Hello, my name is Martin Pochtaruk, and I am the president of Heliene.
First of all, I would like to thank Terry Sheehan, the Member of Parliament for Sault Ste. Marie, for his invitation to participate in today's meeting of the Standing Committee on International Trade.
Heliene started manufacturing in northern Ontario in 2010. Our business consists of two businesses. On one side is a core solar PV module business supported by a global supply chain and local advanced manufacturing capabilities that allow it to scale rapidly and arbitrage the latest evolving solar cell technologies to ensure that its products are always market-leading on quality and cost. Heliene is, in fact, the only tier one North American-based solar module producer, as listed by Bloomberg, due to its bankability.
The second business is an emerging value-added integrated solar-powered product business, leveraging the knowledge gained in solar power and technology integration, having developed and positioned to grow an innovative pipeline of critical renewable products. Heliene is, in fact, the only solar module producer in the world to have industrially produced solar modules that are launched to space in order to power satellites.
We're here today to review how the state of play of Canada's international trade relationships has impacted Heliene over the last several years. Specifically, Heliene has had to contend with several challenging developments in trade policy, first with China and, after that, more importantly, with our neighbour to the south.
On China, Heliene and another Canadian solar module producer, Silfab Solar, successfully prosecuted in 2015 an anti-dumping duty case against imports of Chinese solar modules into Canada; such anti-dumping and countervailing case was just successfully renewed for another five years last March. The United States began to restrict Chinese solar cell and module access to its market through the imposition of steep anti-dumping and countervailing duties starting in 2012 and then again in 2014. Heliene was a beneficiary of the U.S. import market restrictions as a Canadian producer. That is, Heliene's distinct Canadian-made products were viewed as both attractive and politically correct by our U.S. customers.
Regrettably, the state of play changed dramatically, and for the worse, beginning in 2017 with the arrival of the Trump administration. Following a section 201 safeguard investigation, the United States International Trade Commission and the Office of the United States Trade Representative conducted extensive investigations of the U.S. solar market and the role of imports in such a market. Heliene, together with other Canadian producers, successfully persuaded the ITC to recommend that the U.S. Trade Representative exclude U.S. imports of Canadian products from any safeguard relief adopted by the Trump administration.
Notwithstanding this, in a first among many firsts in the Trump administration and in blatant violation of the U.S. obligations under NAFTA, President Trump elected on February 7, 2018, to include Canadian solar modules within his four-year global safeguard measures. Specifically, of greatest consternation and adverse financial impacts to Heliene and Canadian clean-tech jobs, the safeguard imposed a declining tariff from 30% ad valorem on U.S. imports of Canadian solar modules. It pains me to say that this is the same safeguard tariff rate applied to imports from China.
This debilitative tariff against Canadian exports to the U.S., our main market, remains in force today despite the best efforts of both the Government of Canada and Canadian industry, though the tariff has now declined to 18% pursuant to a further presidential proclamation that yet again refused to exclude Canadian imports from the safeguard measures.
Our difficulties are particularly ironic, because today Heliene employs 80 people in Minnesota, where we invested in a new factory in 2018. We are now actively seeking to expand our solar module manufacturing operations there while in parallel we'll restart a now-defunct factory in the southeastern part of Florida. By the end of 2021, Heliene will employ over 140 people in the U.S. We have developed detailed plans to expand our solar module manufacturing operations in Ontario and also in the United States, in both Minnesota and in Florida, but the safeguard tariff on the Canadian-manufactured product continues to sap both our profits and our working capital.
As such, and to very blunt, Heliene has much less leeway to make its planned investments both in Canada and the U.S., to modernize its manufacturing operations, to expand its workforce and to increase its contribution to the heightened and imperative efforts now ongoing to reduce greenhouse emissions and combat climate change.
On our issue, on December 22, 2020, the Government of Canada requested dispute settlement consultations with the United States under chapter 31 of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement. However, the arrival of the Biden administration and the entry into force of CUSMA provided both Heliene and Canada with an opportunity for a reset in our relations.
My own view is that we can and indeed we must re-establish a co-operative and productive trade relationship with the United States. At the same time, Canada must also be firm in insisting that our neighbour adheres strictly to its CUSMA obligations. The current status quo on this issue, coming from the previous U.S. administration, is simply not acceptable and is costing Heliene and its northern Ontario employees dearly, as we continue to pay a U.S. import duty for our Canadian-made solar modules.
I look forward to continuing to work with you and the government to resolve this time-sensitive matter.
This concludes my testimony.
Thank you for your attention.
I am now ready to answer your questions.