International Trade Committee on Sept. 18th, 2025

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

How have these agreements helped Canada attract other manufacturers outside of the typical North American car companies we may consider, especially from Japan and other countries, to set up shop here and create employment in Canada?

[Brian Kingston]

It's been fundamental to that investment attraction, because Canada is a relatively small market in its own right, with about 1.8 million to 1.9 million new vehicles sold every year. You wouldn't necessarily put a plant in Canada to sell to just Canadians; you do it because you have access through NAFTA, and now CUSMA, to the broader U.S. market and Mexico, which means 20 million annual vehicle sales.

That's been fundamental. Without that access, the case to put a plant in Canada that can produce 300,000, 400,000 or 500,000 vehicles a year becomes a little challenging.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

It's fair to say that free trade agreements have been critical to job growth, competitiveness and, in fact, innovation in the Canadian auto manufacturing sector.

[Brian Kingston]

They're fundamental. They're the foundation of the industry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Savard-Tremblay.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank all the witnesses for their opening remarks. It's quite interesting since various groups are sharing their realities, their markets, their perspectives and their difficulties with us.

Mr. Vaillancourt, if I understand correctly, you're more interested in the system's architecture. You think it's important to take advantage of the current crisis not only to try redefining things as they were before, but also to try changing the current system in a more profound and sustainable way.

Does that summarize what you were saying a bit?

[Claude Vaillancourt]

Yes, that's exactly it. Since we're talking about rules, we're asking a few questions: What should be done with those rules? What kind of rules should be chosen? Who should benefit from them?

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

I'm going to start with a bit of an opportunistic question. Just this morning, the Bloc Québécois introduced a bill on transparency. Its purpose is to ensure that any international agreement is tabled in the House of Commons and is subject to a certain time frame before the vote. That way, there's enough time to know what's in the agreement, and it can't be signed in secret. Numerous agreements have been signed before they can even be debated publicly, so it's important that any agreement be debated, studied in committee and voted on before it is signed. The other thing is the fact that, in committee, we should be able to study not only implementation bills, but also the agreements themselves. That would enable us to change a lot more things.

Do you support that idea?

[Claude Vaillancourt]

Yes, we absolutely support that idea. We have been criticizing the lack of transparency in trade agreements for years.

First, information on the actual negotiations is shared piece by piece. Second, there's a lack of transparency related to the refusal to consult certain groups, such as the union movement, which rightly complained that it wasn't consulted enough on the free trade agreements. Third, the deadlines are often extremely short when the time comes to ratify a free trade agreement. For example, when the Canadian Parliament ratified the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, it did so at breakneck speed, without any real debate, as though that was something that had to be accepted.

Civil society organizations have to be given enough time to carefully examine the agreements and have their say, because there may be things that won't suit everyone, and that's exactly what has happened in the past. I think any openness to greater transparency would address what we expect as civil society organizations working on these free trade agreements. This is something very important in a democracy.

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

We're talking about transparency with Canadians and parliamentarians. In this committee, we've even had to study an agreement without even reading the text, which is absolute nonsense.

Now, a federated entity like Canada has provinces, even if I don't like the term when it comes to Quebec, which is recognized as a distinct nation. Do you think there should also be more involvement from the parliaments that make up Canada as a whole?

[Claude Vaillancourt]

Yes, absolutely. During the negotiations on the agreement between Canada and the European Union, it was said that Quebec would participate. However, Pierre Marc Johnson, who was the chief negotiator at the time, said that Quebec's participation was more in the hallways than at the negotiation table.

Given the importance of the sectors for which the provinces are responsible, such as health, education and culture, and the fact that they can be negotiated in free trade agreements, I think there should be more room for the provinces in the negotiations for free trade agreements.

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

You were talking about the negotiations with the European Union, for example. That is a far cry from what, say, Wallonia currently has, including actual veto power over what the Belgian state can do in this type of negotiation.

[Claude Vaillancourt]

Absolutely. Wallonia had sort of slowed down the negotiations through a series of objections, which were concerns expressed by a lot of citizen organizations, by unions, by….

Wallonia became the voice of a very clear opposition to this agreement. I think that needs to be said.

I think that Paul Magnette's speech at the time was remarkable, very comprehensive and very well supported.

We're aware of the current instability issues, and we've seen how certain politicians have taken advantage of that instability to impose policies that go against the interests of the people. That's one of the issues.

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

I have only 20 seconds left. I don't have time to ask a proper question, let alone allow you to expand on your answer, so I'll wait until the next round.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Groleau, you have five minutes, please.

[Jason Groleau, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Colleagues and witnesses, thank you for being here to help develop and support the Canadian economy.

Good afternoon, Mr. Roy. Thank you for travelling from the most beautiful region in Canada to come here to Ottawa. I'm obviously talking about Beauce. My question is for you.

There are a number of business opportunities. You spoke earlier about $400 million in opportunities. You want to export more pork to international markets. We, the Conservatives, obviously want to support you on this. You talked about this earlier, but what markets do you think are still being underexploited by the pork industry and have great potential for exports? Why do you think so?

[René Roy]

Thank you for your question.

I'll start with the countries in which we have a presence and where we could increase that presence.

Southeast Asia is a region that has very strong potential, that still has a young population and that's increasing its meat consumption, particularly when it comes to red meat. That's a market we have an eye on and are very active in.

Markets such as the European Union have strong potential, particularly for high value added products. Unfortunately, there isn't much access. Although we have a free trade agreement, we don't have access to the European market today.

[Jason Groleau, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

There's obviously an agreement in effect between Canada and the European Union, that is, CETA. There's something wrong, though. Why can't you export your products in the way you want?

[René Roy]

The issue is mainly technical barriers to trade. There's a theoretical openness to a certain quota that could be exported, but there are certain barriers. For example, the whole issue of deforestation was raised. If deforestation is established in a country, that country can no longer export to the European Union. Those rules, which are absolutely technical and arbitrary, prevent countries that should have access to exports to the European Union from being able to have that access.

[Jason Groleau, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Do you feel that the federal government adequately consults the pork industry when setting international trade priorities? If not, how could that process be improved?

[René Roy]

Our challenges arise once the process is established. As mentioned, the process obviously has to be open to the agri-food industry, which has certain specific characteristics. It's very important that we be consulted, but it's mainly in the fine print of the agreements that we come across challenges. In my opening remarks, I mentioned that, under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP, the United Kingdom imposes very specific production or processing requirements that shouldn't exist. It really imposes those requirements to prevent Canadian and North American products from having access to its market, whereas it has access to ours.

[Jason Groleau, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you. We'll come back to this in the second round.

Mr. Roy, the Prime Minister promised Canadians that he would remove the country's interprovincial barriers by Canada Day of this past July.

Have the barriers been removed in your sector, that is, the pork sector?

[René Roy]

I'm going to have to be careful with the words I use, because this is a slightly more technical subject.

In our sector, the pork meat sector, all slaughterhouses inspected by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency have the opportunity to trade meat in Canada and internationally. However, those with a licence issued by a provincial inspection agency are mostly limited to doing business in their province.

What we've proposed to the government is harmonization in the event that the markets for provincially inspected slaughterhouses are opened up. Otherwise, consumer confidence could be undermined, since the standards vary substantially from one province to another.

[Jason Groleau, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you. I'll come back to that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much. Your time is up.

Mr. Fonseca, you have five minutes, please.