International Trade Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2020

[Claire Citeau]

From our understanding, there was no Gazette notice on a traditional agreement or an FTA with the U.K. The Gazette notice, from our perspective, was with respect to the U.K.'s WTO commitments, so it was different. We did have one-on-one consultations and engagements with negotiators.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Okay, with negotiators—

[Claire Citeau]

It was not through the Gazette process, but we had engagements.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

When they said, “Hey, we're not going to continue on with our negotiations with the U.K.”, had they told you that before they did it, or did they just do it?

[Claire Citeau]

We were engaged throughout, and our message has remained the same—

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Did you know about it beforehand?

[Claire Citeau]

I can't—

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

If the negotiator came to you, Ms. Citeau, and said, “Hey”—

[Claire Citeau]

I can't recall.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Okay, that's fair enough. I'll leave it at that.

In the lobster sector...I know the Halifax airport, for example, was struggling to ship lobsters into the U.K. and Europe because of the traffic there. What is the real opportunity lost if we don't see this all come back?

[Geoff Irvine]

What might we not see come back?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I am referring to the airline traffic and that whole aspect of it.

[Geoff Irvine]

Well, we'll have to find other ways to get to market, or we'll have to sell to other markets. We've seen a really dramatic change in air traffic to Europe, but to Asia, it has been very good. We're selling a lot more lobster to China because we can get there.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Fair enough.

Ms. Campbell, you talked about CUSMA's implementation. Under CUSMA, you actually had an implementation period, you actually had some adaptation to go forward and make some adjustments at the border. It wasn't long enough, but you did have some. Under this agreement, we don't even have a parliamentary approval deadline in place that we can possibly meet, December 31. They haven't given us any time to even pass this. We haven't even seen it, yet they're going to tell you on December 31, “Go ahead and ship away.” From a shipper's point of view, what paperwork do I fill out on January 1 that meets the requirements in the U.K.?

[Kim Campbell]

Unless we have a transitional agreement that outlines that, or some kind of interim directive, I have no idea.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Do you have any sense of when you're going to get an idea of what this looks like?

[Kim Campbell]

No.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Have they consulted with you on what you require for that paperwork?

[Kim Campbell]

The only thing I can say is that, reading the tea leaves again through some of the press releases, it does sound like it was going to be an adaptation of CETA, but not a cut and paste. Of course, for someone who likes predictability and transparency, that is not making us 100% comfortable, but in many ways, we hope that our Government of Canada would be working on behalf of business to make sure we're going to be okay. At this point, we don't know that for a fact.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

You have no clue, and no way of knowing.

Cut and paste, it sounds simple: “Okay, it's the EU, it should be the same.” It isn't the same, though, because it's the U.K. and the U.K. has its own interesting dynamics, which are different from the EU's. To say an EU form now works in the U.K.—is it fair to say that would be the smartest thing to do?

[Kim Campbell]

It would only be because of the time frame. That might be part of the consideration for the transition, but you're right, knowing how these things work, it doesn't make sense that it would be exactly the same. It will have to have its own unique form or format at some point.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

This goes back to the negotiations. What are the must-haves? What do we have to see in the transition agreement that needs to be effective so we can continue on? What kind of time frame do you need for them to be delivered to you so that you can actually adapt to these new time frames?

[Kim Campbell]

I guess, in our submission, depending on the decision.... Obviously, the preferred path was to be able to use exactly what we have today, because it would be almost impossible at this point to go back to exporters to have these forms changed. The other alternative we've offered if that's not feasible is to allow importers to actually do the certification based on what they have today. That was an addition to the CUSMA that honestly, if we didn't have it, I'm not sure what would have happened on July 1. That is definitely another consideration that would be extremely helpful if we can't get that rolled over the same format.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Let me look at this, then. We've made the government aware of all of the faults in CETA with our agriculture producers. Now you're going to roll all of those into the U.K. agreement and keep them the same when you maybe had a chance to address it at that point. It sounds like you're going to get the exact same scenario and the same problems as you had in CETA.

What is there for the U.K. government to come back to us and say “Yes, let's renew this agreement, let's finalize it”? Is it more accurate to say this is the agreement? If that's the case, do I not have to treat it as a long-term agreement, as a member of Parliament, Ms. Citeau?

[Claire Citeau]

Clearly we need to have some leverage to bring the U.K. back to the negotiating table, either on a bilateral basis or through the CPTPP framework, as a means to get to address those non-tariff barriers in a meaningful way.