International Trade Committee on April 26th, 2021

[Shendra Melia]

As I mentioned a moment ago, it's the government's intention to soon publish a comprehensive, new, inclusive and modern foreign investment promotion and protection agreement. That new model, which will be modern and inclusive, will include some new provisions as they relate to investor-state dispute settlement. The members of the committee will certainly be able to access that new model when it is published.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Will the model include the analysis that led to the different—if they are going to be different—approaches to ISDS, or is it a template model? We'll be able to witness the change, but we won't have access to the analysis behind the change.

[Shendra Melia]

We will certainly be publishing a copy of our new model. As I mentioned, the analysis that was undertaken that formed the basis for that new model was analysis that was done in the context of extensive consultation with a broad range of stakeholders over the course of many years of detailed discussions.

Again, as I mentioned, the new model will include many new innovations when it comes to investor-state dispute settlement, which is something we heard quite frequently from our constituents. For example, the new model—

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I'm asking that the department share its analysis with the committee and I'm not hearing a yes or a no. I don't want to leave here without being clear on whether we're going to get a copy of that analysis.

If you could answer that question, I would appreciate it.

[Shendra Melia]

To be clearer, the analysis that was undertaken went into the formulation of our new models. The publication of our new model, as a result, will include the internal analysis that we undertook in order to reach a recommendation on a new model.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

So you won't be—

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Ms. Melia.

I'm sorry, Mr. Blaikie.

We will move on to Mr. Lobb, please.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thank you very much.

It's a pleasure to have most of you folks back here to committee.

I have one question that I will throw out there.

As representatives of international trade and small business, do you have an opportunity to talk to anybody at CBSA or Foreign Affairs in regard to our commerce over the Canada-U.S. border?

Does anybody have any correspondence there?

[Eric Walsh, Director General, North America Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development]

I can take this for the group.

I'm representing both the foreign affairs and international trade side of Canada-U.S. relations, and we have communications with our colleagues at CBSA.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I'm from southwestern Ontario, about an hour and a half from the Sarnia-Port Huron border.

One thing I consistently hear from constituents in my area.... I'll give you an example. We have a business in my riding, and the parts they sell are almost all in the U.S. They're trying to get a technician across to commission the line, and they can't get this technician to cross. If they do cross, they have to quarantine for 14 days. This technician has both of his Pfizer shots, and a negative test.

I know I'm not the only person dealing with frustrating things like this, but we're trying to promote trade and do trade, and these businesses are trying to promote trade and do trade, and they can't get a technician across the border because the border crossing guy doesn't think they're essential.

What can we do to fix this very simple problem?

[Eric Walsh]

First of all, I'll sympathize. There have been a lot of these cases and as the minister was talking about, as we try to get COVID in the rearview mirror, there are definitely cases where we are perhaps balancing the interests of the health of the population a little higher than the interests of individual businesses. But there are processes in place that would allow for exemptions. They require a number of different steps. I'd be very happy to follow up with the committee or with the member's office afterwards to indicate what those might be.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I appreciate the public protection and safety, but in a lot of these cases I've seen in my riding, the technicians are coming across, they are working on a piece of equipment when no one else is around, and when they are done they go back to their hotel. They come back the next day, finish their work and then drive back to Michigan.

There is no public risk when you compare that with something like Pearson Airport or Costco, or what have you. Anything you can do to work with CBSA and Foreign Affairs will help trade, probably more than any of the discussions we've had today, to be quite honest, at least in southwestern Ontario.

Just before Christmas there was a lot of talk about the Canada-U.K. trade continuity agreement. I'm just curious. Where are we at with a long-term trade deal? Are there any discussions right now? Is that pretty well silent?

[Steve Verheul]

I can respond to that. As you know, the transitional agreement came into effect on April 1. Since then we have been conducting consultations with stakeholders to get a clear sense of what various stakeholders would like to see in a new agreement. That consultation is nearing an end. We'll then start to develop our strategy, get guidance from cabinet and we would be looking to initiate negotiations later in the year.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Going back to the U.S., in my opinion, as someone observing what's going on, I don't know that the U.S. has been our best friend, as they should have been for many years and many presidents. On the buy American provisions, or any of these tough policies on Canada, is there an ongoing working group that discusses them with the United States? What kind of a system is set up to address these long-standing issues we have with the United States? Is there a committee or something you can give us an update on?

