International Trade Committee on Nov. 17th, 2025

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

In terms of the information you've received, you have nothing further to offer, and there's nothing further offered by your staff other than that you currently have no ongoing negotiations.

[Aaron Fowler]

That's correct. That may seem strange, but I am not actively participating in those negotiations.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Strange or not, I'm just looking for facts on where we are in the negotiations.

One of the things we have discussed at this committee is transparency. As you may have seen from some of the evidence of our witnesses, there's a feeling that there's a lack of transparency on the part of the government. In fact, Mr. Herman, for example, expressed his disappointment that the public knows very little about these negotiations, which was also echoed by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and others.

Do you feel that there is sufficient transparency offered by a you as chief negotiator or anyone working on the Canada-U.S. negotiations?

[Aaron Fowler]

Yes. I believe the level of transparency that has been provided is appropriate to the level of sensitivity that those negotiations entail.

I'm aware of the request that the committee has put forward for information from the consultations. Work is under way to respond to that request within the timelines that were provided, and I'm sure that information will be received by the committee for its review very shortly. There may be more focused or detailed questions that follow, which we would be happy to receive, of course.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Thank you. I'm glad to hear that.

I will say that I don't think the committee should have had to pass a motion to request information about public consultations on probably the most important topic for the country right now. I would encourage Global Affairs, you as chief negotiator and others to offer more information and more transparency to Canadians about this process.

In your last appearance, you said, “I hope that the committee and, more generally, Parliament feel that they are well informed about our agenda.” My answer is, no, we don't feel well informed.

The last time you were here, Mr. Fowler, you also stated that you believed “the United States, in this commercial negotiation, will be guided by commercial and economic considerations.” Has your position changed on that, given that we are now not in any active negotiations?

[Aaron Fowler]

No. My position continues to be that I assume the United States will be guided by its economic and commercial considerations in this negotiation, as it is in other negotiations.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Are you aware that that's not the government's official position? Negotiations have been paused as a result of an ad that was put out by the Government of Ontario. That's what the government's position is.

[Aaron Fowler]

Do you mean the Government of the United States or the—

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

I mean the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States.

[Aaron Fowler]

That is the explanation the President provided as to the pause in talks. I don't know that this is inconsistent with my position on what will guide their positions at the negotiating table.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Fonseca, go ahead, please.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to our officials for being with us here today.

Back in 2017-18, we had set a stretch goal to increase and diversify our trade by 50% outside of the United States. That target was achieved successfully in 2024. Now we're here in 2025 and looking at another stretch goal over this decade, which would be to increase our trade again by 50%. That would be $300 billion more in trade outside of the United States.

Can you take us through what brought us to the success we had in setting that first goal? Going forward, are we going to implement the same strategy, or are there changes to the strategy for achieving the next goal of 50% more diversification?

[Sara Wilshaw]

Thanks for the question.

If I may, I'll just say just a word or two about that 50% expansion in non-U.S. trade. Obviously, trade in general expanded at the time as well, so there was significant growth there, but there was also significant growth in key areas where we have, as we've pointed out, agreements with major partners.

During that period of time, we had CETA, which is an agreement with Canada and the EU, and we had the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. They were at the heart of those big expansions. We saw a lot of growth in the EU, growth in the U.K. and growth in the Indo-Pacific region in particular.

This new goal is a stretch goal. It is not going to be easy. It is going to pose a challenge for us. I think what we need to look at, as we looked at then, is where to find opportunities for Canadian businesses. Where do we have potentially a competitive advantage for our products and services and for our exporters? What kinds of supports are needed by companies to get them to go abroad?

The gravity model of trade is a challenge for us. Obviously, there's a very large, very attractive market to the south, and it's sophisticated and familiar. It can be challenging for companies to think about going beyond that market. This is where the trade commissioner service and our negotiators work together to overcome, to de-risk and to make the unfamiliar a little more familiar for businesses.

