Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise today to support Bill C-57, an act to implement the World Trade Organization under GATT.
I think it is a tribute to this House and to Canadians that we have all-party agreement for this to move forward. We recognize there are some problems that have to be worked out as a result of this trade deal as it applies to internal policy in Canada, but Canada needs this deal very badly. We have been a world leader in trade promotion and trade rules since the second world war.
In 1947 Canada was one of the early leaders in proposing a rules based trade arrangement with the GATT that took place. We have also been working very hard in the last seven years under the Uruguay round to bring about international trade rules that bring sectors such as agriculture and the service sector under international trade rules for the very first time. These sectors have been operating without these international trade rules and we believe they are very important.
We in the Reform Party are very supportive of the implementation of the GATT and the World Trade Organization. We are looking forward to the organization getting organized and up and running quickly.
Canada needs a rules based trading relationship. We will benefit. We have a small population in a big country; we have a lot of resources. About 30 per cent of our GNP is directly related to trade. Unlike some countries for example the United States which is far more self-contained, Canada needs to trade and we are a world leader in terms of trade.
One reason we need this is we have had a trade war going on in agriculture for approximately the last 10 years. We have seen how destructive this can be to the economy of the industry affected. Without the Uruguay round we were in danger of this expanding into other sectors, something Canada could not have had happen. It was very important to us.
We cannot play the game if everybody is playing by different rules. That is what we are saying by trying to get international trade rules. In that way trade is very much like a game. We always hear the term level playing field and there is a reason for that. It means we need to have rules that are equal and every team has the same opportunity under those rules.
To use an analogy, for me it is very much like hockey. Hockey is my favourite sport. It is a sport that Canada invented. We have set the rules for hockey over the years. We are very good nationally. We need to work as a national team when we go abroad. We have to recruit the very best players and we have to train those players. To that degree, it is very much like the Uruguay round. We need international rules in hockey as well as international rules in trade.
We need a neutral referee in hockey and in trade. The World Trade Organization is going to be that neutral referee applying the rules fairly. The Acting Speaker who was in the chair earlier will certainly know something about refereeing. He was in the National Hockey League as a referee for a number of years. The one qualification referees need is good eyesight. They have to be very vigilant and that will be the role of the World Trade Organization.
Canada is a trading nation and will benefit greatly by trade liberalization. Canada produces a surplus of many goods and services in demand around the world. Yet Canada cannot possibly produce the full range of goods and services that Canadians need. In that way it is to our advantage to export those goods and services we produce best. We do produce a lot of these very well, just as it is to our advantage to import those goods and services that other countries produce best.
In 1993 Canada exported $181 billion in goods and services totalling about 30 per cent of our gross domestic product, very high. For every billion dollars in new exports, over 1,100 new jobs are created. It is very important to Canada that we continue to be good traders.
With more liberalized trade the overall prosperity of Canadians will be enhanced. In Canada trade accounts for one out of every four jobs generated. In my riding of Peace River we are very dependent on trade to provide jobs.
The Peace River area of Alberta is booming right now. The economy is very strong. Agriculture is doing well. The oil and gas sector is booming. The forestry sector is booming as well. It is the good fortune of my riding that all of these industries have healthy export sales and it is no more evident than it is in the Peace River riding of Alberta.
We do have some problems in making this trade deal work. Some of them are right here at home. In that way I compare it with our national team playing hockey. We have to work with our players to make this deal work effectively for Canada, the players in this case being the business community and provinces, and we have to work together.
If I may continue with my analogy for a moment, if we cannot practise together how can we learn to play the game? Young players start by playing locally in the neighbourhood rink. If you are limited to your backyard, however, where do you get your expertise and where do you learn how to make the moves necessary to move on to the next level?
Recently GATT has rebuked Canada for having too many internal trade barriers. I think we have to pay attention. Having minimum compliance and getting Bill C-57 established and getting it into effect is the right approach. We want this agreement to be in effect very quickly. To do that we have minimum compliance. That means amending approximately 31 acts to bring us into minimum compliance.
It shows that we have some serious flaws in our domestic policy that have to be addressed. I hope that the manager of the team, the coach, the federal government, will be working to pay attention to those problems. Some of them are concerns over transportation regulation, transportation subsidies, government regulations, regional development. All of these things are really slowing us down in terms of competing effectively abroad.
There are many categories of barriers. In agriculture and the food processing industries there are over 100 of these barriers. They include marketing boards, production quotas, quality and packaging standards and transportation and stabilization subsidies.
In the liquor and wine industries we have provincial production requirements, local bottling requirements, differential markups, quotas, packaging requirements and marketing favouritism.
In the transportation industry we have different licensing requirements in different provinces, size and weight requirements, safety regulations, provincial transport board discretionary powers and varying fuel and sales taxes. It has been said that we have more barriers to trade internally than in all of the European Union. That is something we have to work very hard at to overcome.
In the area of government procurement we find explicit and implicit preferences for local suppliers and requirements for locally produced materials. With government procurement expenditures exceeding $100 billion per year, approximately 20 per cent of our gross domestic product, this is by no means insignificant.
