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.
Liberal
Terry Sheehan Liberal Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thanks to all of the presenters for your very informative presentations today.
One question that I'll begin with is, what would your industry look like if there weren't a transitional agreement? I think we need to frame it that way for us to understand it.
I'll just go around the horn and ask, if there weren't a transitional agreement, how might that have affected the industry you represent?
Chair, Foreign Trade Committee, Canadian Cattlemen's Association
I was the first speaker, so I'll speak and Fawn can jump in and correct me if I don't get everything.
Without the transitional agreement, I feel we would have been in trouble, because our product starts very young and if we're going to meet their requirements, we have to follow that animal right through the entire system, from me as a cow-calf producer and backgrounder through the feedlot. The animal has to be handled properly and be channelled into a manufacturing facility with the contacts and connection with the EU, and in particular, in this case, with the U.K. to actually put that product in there.
We can't turn the tap on or off. It's not a hit and miss. We don't stop for a month and start over again. Having this interim agreement in place, in particular now and by January 1, is, in my view, paramount to us. We would be left in limbo without it. As you know, if you built a restaurant franchise on a particular product, you don't replace it for a month, bring in something else, and start over again.
This is vital to us in my view.
Liberal
Terry Sheehan Liberal Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Would anybody else like to answer that particular question?
President, Fisheries Council of Canada
I'll just add that I think Mr. Sawyer touched on a very important point. The impacts of not having the transitional deal in place by January 1 would last much longer than just a month or two, because to have access to a market, it takes time to build up the relationships with customers to get those sales, and if the trade is disrupted, those customers will go elsewhere and might not come back. It could be very problematic for the companies that really depend on the U.K. market.
Director, Trade Policy, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
I want to add quickly to Paul's comment. Regarding my earlier comment about supply chains, if the supply chains are routed through the U.K. and there's a disruption there, that might affect trade elsewhere too, right? It's not just a two-way street between Canada and the U.K. It could be global supply chains that are disrupted. It's not just the market that exists between those two. The global chains that exist are important to remember as well. It adds to the urgency of having something in place January 1.
Liberal
Terry Sheehan Liberal Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Thank you.
One of the things I mentioned before was the virtual trade missions that we had begun and made available for SMEs during this pandemic. I was listening to testimony in which one of the individuals spoke to the need to introduce some mentorship. When we were studying CETA and whatnot, there was a gentleman from Sault Ste. Marie, Gerry Fowler, who represented Manna International. He's basically a broker for soybeans across Canada. He had mentioned that, years ago, the government had these mentorship programs, and I was pleased to hear it. I would like for you to expand a little bit more on how the mentorship program might assist, in particular, by getting SMEs involved in trade deals going forward. How might that work? That was a very interesting piece of information.
Director, Trade Policy, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
Thank you, Mr. Sheehan, I think it was I who brought that up.
Director, Trade Policy, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
Sure. The structures can be pretty simple. As I said, they already exist within all of our associations that we stand here, where we do some networking and mentoring between our members, so it could just be funding and supporting that. To a certain extent, the government used to do that. There could certainly be more formal ways of doing it as well, but as a basic way of approaching it, these things are already happening. It's just supporting it. We're not-for-profit, so we don't have endless resources to pour into projects like that, but they are important. You're right.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you, Mr. Sheehan.
On to Mr. Savard-Tremblay, for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Thank you.
I'd like to address Mr. Lansbergen now.
Mr. Lansbergen, you said earlier that you have been better consulted and informed about the progress of the negotiations, their meanders and the form that this agreement should take—about which we are still essentially in the dark—because your offices are located in Ottawa.
Is it absolutely necessary to be geographically close to be consulted in such a process?
President, Fisheries Council of Canada
That's a good question.
No, you don't have to be in Ottawa, but you have to be proactive. Sometimes as part of our consultations, the government was contacting us, and sometimes we contact them. For example, in September I was curious about the status of the negotiations, so I reached out to our trade commissioners in the embassy in London and had a video call with them. Sometimes we have to be proactive and not let the officials—or elected officials, for that matter—forget that we exist.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
When it comes to proactivity, it is obvious that we can very quickly distinguish lame ducks from the most dynamic elements. However, in general, I believe that a much more developed process of transparency and consultation is needed. I am now closing this parenthesis.
