Evidence of meeting #5 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 infrastructure.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
David McKenzie Conservative Calgary Signal Hill, AB
I have a document from the Canadian International Freight Forwarders Association where they raise “significant concerns towards the ongoing system reliability and consistency issues” that they see in respect of that.
Can you comment on that any further?
Executive Director, Center for North American Prosperity and Security
Unfortunately, I can't.
Conservative
David McKenzie Conservative Calgary Signal Hill, AB
Could either Mr. Volpe or Mr. Bellisle comment on the concern that's being raised by this organization?
President, Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association
I'll take a shot at that. I'm happy to.
That organization represents companies that auto part suppliers use to ship and receive goods. CARM is ambitious, but it's currently plagued with a lack of reliability, which is not helpful at the moment.
Conservative
David McKenzie Conservative Calgary Signal Hill, AB
I understand there can be up to a major outage per week in the accessibility of the system. My understanding is that this means goods stop at the border and can't proceed until the system is restored.
Is that your understanding as well?
President, Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association
I don't have the anecdotal evidence that you're citing, but I've certainly heard similar comments.
Companies have been looking for workarounds, but when you're working around something, you're taking resources from something and putting it on something else that you didn't budget for.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I'd like to thank all the witnesses for being with us today.
I have questions for all the witnesses, but I'll start with you, Mr. Volpe.
I've read that Canada needs a national automaker. You think we should have a fully Canadian vehicle.
I recently had the opportunity to attend an event at the German embassy in Ottawa, where we were presented with the prototype of an electric vehicle built entirely with Canadian auto parts.
Obviously, this prototype is very expensive, but could it have been a project that would have avoided the situation we're currently experiencing with the United States and Mexico?
President, Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association
Thank you for the question.
I think I recognize the person you're quoting and the person who coordinated the car.
Obviously, that was Project Arrow, which was put together by the APMA in partnership with Ontario Tech University to demonstrate that if we're going to build the cars of the future, we can source every single component from Canada. We couldn't get touch screens from Canada when we built it in 2023. I've been assured by three other companies that we can.
My commentary on a Canada car is separate from Project Arrow. Project Arrow demonstrates what we're capable of doing from a technological point of view.
My launching into a steering committee and feasibility study on whether we should have a national car company is looking at what Mexico has done, with the same threat from Donald Trump, to launch Olinia, which is President Sheinbaum's project. It's asking if we can direct some of that industrial activity ourselves.
I have said that when we do this feasibility study, we need to define what we want to do here. We don't want to build a national car company. I'm not suggesting a publicly owned car company that will compete with the Chinese with the same business model.
Do we have mobile capital, technology, people and enough dreamers in this country who say that it's a shot worth taking? We're going to do a deep dive, but we're also going to be very humble. If experts in every single discipline say that it's not a risk worth taking with public sector partners, we won't.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Thank you.
That's a very interesting perspective. We have to keep an open mind and think about solutions, given everything that's going on in the world and the imbalance we've been experiencing since last January.
Mr. Bellisle, earlier you asked that customs clearance be allowed in Montreal to lighten boats so that they can travel to Montreal and, eventually, to the Great Lakes. From there, they can even travel as far as the Mississippi.
What exactly did you mean by “clearance” and “lighten”?
President and Chief Executive Officer, QSL International Ltd.
We're asking that vessels be allowed to clear goods at the Port of Québec so that they can go to the Port of Montreal.
In Quebec City, the water depth is 15 metres, which allows certain types of ships to pass through. Along the St. Lawrence River, the water depth is 10.5 to 11 metres. If a fully loaded ship requires 12.5 metres of water, it must be lightened in order to enter Montreal.
Currently, ships leaving Europe and going directly to Montreal have to be loaded at 80% or 85% of their capacity. If ships could stop in Quebec City, they could increase their load by 15% for importers or exporters. Imagine the gains in energy, greenhouse gas reductions and competitiveness. Costs have already been absorbed. The sailors and the fuel are already on board. The ship literally passes by my office and goes as far as Montreal with a load 15% below its full capacity.
