International Trade Committee on April 27th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'm sorry, Mr. De Nardi. I didn't want to cut you off at all. I hope you got your points across.

Now we'll go to Mr. Arya, please.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. De Nardi, this study is about non-tariff trade barriers in international agreements. Just quickly, what is the status of trade barriers within Canada in terms of trading between provinces? Is that a big issue that you face there?

[Tom De Nardi]

With regard to imports, no, it's not.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

I mean with regard to trade between, say, Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia, within Canada.

[Tom De Nardi]

You know that we have supply management in this country, sir, and that every province has a certain slug of milk, if you will. Most of that milk is concentrated in Quebec and Ontario, then B.C. and then Alberta, and the Prairies practically have nothing as far as domestic milk production is concerned.

In terms of milk and where the farmers are.... By the way, my father was a farmer, so I support farmers.

I don't know if I've answered the question, but that's—

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

That's okay. Thank you.

Ms. Bradbury, I don't know which countries you worked in as a trade commissioner, but when there are non-tariff barriers, what's the best way to deal with them? Is it through dispute mechanisms available in the free trade agreements or through direct negotiations at, say, the ministerial level? What's the best way to address those things?

[Nathalie Bradbury]

With non-tariff barriers, as my colleague Stuart was saying, there are positive aspects to these entities and there are less positive aspects. In a lot of ways, it's best to work within the system. For intellectual property rights, it's best to work within the system to help smaller producers and indigenous producers, etc., learn how the system works and make it work to their benefit.

Counterfeit, for example, is a huge problem. It's now up to 2% to 3% of international trade, which is pretty incredible, really. That affects a lot of indigenous producers. By working within the system, you can make it work to your benefit.

I don't want to get into the whole argument about—

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Thank you.

My next question, Madam Chair, is for Mr. Volpe.

You mentioned the barriers we face in Japan and Vietnam. Are those barriers common to all countries exporting to Japan and Vietnam for the same products, whether the export is from Canada to Japan or from the U.S. to Japan?

[Flavio Volpe]

No, but there is a mix. European regulations look a little bit like the Japanese ones. You'll see a lot of product similarities, in that what's built and sold in Europe is a little bit more akin to what sells in Japan, and it's the same between Korea and Japan, but for North American markets with origins from any of the three North American countries, it's the same non-tariff barrier.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

To go back to these non-tariff barriers, I'll ask the same question. Again, are the dispute mechanisms available in the agreements the best way, or is it the interactions with the governments concerned? Which is the best way to deal with them?

[Flavio Volpe]

In the CPTPP, there is no mechanism. When we finally signed it—it was negotiated under one government and signed under another—we said there were side letters. I said those side letters were worthless then, and it really hasn't changed now. We've just got to be smarter.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

My question for Mr. Trew is the same thing.

Whenever countries bring in some non-tariff barriers, it may be that they apply to all exports to that country, to all imports to that country from different exporters. Is it best to join hands with other similar countries and address that, or is it one on one? When a Canadian export gets barriers selling to Japan or some other country, is a bilateral mechanism for dealing with it the best?

[Stuart Trew]

It's case by case, I'm assuming.

In some instances, it does make a lot of sense to go through the WTO. I mentioned the notice process of the technical barriers to trade committee. Frequently countries will band together when there's a measure introduced somewhere else that they don't like—exporters in common, for example—but in some cases it makes a lot of sense to do it bilaterally. You might want to keep things more trusting, maybe, in the Canada-U.S. or Canada-Mexico context, for example.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to the witnesses.

Mr. De Nardi, I cut you off because we had gone over the time, but if you want to finish that third point you were going to make, I'll pass it over to you for a minute.

[Tom De Nardi]

I believe it had to do with trade barriers across the country.

The only point is that we have supply management in this country, and we're not getting rid of it any time soon, I would suspect, because there are too many dairy farmers across the country with small farms.

What I'd like to point out is that you have literally hundreds, if not thousands, of dairy farms across the country, but you have very, very few manufacturers, fewer than 50, and 80% of that milk is controlled by three or four companies.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you.

Thank you very much to all of the witnesses. We very much appreciated your testimony.

We will suspend because we have to go in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]