International Trade Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2020

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Christine Lafrance]

It would be Mr. Aboultaif.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

It would be Mr. Aboultaif. Thank you very much.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thank you to the department.

I expect some concrete answers, of course. I wasn't able to get that from the minister, unfortunately. I know that with digital trade and trying to adapt to new ways of doing things, all that is fine and dandy. That's just a mechanism—nothing but.

What is the real target, where we know that we can grow our economy through foreign investments coming into Canada and trade with the rest of the world, and where we show at least some proper balance for what we export and what we import? More or less, I'd like to hear from the department about where the target is. Which industries is the department working on to grow those sectors and the many competitive sectors that we have in Canada?

[Steve Verheul]

Well, we're working with other parts of the department, obviously, because the key to achieve what you're talking about is really making sure that our domestic policy intersects properly with our trade policy.

Now, we are in a fortunate position compared to many others, because we do have agreements with the European Union, and we have agreements with the Trans-Pacific Partnership—Southeast Asia, including Japan and others—and we have our agreement with the U.S. and Mexico. With all of the agreements we have, we do have advantages over others, so we are certainly making the most of what we can do on that front. I think that does give us that kind of advantage.

In terms of setting priorities, we really get that kind of input through consultations that we have with industry and consultations that we have within the government, particularly from domestic policy departments that are telling us where they want to see the particular sectors advance.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

The interprovincial efforts are very important, and you just mentioned that, in order to be able to give us the exposure and the edge to be able to do more trade. Do you think we're doing a good job on that? Don't you think that we still have a lot of red tape, problems and difficulties with trade among the provinces? That edge—that advantage—we seem not to have, and I think it's getting worse. What do you think?

[Steve Verheul]

I don't think we can say anything other than we do have more work to do at home in particular. Interprovincial barriers are something that we need to address to ensure that as a country like Canada we can have the most coherent posture when we go to other countries and not be held back by barriers between provinces. That's something that is being worked on as well.

I think, given the kinds of pressures that every economy is under right now because of COVID, that we have to do that much better in removing barriers to trade and trying to facilitate more opportunities. That work is going on. It may not be proceeding as quickly as we might like, but we are certainly focused on that in terms of trying to leave Canada in the best position we can have it in as we start to come out of this particular crisis, hopefully before too long, and we will be well poised to take advantage of agreements once we do that.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Yes, to have our house in order and to be prepared, or at least to prepare the ground to explore further opportunities, how do you envision the timelines here? Because missing an opportunity at this time.... We're still in the middle of a pandemic, but we will be talking about post-pandemic at some point sooner or later. How are we preparing ourselves for that from your perspective as a department?

I'm talking to the people who do the job, whether this government or another government is in place, or this minister or another minister. You are doing the job. How do you think we are doing and how do you think we're handling both directions to achieve and to reach the final goal?

[Steve Verheul]

I think we are in pretty good shape and we're doing what we need to do.

Certainly with the kind of work that I do, we have the various trade agreements in place. We have those preferences. We have advantages in other markets for other countries. All of that is very well advanced.

I think my colleague Sara Wilshaw, on her front, has been working on a lot of the issues around making sure that Canadian businesses are ready to take advantage of those agreements, that they're coming out of the pressures we've been under in a much stronger position and able to advance in those agreements.

I probably should turn to Sara to see if she has—

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

I have one short statement I'd like—

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'm sorry, Mr. Aboultaif. You're way over—

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

If I may—

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Your questions are so intense, but maybe you can get some of those answers offline.

We will continue on to Mr. Dhaliwal, please.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My question will go to Chief Trade Commissioner Wilshaw.

First of all, I would also echo the congratulations to you on your new appointment.

I'm going to pick up on Randeep's question that was asked in the last committee meeting, particularly when it comes to pulses going into India.

Every month I hear from one or two who are interested in doing trade, because there's a lot of demand there. You particularly mentioned that your trade commissioner services in India try to help with the problems that they face on the ground.

Could you elaborate on some of the issues that they face?

[Sara Wilshaw]

Certainly. Thank you for the question.

In fact, we do have people who are dedicated to agriculture, on supporting agriculture and agri-food industries and our farmers in the mission in New Delhi. Obviously they are looking at the different requirements and regulations for importing, and they make those known to our Canadian exporters and our clients.