In the area of labour mobility there are different licensing requirements for professionals and tradepersons from province to province. These barriers parade significant impediments to people wishing to move to other provinces since skilled workers have to meet additional licensing requirements.
Then there is the area of capital mobility where industrial incentives, local investment funds and local tax incentives are barriers.
Such barriers are often used for regional development and create an inefficient allocation of financial resources. The cost to our nation of these and other internal trade barriers is in the neighbourhood of $6.5 billion per year, something that simply is not acceptable and which we have to work on.
Interprovincial trade barriers have fragmented the Canadian marketplace and hindered Canada's ability to compete internationally. Furthermore, these barriers give competitive advantages to large firms that can afford to comply with the stringent rules imposed by government. At the same time they hinder small businesses from reaching their market potential. Unless we can improve competition within our own borders we will never be able to reap the rewards of these expanded trade opportunities.
Yesterday an interesting item was reported in the press. Garth Whyte, director of national affairs at the Canadian Federation of
Independent Business, says that he finds it ironic that Ottawa and the provinces appeared to work so well together in Asia but cannot agree on bringing down interprovincial trade barriers back at home. This is something I have mentioned many times in the past in this House and something that is really tying one arm of our business people behind their backs in their ability to trade internationally.
Mr. Whyte goes on to say that many members of the CFIB, which represents 85,000 small and medium size businesses across Canada, do not even dream of tackling foreign markets because they cannot expand into next door provinces that would allow them to grow big enough to compete abroad. It is one of our Achilles' heels. It has been recognized in our foreign policy review that we need to create a better international business environment at home, giving small and medium size businesses the opportunity to compete.
Most of our international trade is done by about 100 companies in Canada. There is much opportunity for small and medium size businesses to compete but we have to start opening up these trade problems and barriers at home to allow them to get a bigger share of the domestic market so they can use that as a chance to expand into the international field.
Our national team has some problems. We are not working together as a team. That is the job of the coach, the manager of the team on the other side. Team Canada has to work more effectively at home so we can do a better job abroad.
I see some problems coming as well with the implementation of the World Trade Organization and how it will affect us in Canada. It is something we have to work to resolve. There will be some disputes ahead that need to be settled by this government. To get back to my hockey analogy, if we slow down the game too much with too many penalties it does slow the game down. In this case it is tariffs and interprovincial trade barriers.
I believe that some of the problems we are facing are tariff rate quotas, the allocation of them. We have some problems with our supply management sector that have to be worked out. We have some problems under the Western Grain Transportation Act that will have to be resolved as a matter of the implementation of the World Trade Organization, and the export volume caps that are going to be imposed.
I would hope that government would work very closely with industry and the provinces involved to make this a very easy adjustment to be phased in so that eventually we can phase down quotas, subsidies and tariffs all across the country and Canada will be a free trading nation.
I want to quote a couple of examples, one of them being the beef industry. We are getting representation from both sides of that issue, which may be good or may be bad. One group is saying that the tariff rate quotas are high enough and it does not want them lifted. The other side of the industry is saying that they are much too low and it needs better access. I can see some problems coming. There will even be a market trade in tariff rate quotas which I do not believe is necessarily a good thing.
We heard earlier today from the parliamentary secretary, the critic for the Bloc and us. Everyone is looking at what the other major team, Team U.S.A., is doing. It is trying to change the rules of the game, adding many requirements and regulations as a part of its implementation legislation. It is not the right approach.
I believe that the referee, in this case the World Trade Organization, will look at that very closely when considering the disputes brought forward before the World Trade Organization. All of the relevant factors will be taken into account and we will have the weight of 123 member countries behind us when these rulings are made in favour of whatever party.
I would welcome very much that we move quickly to the implementation of the World Trade Organization, allow some of these disputes that have been lingering in Canada for some time such as the wheat dispute in western Canada. We all know about the amount of cases taken to the dispute panel in the United States with regard to steel. Those are two that should be moved quickly to the World Trade Organization to be resolved and have the weight of all of the member countries behind them.
What happens in the United States is of principal interest to Canada because currently it accounts for about 75 per cent of Canada's two way trade. We have a strong relationship with the United States which has allowed Canada to become the seventh largest trading nation in the world, even though we have a population that only ranks 31st in the world.
In conclusion, we in this party support moving quickly to the World Trade Organization, the full implementation of the GATT. We think we can do quite well. We are going to have a neutral referee with good eyesight, I hope. We are going to rely on the things that we do best, skill and agility. We are not going to resort to the tactics of some teams that tend to get the enforcers in place. We think we can do quite well based on skill. We can trade well with any country as long as we have a level playing field.
Let us get on with the game, let us get on with implementing this as quickly as we can and let Canada continue to take a leadership role at the World Trade Organization as it needs to be changed in future reforms. Let us at home continue to work hard, be diligent to resolve some of the problems that we have in terms of trade barriers. Let us be diligent at home with regard to getting our debt and deficit under control because we know that is one of the biggest costs in business. It is one of the reasons that we do not compete well internationally. We have a very high
tax rate. We think we can win the game if we look after that and do very well in trade.
We believe that Team Canada can hold its own with any team in the world, given the same rules.