You mentioned the need to vote on this agreement before January 1, and we understand why. We understand the need to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. However, you will understand that we can hardly vote when we have not seen the text. You mentioned the bill, but we have not seen it.
If there were accompanying measures for a short period of time, the current tariff schedule would still allow a very large part of the products to circulate. I would like to know why that would be such a problem.
President, Fisheries Council of Canada
For any tariffs that get applied without a deal until a new deal is put into place, there are measures to enable companies to get that back, but they have to pay it first. There are cashflow issues and certainly, given the certain circumstances of the marketplace now, that could be very problematic for companies. Therefore, if there's any way possible that we could avoid that situation, that would be our strong preference.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much.
We're on to Mr. Blaikie for two and a half minutes.
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Thank you very much.
I think I've heard from each of our witnesses today that, notwithstanding their gladness at the fact that there is some kind of transitional agreement, they'd all like to see Canada get back to the negotiating table and work on the longer-term question.
We've heard that there's no sunset clause in this agreement. Whether that would be on a one-year, three-year or five-year timeline, there's nothing that actually requires Canada and the U.K. to conclude another agreement at any point. This could be a permanent agreement.
I'm wondering if we could get the opinion of our witnesses on what that means, in terms of leverage, to get the U.K. back to the table, if they later decide they like the terms of this transitional agreement on a permanent basis.
We started with Mr. Poirier, so maybe somebody else, like Mr. Sawyer, would like to start on that question this time.
Chair, Foreign Trade Committee, Canadian Cattlemen's Association
Again, not seeing the actual text of the whole agreement, we don't know what the leverage point is. There have been discussions around those. We certainly hope there is something there that we can push forward. We're certainly encouraging the Government of Canada to push forward as soon possible.
Fawn, did you have anything else to add? You're a little closer to that text than I am, I think.
Director, International and Government Relations, Canadian Cattlemen's Association
I would just say that we would be extremely disappointed if this were a forever agreement.
Director, Trade Policy, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
The problem with NAFTA, before we renegotiated it as CUSMA, was that it went 26-some-odd years without ever being updated. In the interim years, the Internet became a thing. We want to avoid that situation.
The problem I see with sunset clauses is that it's sort of a shotgun approach to it, rather than just healthy reviews and agreeing to review, without falling off a cliff as the cost of not doing it. As long as that is avoided in any sort of negotiation, I think that's important. You don't want to have that disconnect or a discontinuity to happen in coverage of the agreement while we're negotiating.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much, Mr. Poirier.
We're on to Mr. Hoback for five minutes.
November 27th, 2020 / 2:20 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Thank you for being with us here on a Friday afternoon.
This one's really tough for us. We want to see business continuing to move forward into the new year. This is something that Conservatives stand for, but we've been dealt a really bad hand here right now, because—like Mr. Blaikie has said—we don't have any trigger points that we know of at this point in time to force a review in the new year. We don't know what is in the agreement, so they're telling us to close our eyes and approve it.
I know with CUSMA they wanted us to do the same thing. We identified a lot of faults in the agreement. For a lot of sectors, we wouldn't [Technical difficulty—Editor] left no compensation, no assistance, no help or no addressing of their issues at all. There's no window to do that here, so we're in a really tough spot.
Maybe I'll start off with you, Mr. Poirier. Put it in perspective for me. If this becomes a 10-year agreement, what do we need to see in it that makes sure we have a good agreement?
Director, Trade Policy, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
Thank you, Mr. Hoback.
Frankly, I share your concerns as well in the sense that we haven't seen a document yet. We've been told that it mirrors CETA. That's a good first step because, presumably, most people got along with CETA before.
However, we don't know that's a thing for sure. We don't want to run into the situation where we're locked in for 10 years and there are some big problems in it.
I think maybe we could pass the transitional agreement with the hope that we'll have more time to digest, look at and study properly a permanent agreement. I'm not sure how the mechanisms work there for that, but I think the costs of the disruption probably outweigh living with having to rush this through. It's a 20/20 sort of scenario.