International Trade Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I went to what the next spot would be if we did round three. It was open for a Liberal. That would bring us to the 12:30 time for the end of the meeting.

Are you asking to complete the whole round three?

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

No, it's not necessarily that. I just wanted to understand the procedure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Okay. Is that all right? Everything will go to Mr. Arya then for a few minutes.

I see consensus.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Harrington, thank you so much for your presentation. It is very well taken. You did mention the regulatory duplication. Has your organization done anything that has identified where things can be merged or the duplication disallowed? Is there anything done from the industry association?

[Gerry Harrington]

There are a number of ways that regulators do that. One of them is, for example, the use of foreign decisions. There is an element there where premarket review can be incorporated from a foreign jurisdiction. Most regulatory regimes also have postmarket requirements, so that's things like vigilance of the product once it's been sold, inspections of facilities, and so on and so forth.

There are other ways that we can reduce duplication. We can have mutual recognition agreements with, again, trusted regulators on specific elements. It might be good manufacturing practices. It might be advertising and labelling and so on.

With the amount of duplication that happens, as we are in an increasingly—we've all heard this before—interconnected, globalized economy, I think there are in the future going to be even more opportunities for co-operation and collaboration among regulators. There are fora for the various different sectors. There are the PIPs for pharmaceuticals, and so forth, for different regulatory regimes.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Mr. Harrington, Mr. Parker mentioned that it is difficult for his company to export to the U.S., because of the liability issues and the multiple registrations required at the state level. Your members have also been exporting. I don't know to which market they export or what product categories they have. Can you comment on that requirement of the multiple regulatory approvals in the U.S.?

[Gerry Harrington]

It varies by country. The U.S. is a good example. It depends on the sector. The American federation works a little differently from ours, so the jurisdiction can shift depending on the setting. For sanitizers that are used in a manufacturing facility, yes, there are state-level requirements that complicate the ability to do business. On the other hand, in the drug world and the health product world, generally speaking, the U.S. very much operates at a national level.

Those are really tough problems to solve. I wish I could offer you....

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Let's come back to the easiest ones we can solve. Have you any suggestions on the current set of regulations that we are discussing today?

[Gerry Harrington]

I think this regulatory proposal maximizes a lot of the opportunity that's available. If we're looking at the United States, we see that one of the beauties of the regulations is that the list of trusted foreign regulators is ambulatory. That means it can be amended. We can add to it. There are other jurisdictions where that fit might be a little different and that would offer more opportunity. For example, at the EMA, in the eurozone, that might look different and create even more opportunities for Canadian manufacturers.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

By nature, regulations can be changed quickly. That's the purpose of regulations, unlike an act of Parliament.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Arya. We're at the 12:30 point today.

Thank you. Everyone more or less got the information for their questions. There are no outstanding questions, so we will move forward.

Thank you very much to the witnesses. It was valuable information from each and every one of you today. We very much appreciate that. We will excuse you from the meeting today.

We will suspend.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I call the meeting back to order.

I am always very time conscious of everything. If we can end our meeting 10 minutes earlier, I think it's a good thing. If it isn't, let me know.

Go ahead, Ms. Fortier.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Are we in committee business, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Yes, we're in an open session. Because I anticipated these two issues to be brief, I did not go in camera. If they are not and the committee wants to go in camera, we can do that.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Do you want to start and then...? I have an idea that I want to share with you, but I'll let you start first.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We just want to confirm next week's meetings.

We have the minister and officials coming on Monday.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

I'm sorry. We have the minister and officials coming on what?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

They're coming on the Ukrainian free trade study. I'm suggesting that we do a prestudy.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Okay, but we never talked about that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

That's why she wanted the floor—to talk about it.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Yes, that's why I wanted to talk. I just didn't know if you had an introduction, Madam Chair.

I'm going to switch to French. It's easier for me.

Madam Chair, it is my understanding that the minister would be available to meet us next week with officials from her department. That's why I'd like to propose that we begin our preliminary study of Bill C‑57, An Act to implement the 2023 Free Trade Agreement between Canada and Ukraine, which is currently before the House. This would allow us, over the next few weeks, to study this very important issue, and we could combine this with the appearance of the minister and the officials, given that she is available next week. We would have four meetings to conduct this preliminary study.

Shall I formally propose a motion for debate?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Unless everybody is in agreement, I think the clerk requires some level of a motion to proceed.

You're suggesting that we proceed with the prestudy.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I therefore propose that we devote the next four meetings to our preliminary study of Bill C‑57, An Act to implement the 2023 Free Trade Agreement between Canada and Ukraine, given that the minister and the officials will be available next week.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Okay. We'll have to discuss that.

Monsieur Savard-Tremblay has his hand up.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I'm not opposed to the motion, at first sight, since we suspect that the bill will pass second reading, based on the opinions expressed by all the political parties, who support the principle. A preliminary study would therefore not be in vain, because there's nothing hypothetical about it. It's pretty obvious that the bill will end up here.

However, I want to make sure that we don't add sessions when the bill passes second reading, and that we don't start the study all over again. In other words, the preliminary study has to count. We also have other subjects to discuss. Four sessions are more than enough to study an agreement that is short and simple, not very binding and limited in scope, on the face of it.

Can we agree that, when the bill comes back to us, we'll just do the clause-by-clause study and not add sessions until the end of time?

Besides, the bill cannot be amended, so we know that the text we have before us, as it is likely to be adopted, will remain identical. So there can't be any nasty surprises about what we're about to study.