Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak at third reading of Bill C-35.
As has been stated quite often in the House, this legislation is straightforward and responds directly to the recommendations contained in the 1996 parliamentary review. It updates an act that has been around since 1984 and proposes consequential amendments to a related statute.
Briefly, Bill C-35 improves the operation of Canada's trade remedy system with respect to anti-dumping and countervailing duties under the Special Import Measures Act and the Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act.
It also clarifies certain provisions in both acts through various technical amendments. SIMA is an important component of Canada's trade legislation. It implements Canada's rights and obligations under the WTO agreements in the area of trade remedies.
Under these international rules, special duties can be imposed when imports that are dumped or subsidized are found to cause injury to a domestic industry. First and foremost, this law is intended to protect Canadian manufacturers and agriculture producers whose operations are negatively affected by the goods that are unfairly priced or subsidized.
However, it must also be understood that in today's global environment market openness is critical to attracting investment and maintaining the competitiveness of Canadian companies. These Canadian companies often have to rely on imported inputs to meet the needs of their customers. These companies may, in some cases, be negatively affected by the imposition of special duties on imports.
Given this situation, SIMA must be careful to strike a balance between two often conflicting interests, those of industry seeking trade remedy action and those of consumers and other manufacturers who may be negatively affected by the imposition of anti-dumping or countervailing duties on imported goods.
This question of balance was key to what was addressed in the 1996 parliamentary subcommittees' report that reviewed SIMA. The subcommittees heard from a broad range of stakeholders on their experience with the SIMA system and concluded that the law continued to protect Canadian producers from injury caused by dumped and subsidized imports, while at the same time limiting collateral damage to consumers and downstream users.
They went on to identify several areas where the legislation could be made more efficient and more responsive to Canada's various economic interests.
The government, as hon. members will recall, supported virtually all of the subcommittees' recommendations and it is the implementation of these recommendations that we have before us today in Bill C-35.
As indicated earlier, the bill also contains several amendments of a technical or housekeeping nature aimed at clarifying existing provisions in the law.
The main themes of the subcommittees' report reflected in this bill include: the rationalization of the SIMA process in order to improve efficiency; ensuring access to the SIMA system by small and medium size enterprises; clarification of the public interest provisions; and the enhancement of transparency and procedural fairness.
I want to spend a few moments on the public interest provisions. At the reporting stage, the issue of allowing the Canadian International Trade Tribunal to recommend a lesser duty as a result of a public interest inquiry was raised by the Bloc and the NDP. They both opposed providing for it, and we recall that the Bloc proposed an amendment to the bill which would have amounted to leaving the public interest provision as it is now.
Essentially, the government responded by saying, as I said just a minute ago, that the bill implements the parliamentary subcommittees' recommendation in respect to the public interest and underscores the delicate balance that the bill was attempting to strike between divergent interests in the trade remedy area.
Essentially, the statement that I would make with respect to the public interest is that the lesser duty issue would only come up when it has been determined that there is a public interest issue. When recommended, a lesser duty aims to provide a level of protection sufficient to eliminate the injury caused by the dumped or subsidized imports, which is really the main purpose of SIMA, while ensuring that users and downstream producers are not unduly penalized by the measure.
In my mind, when I was listening to the debate at report stage, I asked the question: How can one oppose this? Those opposed to the lesser duty provision are suggesting that the interests of consumers and downstream producers are irrelevant. As we stated earlier, and I will state again, the government clearly disagrees with that.
In fine tuning the existing law, the investigative functions of Revenue Canada and the Canadian International Trade Tribunal will also better reflect the respective areas of expertise. By bringing Revenue Canada's treatment of confidential information more in line with the tribunal's practice respecting the disclosure of such information, procedural fairness and transparency will be enhanced.
Further, the tribunal will benefit more fully from expert evidence by allowing expert witnesses to play a more effective role in its inquiries. New penalties will deter the unauthorized disclosure or misuse of confidential information in the SIMA investigations.
Bill C-35 also clarifies the conditions under which the tribunal can consider issues of broader public interest and the types of measures that it can recommend in a public interest report.
In the committee deliberations on this bill hon. members heard from industry stakeholders on both sides of this particular issue. The stakeholders gave their support to the passage of this bill and there was agreement that Bill C-35 faithfully reflects the recommendations contained in the parliamentary report. This support is a credit to members of the House who worked together on the review and this legislation and in fact identified improvements that were acceptable to all parties.
In conclusion, I think members recognize that Bill C-35 fine-tunes SIMA to ensure that it continues to reflect Canadian economic realities. It also ensures that SIMA will remain a strong trade instrument that truly protects Canadian producers who have been injured by dumped or subsidized imports, while allowing an opportunity for other producers and consumers to have their interests considered. I urge my colleagues to support speedy passage of this legislation.