that can be done in getting smaller firms aware of the supports that already exist.
I don't know if that's getting at the question you were asking, but I would certainly say that it's a big part of it.
2:20 p.m.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Surrey—Newton, BC
Certainly.
When you say government should leverage, is it that you're looking for man resources or financial resources? Can you tell me tangible things? When I look at the agencies around here that help with the employment overall, they put a proposal in, the government makes a decision and they give the grants to them so they are able to help new immigrants or others who are looking for jobs.
I just want to know what kinds of resources the government should put it in.
2:20 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, National Affairs and Partnerships, Canadian Federation of Independent Business
Not wanting to repeat what Mr. Poirier said, the fact is that business associations, trade associations, that have that direct connection with business owners are probably one of the better ways to get that. I think the program that Mr. Poirier was talking about—where we used to have embedded trade commissioners, for example, in our associations who could directly speak with our members about trade issues—was actually something that worked quite well in many trade associations. I think there's still maybe the odd one that exists, but many of them have been pulled in the meantime.
Those are some of the ways that it can be better connecting.... The thing is that, for a lot of small businesses, they don't always know what government can offer. They don't always trust they'll get information, but they do trust their business associations a lot more. I think that's a big, tangible way there can be a better connection made between small businesses and some of the resources that are out there.
That would be the first thing I would try, but there are other things that governments can do as well. There are agencies like the CRA that touch every single small business that is out there, and they could potentially be leveraged in different ways. For example, the CRA could give information beyond just taxes. There are things that can be done that can be super-creative, but—
2:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much. I'm sorry, but I have to cut you off.
Mr. Blaikie, you have two and a half minutes, please.