[Steve Verheul]

We are having ongoing conversations with the U.S. at this point at various levels, and specifically on the buy American issues in particular. I'm talking to my counterparts in the U.S. at the political level.

The refreshing part of the new administration in the U.S. is that they are very open to this kind of dialogue, and that's what we're working on.

As I think you've heard, we're spending a particular amount of time on talking about supply chains and trying to avoid interruptions to supply chains that will be costly on both sides of the border, including with the U.S.

A lot of work is going on there right now.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Can Line 5—

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'm sorry, Mr. Lobb, but your time is up.

Mr. Sheehan, you have five minutes, please.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you very much for your presentation today. It's been very informative in answering these questions on the main estimates.

Recently Sault Ste. Marie, the riding I represent, was declared a foreign trade zone, where there's an ability for the riding to coordinate and talk about a lot of things that would help businesses and the supply chain, or things of that nature, exporting to the United States.

Steve, there are a couple of them now in Ontario. Niagara has one and Windsor does. It's a broad question. How are you guys going to be coordinating the information to places that don't have foreign trade zones? I'm thinking of the economic development corporations, the virtual trade missions, the government initiative to create CORE and all these other initiatives that we're talking about today. What is the communication plan on getting that out to folks?

[Steve Verheul]

I'm afraid that's not really my area. I will look to Sara, maybe, in the first instance.

Sara, are you able to respond to that?

[Sara Wilshaw]

Yes. I'd be happy to.

Virtual trade missions and actually a lot of the activities that the trade commissioner service is involved in, including the work that we do on responsible business conduct, are communicated out through a number of different channels. We have regional offices that are all across the country, as a matter of fact. They are engaged with their local partners, with the provinces and municipalities and the territories they're located in, and with a lot of the chambers. That is one channel through which we communicate what we're doing.

I'm in touch with my assistant deputy minister counterparts in the provinces and territories as well. The deputy minister and the minister have been engaged with their counterparts. I would add that we have CanadExport magazine, which goes out to—I'll probably get the number wrong—somewhere in the neighbourhood of 30,000 to 40,000 subscribers on a regular basis. We use that as another channel to make sure that information flows. We also have a lot of digital content on the trade commissioner service website that is constantly updated.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you.

Another thing that comes to mind in this virtual world is PDAC, the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada. They just had their conference and it was virtual. People from all over the world were connecting here in Canada.

I know that's separate from what you guys are doing, but the minister talked about a virtual trade mission link to Japan. Could you comment on that? What was the success and who was there? She touched on it for only a very brief second. Could you perhaps expand on who was involved and what took place there? It's very interesting.

[Sara Wilshaw]

I'd be happy to elaborate on this a little bit.

Actually, I should correct the member that on PDAC and on Collision, my team has been very actively engaged. We've had delegations come in, virtually, from all over the world. We have facilitated hundreds of B2B meetings for these delegations to come in and connect with Canadian businesses in those different sectors. PDAC was different this year, but it was about as successful as it could be in a virtual environment. We did a lot of work on that.

On the virtual trade missions, there have been several. The most recent was to France. Before that there was one to South Korea. In both cases, we saw hundreds of participants, as a matter of fact, which is far more than we normally would for an in-person trade mission. We facilitated dozens of business-to-business meetings as well. We're starting to see some success stories coming out. We will continue to track those over time. Probably because of the numbers, it works no less than an in-person trade mission—just different.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Sheehan.

Mr. Aboultaif, you have five minutes, please.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the department for appearing before us this morning.

Mr. Verheul, in light of protectionism like buy America and others, which is the trend in trade now across the world, would you be able to share with the committee what directions you are getting from the government and from the minister—please be specific—on how we are moving forward to counter and to be able to maintain our trade volumes and our trade position in the world?

[Steve Verheul]

I think I could best characterize it as a bit of a full-court press. We have our embassy in Washington that's very active on this issue. We have various levels, from officials to ministers, engaged in this as well.

One of the things we've been doing is talking a lot to Canadian companies and U.S. companies and business organizations on both sides about how we can best demonstrate to the U.S. that if they impose restrictions against Canadian exports, that will damage not only Canadian interests but also U.S. interests. If they disrupt the supply chain that's currently operating now, as we have an integrated market it will be costly on both sides.

We're also explaining how we provide products and services that are environmentally friendly that could help advance U.S. interests on the environment, which is another key objective they have. We're drilling down into as much of that detail as we can. We're presenting that case to the U.S. in an effort to convince them that—