Evidence of meeting #7 for International Trade in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was lobster.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Claire Citeau  Executive Director, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance
Kim Campbell  Chair of the Board of Directors, Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters Inc.
Robert Closner  Senior Vice-President and General Counsel, Livingston International
Candace Sider  Vice-President of Government Relations, Livingston International
Geoff Irvine  Executive Director, Lobster Council of Canada
Clerk of the Committee  Ms. Christine Lafrance
Bashar Abu Taleb  Committee Researcher

12:30 p.m.

Executive Director, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance

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.

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK

Okay, with negotiators—

12:30 p.m.

Executive Director, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance

Claire Citeau

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

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

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?

12:30 p.m.

Executive Director, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance

Claire Citeau

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

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK

Did you know about it beforehand?

12:30 p.m.

Executive Director, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance

Claire Citeau

I can't—

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK

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

12:30 p.m.

Executive Director, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance

Claire Citeau

I can't recall.

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

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?

12:30 p.m.

Executive Director, Lobster Council of Canada

Geoff Irvine

What might we not see come back?

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK

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

12:30 p.m.

Executive Director, Lobster Council of Canada

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.

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

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.?

12:35 p.m.

Chair of the Board of Directors, Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters Inc.

Kim Campbell

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

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

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?

12:35 p.m.

Chair of the Board of Directors, Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters Inc.

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK

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

12:35 p.m.

Chair of the Board of Directors, Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters Inc.

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.

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

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?

12:35 p.m.

Chair of the Board of Directors, Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters Inc.

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.

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

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?

12:35 p.m.

Chair of the Board of Directors, Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters Inc.

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.

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

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?

November 23rd, 2020 / 12:35 p.m.

Executive Director, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance

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.