International Trade Committee on Oct. 18th, 2022

Evidence of meeting #30 for International Trade in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was containers.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Election of Vice-Chairs

Potential Trade Implications of Transporting Goods in Railway Containers

MPs speaking

Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay

Also speaking

Clerk of the Committee Ms. Dancella Boyi

Daniel-Robert Gooch President and Chief Executive Officer, Association of Canadian Port Authorities

Doug MacDonald Chief Marketing Officer, Canadian National Railway Company

Marko Dekovic Vice-President, Public Affairs, GCT Global Container Terminals Inc.

Duncan Wilson Vice-President, Environment and External Affairs, Vancouver Fraser Port Authority

Debbie Murray Senior Director, Policy and Regulatory Affairs, Association of Canadian Port Authorities

12:50 p.m.

Chief Marketing Officer, Canadian National Railway Company

Doug MacDonald

Some of the oil we are transporting moves by pipeline today. The Trans Mountain pipeline, for example, is still under construction to Vancouver. We are moving oil to Washington refineries on the west coast today. Once the Trans Mountain is back up and running at full capacity, the oil will not move by rail anymore.

12:50 p.m.

Conservative

Richard Martel Conservative Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC

I thought I understood that the oil you carry in your cars cannot be piped because it is crude oil.

12:50 p.m.

Chief Marketing Officer, Canadian National Railway Company

Doug MacDonald

There are two different areas, sir. Some of it is transported by pipeline, but the pipeline is at capacity right now, so it's very little.

Other oil is well outside of pipeline areas, so it comes in to a rail point, where it gets put into a railcar and is then sold to refineries that are not on a pipeline, normally deep in the U.S. south. Those are the two big things that CN moves today.

Then we'll take some spot moves for pipeline in the summer if we have capacity. Otherwise, we don't move it the rest of the time.

12:50 p.m.

Conservative

Richard Martel Conservative Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC

Thank you.

12:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Thank you very much.

Thank you to our witnesses. I think it was very valuable testimony from of all of you. Thank you for being here.

For the information of the committee, this coming Friday we will consider the draft report for the study of the Canada-United States relationship and its impacts on the electric vehicle, softwood lumber and other sectors.

On the issue of the United States' Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, could members ensure that we have the witness lists by October 24, so we can begin that study?

Is everybody good? Everybody's fine. Okay.

I have a note for the committee members. We have finalized our preliminary submission for the proposed travel for next February or so. It's a high-level estimate, so it's very accurate this time, rather than being not as accurate. This time we will be submitting it and it will be highly detailed, which is usually your secondary travel request. The clerk has made a very detailed submission. We'll see what happens as we go forward.

Thank you all very much.

Mr. Carrie and Mr. Seeback, welcome. We're glad to have you.

The meeting is adjourned.