Evidence of meeting #17 for International Trade in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was need.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
David McKenzie Conservative Calgary Signal Hill, AB
Thank you for bringing these concerns. I will never sleep again, I suspect.
Conservative
David McKenzie Conservative Calgary Signal Hill, AB
Ms. Young, I want to ask you about the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the CPTPP. Is that something you're aware of? What would your members think about that being advanced and perhaps concluded someday?
Chief Executive Officer, Surrey and White Rock Board of Trade
Our members are happy for any kind of certainty when it comes to government relationships, regulations and the stability of being able to do business. If you ask your average small to mid-sized business what they know about that, maybe it's not a lot. Maybe they don't have the capacity to spend time looking into things that are beyond the day-to-day. What they do know is that when they all of a sudden have to hire a lawyer or a customs broker or a logistics consultant, because they no longer understand what's going on in their own business, those are the real day-to-day impacts that they see and that they ask us about: Can we get some answers? Can we understand what's happening? Can we please have some stability?
They just can't make any business decisions right now. We're seeing millions of dollars just sitting on the table waiting to be invested.
Conservative
David McKenzie Conservative Calgary Signal Hill, AB
Along that line, how long can your members hold out in this climate of uncertainty?
Chief Executive Officer, Surrey and White Rock Board of Trade
It depends. The top performers are taking advantage of the lack of action from others. They're making investments and decisions. Some are saying they're going to sit back and wait. That's the majority. Some are investing elsewhere. Some have to lay off workers, because they are unable to feel like there's something positive down the road.
You have to think that most of the small and mid-sized businesses in Canada are employing a lot of our neighbours. They really depend on those jobs. They're the ones who make the economy go round. This current climate is difficult for them. They just really want some answers.
Liberal
Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Young, it sounds like there's tremendous potential in Surrey and White Rock. You have rail, road, ports and the opportunity to grow. In your opening remarks, you brought up the business-to-business trade hub. Can you tell us when it was first established and some of the successes that have come out of that trade hub?
Chief Executive Officer, Surrey and White Rock Board of Trade
The Surrey and White Rock Board of Trade used to be two chambers of commerce. They just officially came together, after quite some time, in October. We're now the Surrey and White Rock Board of Trade. The trade hub is about six months old.
When I look back at what we've done before, I would say we've had a lot of policy successes, but when it comes to interprovincial trade missions, those are still on the books. Our greatest wish, to build the B2B networking across the country, is still to come. We're looking for some government funding to support that work so that we can roll it out to chambers across Canada. That is our hope.
The Surrey and White Rock Board of Trade does currently have over 25 signed MOUs with countries around the world. We regularly have round table discussions with visiting consuls general. Then we bring in impacted industries or potential customers and suppliers for those different countries. The B2B matchmaking piece that we're doing in the old-fashioned way, face to face, has been very successful. We're hoping to build that across the country with the trade hub.
Liberal
Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
Great.
You said you have 25 MOUs. Are those interprovincial or are those with other countries?
Chief Executive Officer, Surrey and White Rock Board of Trade
Those are with other countries.
Liberal
Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
We just heard about the CPTPP. Would they be some of the CPTPP countries? We just signed an agreement with Indonesia, which is another opportunity. Can you tell us about some of those MOUs?
Chief Executive Officer, Surrey and White Rock Board of Trade
Absolutely. These MOUs are essentially to build communication and connections. That is the purpose. For example, we've had Mexico come to the table and talk to us about the various different industries they have in the Baja part of Mexico. They've talked to us about the different trade missions they'd like us to join. There are perhaps agritech food shows. That's a big one.
We have a great relationship with the consul general of Guatemala. I don't say that just because he gives me coffee whenever I visit. It's also about cultural understanding and potential tourism back and forth. Really, it does come down to business. Guatemala and Canada have a great relationship when it comes to bringing agriculture workers into the country. That's an official way that we work together. We'd like to expand upon those opportunities.
The MOUs are really to say that I work with you and you work with me. We recognize each other and these potential opportunities.
Liberal
Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
I hope you're getting support from our trade commissioners' offices.
Liberal
Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
Those services are available. Great. That's wonderful to hear.
Mr. Worry, you mentioned Ontario's Bill 5 and Bill 40, which restricted any of these foreign controls from being able to be used here in Ontario. Is that what that legislation did?
Chief Executive Officer, Nuvation Energy
Bill 5 was enabling legislation that then gave Minister Lecce the ability to put regulations in place. Now we're going through a phase of drafting those regulations, which do indeed then restrict foreign adversaries' ability to participate in contracts to attach to the Canadian grid.
Bill 40 goes one step further. It actually provides funding to support that program. Domestic suppliers will be more expensive than foreign adversary suppliers. What they do is they buy access to the electric grid. Bill 40 provides the funding in order to support the Bill 5 initiative.
Liberal
Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
Is this something you'd want to see in other provinces, this type of legislation? What are you looking for federally?
Chief Executive Officer, Nuvation Energy
I think what Ontario has done shows excellent leadership. I think to scale that up to a federal level would be an excellent path to go on.
Liberal
Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
Do we have enough production here to support what's needed in terms of producing those controls?
Chief Executive Officer, Nuvation Energy
Absolutely. That's an excellent question, because it's a really important point. We can't just universally ban everything foreign adversary or ban everything China. For example, there are the battery cells themselves. China produces 92% of all lithium battery cells globally. We don't have the ability to manufacture those battery cells locally here in Canada or even in North America. We still require the ability to purchase those cells.
Conveniently, those are a lower-risk component. We can't hide an electronic backdoor inside a chemical battery. The electronics are thankfully a small percentage cost of the overall system. That's the high risk. That's really where we encourage focus.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much.
Mr. Savard-Tremblay, you have two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC
Ms. Young, can you speak to some liberties that the U.S. has taken with respect to the spirit of CUSMA as well as certain circumventions that have taken place?
You once spoke out about some cases, including the suspension of certain exemptions.
Can you expand on that?
Chief Executive Officer, Surrey and White Rock Board of Trade
I can't speak to any bad behaviour on that in particular. What I can tell you is that the Pacific northwest economic region of British Columbia's Lower Mainland, Washington state and some surrounding areas are very familiar with working well together. At a conference we attended in the summer, people from both sides of the border got together to talk about how we could work together. I was in the room when the U.S. ambassador directly said that Canadians have been “mean and nasty”. That right there impacted the relationship. We later followed up. The consul general of the U.S. came to visit us in Surrey. We had a conversation around what kind of relationship we want to have. We want to have upfront, authentic, honest relationships where people don't have to worry about aggressive tactics.
What the business community is doing is solving the problems that government has failed to solve. A Canadian company will talk to their U.S. counterpart. They will agree to split the tariffs that are impacting one of them. They will say, for instance, you take the Canadian customers here and the U.S. company will take the U.S. customers. They literally split their customer base. This is an example of how the companies are actually solving problems while they wait for government to figure it out.