International Trade Committee on April 26th, 2021

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

Well, I tried to cut in earlier, but I was being polite, in the way that the chair often recommends that we be.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Yes, and I appreciate that.

Minister Ng, can you give us a brief answer to that, in fairness to the members, because it was an important question?

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Absolutely. I wish I had more than 30 seconds.

The answer is that the approach that was taken well before the pandemic, and certainly during the pandemic, has continued to cause us to make sure we are trading in a way that is inclusive.

We are focused on supply chains that continue to be open, particularly in areas like food and critical medical supplies, working with our international partners to ensure that as we are building back, we are deliberately focused on tackling the environment, tackling a recovery that has to include many more people in our economy.

That is the work we have done before, and it's the work that continues to be extremely important because of this pandemic.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you, Minister.

We will go on to Ms. Gray, for five minutes, please.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister Ng, last month there was a Toronto Star article reporting that despite the forced labour measures in CUSMA and the integrity declaration on doing business with Xinjiang entities, not a single shipment made with the forced labour of Uighurs in China has been prevented from coming into Canada.

What is the number that has been stopped as of today?

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

I want to reassure the honourable member that we're always going to advocate and stand up for human rights around the world, and certainly expect that companies who are operating around the world do not knowingly have forced labour in their supply chains.

We have taken a comprehensive approach, in coordination with our international partners—

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

How many have been stopped was my question?

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

I want to reassure the member that we will continue to work with Canadian companies to ensure that there is no forced labour involved in their supply chains.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

If you're unsure, then I guess we have to assume it's none.

The article also states that it appears that government officials don't seem to have the resources to be able to stop these products.

Is it an issue of resourcing?

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

I want to assure the member that in this recent budget, we have ensured that our department, in the work we have committed and mandated it to do for Canadians, is indeed resourced.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Minister Ng, you may be aware that last month I had a motion at this committee to review these measures to make sure they are working properly and to see if there are gaps. Your Liberal colleagues, disappointingly, voted it down.

Now, with this new information, would you be supportive of a study at this committee?

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

I think decisions around what this committee studies really rests with the committee.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

A motion discussing an important issue in trade, at the trade committee, discussing measures brought in by you, the trade minister, would seem reasonable, wouldn't it, Minister?

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

I respect the work that committees do and the work you, the chair and all the members in this committee do. In that respect, I am fully confident that the committee will make its determination about your studies.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Minister, Robert Asselin, a former top adviser to former finance minister Bill Morneau, stated with regard to the budget that “it is hard to find a coherent growth plan,” and that it's impossible to find in the budget what sectors your government thinks we can be competitive in on the global stage. We don't see this either.

One such sector is agriculture and agri-food, which is still facing severe barriers to exporting its goods. What is in budget 2021 to address and review non-tariff barriers in our existing agreements?

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

That's a really important question.

This budget really sets us all up—our Canadian businesses and the Canadian people—to finish this fight against COVID-19. At the same time, it makes targeted investments for those who have been particularly impacted by the COVID recession, be they women, racialized Canadians or young people, and makes significant investments so that we can get our economy not only into recovery, but into growth and competitiveness for years to come.

This is not 2009. We don't want to take 10 years to recover from this COVID recession. We want to make targeted investments, smart investments and strategic investments. That includes helping Canadian businesses scale up into international markets, including in the wonderful agri-food and agriculture sector, to take advantage of the 63% of the global economy to which Canada's trade agreements give our businesses access.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

I have one more quick question, while I have time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You have 20 seconds.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

In your mandate letter from December 2019, the Prime Minister asked you to “Lead the implementation and maximization of the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.”

I'm curious why we don't see any of that in the budget. Can you comment on that, Minister?

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

The budget makes significant historic investments in our growth. The work we have been doing to ensure that businesses are growing in those markets absolutely includes taking 1,100 businesses to a summit to look at opportunities in the European Union, with 300 businesses going to France and women-owned businesses going to Sweden. We've taken women-owned businesses to work in the Asia-Pacific region as well, on a trade mission to Japan.

These are deliverables for businesses, and I'm looking forward to continuing to work on deliverables for Canadian businesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you, Minister.

We will move on to Ms. Bendayan for five minutes, please.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the minister for appearing once again at committee. It's always a pleasure to see her here.

I have a question that picks up on the previous conversation. Looking at the statistics over the last year, when we compare February 2020 with February 2021, we see exports have increased by 4%. We've actually seen a 57% increase in exports since April 2020.

Minister, as you pointed out earlier in a conversation, Canada is number two in foreign direct investment attractiveness, according to the most recent index from Kearney's, which was released a few weeks ago.

Perhaps, Minister, you can explain which industries you think are driving this impressive economic result, and if you think we need to continue along this same path. If so, how do you plan to do so in the short and medium term?

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Those numbers are right. We are seeing that the work by team trade Canada to support our businesses and the agreements that we have around the globe is really providing the market access and enabling businesses.

We're creating the environment so that businesses can be competitive and prosper. We are seeing businesses grow in the knowledge economy and in exporting around the world. We are seeing an incredible number of clean-tech companies. The reason I keep using France is that it's just recent in my mind because that was a virtual trade mission that we just did a couple of weeks ago. It was completely focused on sustainable growth and on the environment. There, we're very proud that a Canadian company like Ballard is providing the first hydrogen buses for a city in France.

In looking at circular economy businesses that are able to grow, take a look at CarbonCure. It's a wonderful business based out of Atlantic Canada that is exporting its technology into the U.S. and into Singapore, for example, where those infrastructure projects are being done, but doing so in a way that is much less carbon intensive.

We have these incredible Canadian companies, and team trade Canada, the trade commissioner service, EDC and BDC, Invest in Canada and the Canadian Commercial Corporation are very focused and are really working to help our Canadian exporters grow, and to grow into those international markets. Canadian business growth means jobs for Canadian companies here at home.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Absolutely, and another colleague in this session mentioned reading the budget and looking for things to support our small and medium-sized businesses as they export. I was particularly thrilled to see the $4-billion investment in our digital strategy. We know that getting our small businesses online will help them export to the world. Is there anything you wanted to share about that new program that just came out in the budget?

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Yes. Thank you.

We talked about what it does for businesses, but the other part of this investment, which is a really important one, is getting almost 30,000 young people trained to give them the job experience of helping Canadian small and medium-sized businesses go digital. We're really looking forward to working with small businesses and with those very young people to give them the opportunity. Not only are we helping businesses grow, but we're also addressing one of the groups of people that we want to see supported coming out of this COVID recession, and that is our dynamic young people.

We're very pleased to have the $4-billion investment to help our businesses grow, but also to provide those very excellent opportunities to Canada's young people.