International Trade Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2020

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank the officials for being here today.

In 2018, the government created the Invest in Canada hub, as a way to promote and facilitate foreign investment. Can state-owned enterprises or companies affiliated with state-owned enterprises invest through the Invest in Canada hub?

I'll leave it up to whichever official would like to answer that.

[Steve Verheul]

I think that's more likely to be in Sara Wilshaw's area than in mine.

[Sara Wilshaw]

Thank you very much for the question.

Investments over a certain threshold that come into Canada, whether they come through the Invest in Canada hub or some other means, or whether they're facilitated by the trade commissioners, are subject to the Invest in Canada Act. The Invest in Canada Act says that it provides for the review of significant investments that are made by non-Canadians. It looks at a couple of tests. One is—

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

Ms. Wilshaw, thank you. I'm quite familiar with that.

Here's what my question is. Specifically for the Invest in Canada hub, because there is money that's allocated as a budget to focus on that, are state-owned enterprises or affiliated companies going through this? I understand that there's a separate process to look at that, but can they actually go through this process?

[Sara Wilshaw]

It should be very clear that the Invest in Canada hub operates as a departmental corporation, so they have their own board of directors, their own president and CEO. I think the question would probably be better directed towards them, but you have correctly identified that they have a certain budget allocated, and the trade commissioners work very closely with them. I think the question about the process by which they determine who goes through them should be better directed towards that organization.

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

We are talking about main estimates today, and it is right in the main estimates, so I would think that there would be somebody here who could answer this.

Do you happen to know if any of the investments that have gone through this have undergone a national security review, or do we not have anyone here who can answer that either?

[Sara Wilshaw]

I would have to come back to you on that.

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

Okay, that's unfortunate, because we are talking specifically about what's in the main estimates here.

We did hear today that there were some investments that came into Canada, so I'd like to ask to have tabled what the dollar value is, by industry, that has come through the Invest in Canada hub. We did hear some numbers earlier. What is the dollar value by industry? What are the jobs by industry? What is the number of new companies and what is the breakdown? Was the investment in existing companies or in new companies?

Is there anyone who can table that information, or is that something that can be taken away to be tabled at an early date?

[Sara Wilshaw]

Madam Chair, we can refer the questions to the Invest in Canada hub and seek responses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you.

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

Thank you.

I look at the different departmental officials here today. You have all been operating for about 19 months without a budget, so I'm wondering if you can go into some details as to what it looks like when you're operating without a budget. How do you plan? How do you strategize? What does that look like, when you don't have a budget that you're operating under?

[Steve Verheul]

I'll start. We're not operating without a budget in the trade policy and negotiations branch. We do have our budget. We've had to make significant adjustments to our budget because we're not travelling as much as we used to and that's been a major portion of our budget. Without question, however, we're certainly operating within a budget for the course of this year.

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

The budget hasn't been approved by Parliament, so that's—

[Steve Verheul]

This is a departmental budget that operates as it has in the past.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ask a very short question, Mrs. Gray.

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

Thank you.

I think the only other thing is whether we have anyone who can table some information regarding the consular services. I know we had a meeting earlier about this, but is there any information as to what the plans are, what the stats are moving forward, going into the new year? What is that going to look like?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We'll move on to Mr. Sheehan.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much to the presenters, and to the minister before.

One thing that is obviously right before us here is that we're all talking right now on Zoom. We're doing this virtually and quite successfully. We're getting the necessary work done. You heard the minister earlier....

I'll talk to Steve right there. It's good to see you again. You've testified many times, and in particular I'd like to acknowledge your work on the NAFTA deal. You have a door behind you, and it's interesting to see that there are doors of opportunity; there are doors that are shut; there are people knocking at the door. I want to talk to you, Steve, about the opportunities with the virtual announcement today as it relates to some of the trade agreements you've worked on, not just for the big companies, but for the small and medium-sized companies.

For all the other witnesses as well, I wanted to get some comments, because we've seen how much work this trade committee has done related to opening up markets in Europe, Asia and North America. Has any of that been hindered? I think we'll start with that question first, and then talk about opportunities in this COVID-19 world and how our trade deals have been doing.

[Steve Verheul]

I think I'll start. Others will certainly have something to add to this.

I think it's...particularly since we had a number of trade agreements coming into place. Certainly CETA was before COVID-19, as was CPTPP. The new agreement with the U.S. and Mexico came into effect during the pandemic. Clearly, we've seen some difficult times faced by our exporters, without a doubt, but I think that's more a function of the general challenges of the economy because of what's happening with COVID-19, more than anything to do with our trade agreements. I think our trade agreements have, in fact, helped to somewhat dampen some of the impacts we would have seen otherwise.

While we are starting to see trade recover, particularly in those areas where we do have agreements, obviously there are a lot of companies that are struggling just because of the domestic situation, as much as trying to get into the international markets. I think we're a bit held hostage at the broader economic challenges we're facing at the moment. We do need to do whatever we can to help those companies get back into the game, in some ways, as we move forward.

My colleague Sara Wilshaw may have something further to add. I think she's been more engaged in trying to help those companies move forward in this circumstance.

[Sara Wilshaw]

Madam Chair, perhaps I can take a moment to add to that.

Certainly we are looking to promote, and we have been out actively promoting with a number of our partners, federal and provincial as well as chambers, the trade agreements that we do have and the access that has been gained, to try to take advantage of those things as best we can. We also look at where specific gains have been made. We make those things clear. We have ways of helping our companies to find out what the tariffs are now and to specifically focus on taking the best advantage of what has been negotiated and agreed.

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

Thank you very much for that.

I can tell you that being in Sault Ste. Marie, right on the border here, and seeing the amount of trade that comes through here...and naturally, by extension, we're seeing a lot of these trade agreements that are opened up to Europe and Asia. Using us as a centre point to access all the markets is really important. I think it behooves us to continue to explore ways in which, whether it's virtually...for people to make contact. I've been on trade missions. I see a lot of people here whom I've travelled with. Nothing beats the face-to-face and the eyeballing. I hope this is an interim solution until we get to such time when we can do that.

To the point about saving money, Steve, do you have an idea, just for estimates, how much money was saved doing things virtually? If you don't have that number, I understand that you may be able to get back to the committee. You guys may not be at that level yet. You're so busy helping people, you haven't sat back and looked at that. I think there was a comment earlier about that by Randy.

I'd be interested to see spent-money value versus results, and virtually versus in-person as well.

[Steve Verheul]

Well, I think I would have to say, and from my own personal experience too, that there's certainly no substitute for having face-to-face discussions. Whether you're trying to do negotiations or whether you're trying to do business, I think there's an extra element there that makes it that much easier to do those kinds of deals. But given that we haven't been in a position to have those kinds of face-to-face discussions, from our perspective, a lot of what we have been doing is significantly increasing the emphasis on digital trade and electronic commerce, trying to give companies what they need, both in trade agreements and in Sara Wilshaw's group, and helping companies to be able to more effectively participate in electronic commerce that way.

We're trying to address that in many ways. I think we've made significant improvements. Many companies have enthusiastically adopted the digital trade type of approaches. We've helped them do that, but again, at the end of the day, as you're suggesting, it's still not the same as having face-to-face conversations and doing deals that way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Verheul.

We have a slot here for the Conservative member. Who wants to go forward, Mr. Hoback or Mrs. Gray?

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

We'll continue with the speaking order that we had.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I have an open slot for this round for a Conservative member.