Evidence of meeting #8 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 ceta.
A recording is available from Parliament.
2:40 p.m.
Liberal
November 27th, 2020 / 2:40 p.m.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm pleased to note the consensus among all speakers here that having an agreement is essential, and having it before...expires is essential. The fact that we have an agreement, as opposed to not having one, saves in many cases millions of dollars and ensures stability in production.
Mr. Poirier, what's the biggest opportunity for diversification and increasing our exports to the U.K., particularly in advanced manufacturing and the most profitable sectors?
2:40 p.m.
Director, Trade Policy, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
I think that if there's a rollover of most of CETA's provisions, that's a good thing from a manufacturing perspective. We never had an issue with the mechanics of CETA or of a U.K.-Canada trade agreement that would look a lot like CETA. That's not the issue. To us, it's more our domestic ability to take advantage. We heard from the other witnesses here today that even though we had all of this new access, we weren't really taking advantage of it. The same thing goes for manufacturing.
The irony is that the problem is internal even though it's an external trade agreement. It's really a matter of increasing that manufacturing capacity in Canada to be able to export more value-added goods.
2:40 p.m.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
Are there any regulatory hurdles to increasing that manufacturing capacity, or is it just because of hesitancy among Canadian manufacturers to be as aggressive in competing in those foreign markets?
2:40 p.m.
Director, Trade Policy, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
No, it's definitely a general business competitiveness problem. There's probably blame to be spread out among all orders of government for policies that hamper business effectiveness, but certainly when we're talking about tax codes, land approval processes and electricity costs, these are all things that factor into competitiveness and that are all shared among the various orders of government.
There's the low-hanging fruit and there's the big stuff that we can target, but, as I said in the report, which we'd be happy to share with members of the committee, we go through in gory detail everything that we think needs to be done to help that competitiveness side.
2:40 p.m.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
Do you think Canada, after ratifying this new deal—this interim measure—has to go to exporters and share the new process, or do you think it'll be relatively simple for exporters to navigate those waters, as most of the provisions are similar to those already in CETA? Do you think it will cause any disruptions, or is there anything we can do to make it smoother for exporters so they have fewer hiccups along the way after January 1?
2:40 p.m.
Director, Trade Policy, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
That's a good question.
As I mentioned earlier, the breakdown happens between all the help the government currently offers and people not knowing about it and taking advantage of it. If we fix that gap and narrow it, it'll go a long way to helping people take advantage of whatever new deal, whether it's a Canada-U.K. deal or all our other trade deals that we're just not taking advantage of.
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
Thank you.
My next question is for the Fisheries Council of Canada. As my colleague has alluded to, obviously British Columbia has a large coastline and fisheries are very important to numerous communities here.
You've already alluded to how the stability from the transitional agreement protects at least $10 million in exports that could have otherwise gone, if we had not had this interim measure. How can we diversify and increase that market to an even larger one for our fishermen out here in British Columbia?
2:45 p.m.
President, Fisheries Council of Canada
That's a great question.
I think, first, when we look back at various trade agreements and whether Canada has taken full advantage of them or not, we also have to take it in the context of global trade opportunities.
Under CETA, fish and seafood were benefiting quite extensively from tariff reductions and the speed of some of those eliminations, but our exports did not go up in the first year. It took two years for us to take advantage of that in the trade stats. That wasn't without some effort; it's just that other markets were even more lucrative, and so I think it'll come down to how many opportunities there are to make exports to the U.K. more profitable than to other jurisdictions.
I think the fact that Canada will have this deal will put us in good stead, because not a lot of countries will have a bilateral deal with the U.K. right away. That'll give us an early advantage, first mover advantage so to speak, which will be very helpful.
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much.
Now we'll go on to Mr. Savard-Tremblay for two minutes.
2:45 p.m.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
I would like to come back to the question that was asked. I'm going to speak again to Mr. Lansbergen of the Fisheries Council of Canada.
Mr. Lansbergen, on the United Kingdom side, we've already heard that their salmon could be a winner in this agreement. Have you heard anything about that?
2:45 p.m.
President, Fisheries Council of Canada
No, I haven't heard that. I'm not too concerned about which salmon is better. Are our farmed Atlantic salmon better than their farmed Atlantic salmon, or are our wild Pacific salmon better than what they have? I think that is for the consumers to decide, and I hope our companies will be marketing and branding their products as the best, as the premium ones.