We put in place a number of things back in 2018 that helped us: the Canadian technology accelerators; an expansion of CanExport, which is co-funded financing to help small businesses in particular approach new markets; and e-commerce expertise, where we put in additional trade commissioners around the world.

Are we going to be able to rely upon those same things this time? Probably not. We will have to do things a little differently. We'll have to focus on very high-growth and high-potential sectors like agriculture and agri-food, defence and aerospace, natural resources and energy services, ICT, digital and quantum. All of these are places where, again, we know that Canada has some great advantages, such as in critical minerals and clean-tech infrastructure. We have a lot of strengths, and we have a lot of things that the world would like us to bring to the table.

We have to make it easier for folks to do that. Part of that is in the investments that are being proposed for infrastructure to get things to tidewater so we can overcome the natural north-south tendency in the flows of trade. There are lots of challenges ahead, but I think we are up to the task.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Wilshaw.

Is that diversification leveraged at the table when you're going into a CUSMA review or when you're looking at other agreements? We just did one with Indonesia and we're looking at ASEAN and others. When others look at Canada, is that diversification something that could be leveraged at the table so they can see we have other markets to work with and are able to use them?

Mr. Fowler, maybe you can speak to that, or Ms. Wilshaw.

[Sara Wilshaw]

I can perhaps start, if you don't mind, and then pass it to my colleague.

Very quickly, I think what we're trying to do is what the rest of the world is trying to do as well, which is to figure out partnerships where we can advance our economic security and prosperity with partners that want to come to the table with us.

Everybody is doing this right now. It's a very active period in terms of negotiations and trying to find different types of partnerships, and not necessarily even the big free trade comprehensive partnerships. People are looking for those specific areas where they can create these linkages.

I don't know, Aaron, if you want to add to the negotiations agenda.

[Aaron Fowler]

Sure.

I would agree with the premise behind the question, which is that the extent to which a particular market is important to Canada for a particular sector is very well known by our negotiating partners. Reliance on a particular market—in this case, let's say the United States—as an export destination for a Canadian sector and its long-term well-being is something the Americans will take advantage of, as any negotiator would and as I would if I had a negotiating team across the table from me that was extremely dependent on the Canadian market.

The more we can diversify opportunities for Canadian businesses so those businesses can take advantage of opportunities to reduce their dependence on the United States as a marketplace, the less ability American negotiators will have to hold us over a barrel and, therefore, the better our ability will be to deploy our coinage in the areas we feel are important to us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Savard-Tremblay, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for joining us today.

Mr. Fowler, I just want to make sure I heard you correctly. You said earlier that there are no ongoing negotiations with the U.S. right now. Is that right?

[Aaron Fowler]

From what I understand, that's correct. A few weeks ago, the U.S. suspended negotiations, and the situation hasn't changed since.

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

Are other forms of communication or engagement happening, at least for other stated reasons?

[Aaron Fowler]

Our relationship with the U.S. is a complex one. Other than the negotiations, many topics require daily attention. Our team in Washington and the U.S. team in Ottawa are discussing a myriad of other topics, but there are no negotiations. That's my understanding, anyway.

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

The Americans have yet to set conditions to resume official discussions. We know that they wanted to carry out this review, as did the partners involved. According to what you've said and what's been announced, though, that's not the case.

Have the Americans shown any interest in resuming discussions? Have they set any conditions? Have they said anything?

[Aaron Fowler]

I don't know whether the U.S. has set out conditions.

That said, I'd like to clarify a few things. The discussions that were ongoing with the U.S. were not related to the CUSMA review.

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

Of course, but the review was still planned and will be extremely complex. That said, if we can't agree on something less important than the review, it doesn't bode well for the review itself.

[Aaron Fowler]

Discussions are never easy.

However, according to a provision in the American act to implement CUSMA, government officials need to start the review process in 2026. The discussions being held a few months ago were related to something other than the CUSMA review, another mechanism. I would say the administration is more flexible regarding discussions.