If these ships could be received at the Port of Québec, they could be allowed to transport more goods and lighten up in Quebec City so that they could continue their journey to Montreal. That would make the supply chain much more competitive.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Intermodal transportation also requires other infrastructure. There is port infrastructure, but there also needs to be other infrastructure so that goods can enter or leave the port by land.
President and Chief Executive Officer, QSL International Ltd.
That's the beauty of this project. Usually, such projects are delayed by difficulties related to infrastructure construction and everything to do with the seabed. However, in the case of this project, the infrastructure is already present at the Port of Québec. The Canadian National Railway is there, the highways are there, the port is there. You just need to reconfigure the superstructure and have customs clearance, so customs officers. The investment required to do that is minimal compared to the billions of dollars invested in New York, for example, to lift the bridge and dredge the Hudson River. That would be a significant competitive gain for our entire supply chain.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much.
Mr. Jeneroux has the floor, please, for five minutes.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Thanks, Madam Chair.
I thought I might get cut off with the time, but that's great. I appreciate the time.
I want to start with you, Madam Tronnes.
You're a University of Alberta grad, right?
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Perfect.
Madam Chair, I think we should pass a motion that there's always a University of Alberta grad present at this committee. There are now two, so—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
I'll just let the committee know that Mr. Volpe has indicated he'll have to leave at 4:45.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
I'm sorry, Mr. Volpe; I'll have no questions for you today, although we missed out on the baseball and Expos reference that you usually bring to the committee.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
We'll do it next time. I'm not going to eat up my time with that.
I do want to get back to you, Madam Tronnes.
You mentioned what the United States is paying attention to right now. Let's go back two or three years. I remember when we went down there. We sat in the office of a congressman or senator and got beat up for the first third of the meeting just on defence spending and then we moved on to issues that Canadians wanted to talk about.
Are you indicating that there's a lot more knowledge or awareness from the elected officials down there of the issues we're facing when it comes to, say, interprovincial and cross-border trade?
Executive Director, Center for North American Prosperity and Security
Yes, I think the mixed blessing of Donald Trump putting us in the crosshairs meant that people in the United States were really paying attention to what was going on in Canada for the first time. It wasn't just that people would ask me what a premier was, but actually why didn't we have interprovincial trade. People were starting to watch our news and understand a bit more about the country, which was fascinating to me.
One of the other things that Americans are looking at is the game of baseball where the Nationals are the former Expos. Is that what Volpe would say, talking about how we're out of the playoffs?
There is a lot more understanding of our issues. There's a lot more understanding of our failures as well, of where Canadians need to pull up our socks and do our part for our allies. That doesn't just mean on things like defence, but also national security, border security. As Mr. Trump has made painfully aware, he doesn't believe our border is secure and we have to do something about that. It's also when it comes to Five Eyes, what are we bringing to the table? Is it time for Canada to start thinking about bringing some human intelligence capabilities to the table? We can't always be the one who shows up at a potluck thinking it's a buffet. We have to bring something.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
That's a good line.
It started coming forward for me even before the Trump administration when we saw a joint letter last year, maybe going back two years now, on the push-back on the DST and the Online Streaming Act. As much as this particularly lays at the feet of the relationship between the current president and our government, I'm curious about whether you see it as something that has slowly been building for years to the point where now there's the focus on Canada?
Executive Director, Center for North American Prosperity and Security
I think so. This is why I took the opportunity in my opening remarks to talk about digital and the upcoming Online Streaming Act enforcement, as well as the encryption backdoor, because what we're seeing from the administration, if you're paying attention to the digital file, is a vice-president who's very publicly taking credit for getting another country to squash their encryption legislation.
Canada has one of those coming up in Bill C-2, and what happened with the DST is potentially going the same way with the Online Streaming Act. That is one of the reasons I chose to highlight those two issues, because I think they are front and centre in the mind of the administration and they're some of the next irritants that are up for discussion.