You are right that when we look at our imports from the U.K., salmon and trout are actually sizable components of that, but our export to import ratio is 6:1, so we're definitely benefiting more than they are.
2:45 p.m.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
How much time do I have left, approximately?
2:45 p.m.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Okay.
In other words, you do not fear the competition in that area that could arise under this agreement. Did I understand you correctly?
2:45 p.m.
President, Fisheries Council of Canada
A trade agreement doesn't eliminate the competition. There is growing global competition in all markets, so any tariff advantage that we can have will definitely give us an edge.
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
2:45 p.m.
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Thank you very much.
When Canada signs onto a number of trade agreements—CETA, the TPP and others—there are a lot of things that we give up. I'm sure that our witness from the dairy sector is all too aware of the things we give up. Particularly when there are investor-state dispute settlement clauses, we also give up Canadian sovereignty in the sense of being able to make decisions in the public interest without being pursued by multinationals and international trade tribunals.
We do this—the rationale is that we are going to get better market access and that it's going to help Canadian producers—even just within the context of this panel, and there is other evidence to reinforce this. We've heard about growing trade deficits. We've heard about other barriers to market access when it comes to cattle, for instance.
At what point do we say that maybe Canada's trade approach isn't working? We're going out, and we're signing a lot of deals. We're hearing from a lot of folks that.... We've heard from some that there are success stories, but we've also heard that, in exchange for what we're giving up, we're not actually realizing the potential that we are told these deals hold.
I do want to go to the president of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association first—Mr. Sawyer—just to hear.... At what point or at what threshold can we say that, actually, this way of approaching our trade agenda isn't working? Is there anything that would count to say that this approach doesn't work, or are we just committing to this fundamentally and the evidence doesn't really matter?
2:50 p.m.
Chair, Foreign Trade Committee, Canadian Cattlemen's Association
I would hate to think that we are committed fundamentally to anything. We need to continue to be progressive, and we need to continue to adapt to the changing world that we are all in. Certainly, trade has been a huge discussion over my tenure in this group.
No, I am certainly not entrenched in any particular form of how we get there. My issue is that we need to get there.
We've seen with CETA that we've gained. Certainly, that was a gain for us—there is no question about that—but it has come with some bumps along the road. We need to install mechanisms in there where we could discuss those bumps because certainly some of the non-tariff trade barriers that we've been up against.... In my view—and this is my personal view—the mechanisms that we have in place take far too long. We need to get to the threshold of some of these issues.
I am pro-trade, of course, because 50% of our production is exported, so I'd like to see these trade deals come, but they have to be valuable.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you.
Sorry, Mr. Blaikie, but your time is up.
We'll go to Mr. Lobb for four minutes.
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Mr. Poirier, I have a question with regard to the kickoff of the Canada-U.K. deal back in February.
Maybe you wouldn't have said it quite how I am, but when you were talking to various officials, did you say that if the best we could do is a CETA rollover, let's do a CETA rollover, or did they say to you that it looks like the best we're going to do here is a CETA rollover, and they were just letting you know that in advance? Is that the kind of discussion that took place in February, March or April, or were they a little more aspirational than that?
2:50 p.m.
Director, Trade Policy, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
From our perspective, when we had these conversations we were being realists about what we could achieve and where we were in the pecking order of all these countries that wanted to sign a deal with the U.K. Our push was to keep it simple and get a deal that protected what we have right now with CETA. As long as that was respected, if you have all the time to be aspirational and achieve all these great things...but I don't know what more we could do, other than to fix the issues that my fellow panellists have raised. It was more to keep market access. That's always our primary focus.
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
I understand the pandemic likely played a part in the deal and the time frame, but it occurs to me that if the CETA rollover was the best we were going to do, why are we talking about this deal pretty much in the middle to the end of November? If you were to look into your crystal ball, what do you think the hold up was? I've joked that Randy Hoback and I could have had a CETA rollover deal done by the first of March, so what do you see as the hold up here?
2:50 p.m.
Director, Trade Policy, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
I wouldn't know. It's a capacity thing. As I said, the U.K. is trying to sign a whole bunch of trade deals. That's not my day job.