They have regular conversations with officials in the Indian government about those regulations. Some of those conversations happen internationally; some of those conversations happen bilaterally.

Of course, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has the lead on those discussions. As I think I mentioned on Friday, we always hope that the conversation can be science based when it comes to any regulations or requirements for importing. That's really more on that side...and the trade policy colleagues who look after those things.

In terms of what we do, the trade commissioner services would help our exporters to perhaps find new markets, perhaps find alternative markets or alternative buyers or wholesalers, or other uses for different agricultural products if they run into challenges. That's the kind of thing that we look to do.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Nowadays we are finding that the businesses are facing unique situations.

Has the strategy on the ground when it comes to trade commissioner services not only in India but across the globe been changed or redefined to support businesses?

[Sara Wilshaw]

I'm really proud of what the trade commissioner service has been doing in this period during the pandemic to support the businesses. They haven't stopped, not for a second. We have more than 12,000 clients, and no one has dropped the ball or we would hear about it very quickly. We have a regular feedback mechanism to understand our client satisfaction. We do a lot of work, and we have very high responses from our clients in terms of understanding what they like about our service and what they think could be improved. We work regularly with our whole network to keep a very, very high standard of service.

I think I mentioned last Friday that we are running at about 91% client satisfaction. I'm very proud of that, as I say, and I'm very proud of what our trade commissioners have been able to do.

Of course, we also have locally engaged officers, who never left the markets in which they serve. Even though some of the Canadians had been evacuated, most of them have returned. I believe all but seven posts have returned. However, our locally engaged employees, who are really the market experts and give that information, never left.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Ms. Wilshaw.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We move to Mr. Savard-Tremblay for two minutes.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to go back to my previous comments, since we were a little short on time.

Mr. Verheul, could you elaborate on the planned agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union regarding the sharing of the shares to be divested? I want to know where things stand, since this issue seemed to be stalled for a long time.

Could you update us on the developments in this area?

[Steve Verheul]

Yes. Certainly the negotiations that we're currently conducting with the U.K., as I mentioned, are on a transitional agreement that we can reach, which would try to preserve as many of the elements of CETA as we can as the U.K. moves out of the EU and into a relationship where it's no longer part of the EU.

We do have discussions with the U.K. right now. We're in the final stages of reaching, hopefully, a transitional trade agreement. Most of the issues we're talking about relate to goods market access, because that's one issue where we can't simply leave what we had in place with the EU under CETA and replicate it entirely in the U.K.-Canada context. You can do that on rules-related issues, but you can't do it when you start to talk about numbers. We've been doing that, and that's been much of the focus.

We also have had some challenges in trying to resolve issues related to temporary entry of business people for business purposes. That was part of the commitment under CETA. It's been particularly difficult with the U.K., as it was in CETA, but that's carried over to these transition discussions as well. We really only have a fairly small handful of issues left to resolve, and then I think we can reach agreement on a transitional arrangement, which will then allow CETA to continue after the U.K. finally does leave the EU at the end of the year. That will give us the opportunity to negotiate a full free trade agreement with the U.K., following that.

In the meantime—

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Verheul.

We move to Mr. Blaikie for two minutes.

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

The main estimates that we're considering were tabled on September 30, but in fact they were really tabled on February 27. The two documents, as I understand it, are identical.

You had mentioned that the pandemic has affected, for example, your travel budget. It's going to be less, obviously. Can you speak to why there wasn't an attempt to update the request for authorization of spending?

[Steve Verheul]

Well, there were changes. As I'm sure you know, there was an allocation given to departments, in terms of departmental budgets, and within that my own branch, as a relatively small proportion of that overall departmental budget, is allocated a certain amount every year. Now, through the course of the year, given that we have not been travelling as much, we have returned a fair amount of those funds. We weren't going to be using them for travel expenses.

That is regular ongoing spending. It doesn't relate to any additional allocations or requests that we may get coming out of a budget, for example. We're not in that kind of scenario at this point in time.

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

Okay, so despite the fact that, from your own unit, you're returning money to the main department budget, you don't anticipate requiring any additional expenditure in other lines.