Yes, we have certainly seen this as the member for Nickel Belt comments. We have seen this in a variety of other areas.
We have seen the problems that exist in this. We have very clear comments from witnesses saying that what we have done is given up so much and obtained very little. We also had testimony from the B.C. building trades, Wayne Peppard, who noted:
Many municipal procurement policies contain procurement provisions on quality, qualifications, training, safety, employment standards and, in some instances, fair wage and living wage policies. These social and legal commitments now stand to be challenged.
Union agreements that provide for local hiring or contracting-out language may be at risk.
There is no doubt about the fact that we have a fundamentally flawed agreement when we look at how much we have given up and how much we have obtained. It is obvious that the work of the trade committee has helped to expose how unbalanced things are.
There is a series of recommendations that talk about the due diligence, doing that work beforehand, that we have to continue to monitor this agreement right through to see whether even that $1 billion market is accessed. How much we end up giving up, how many jobs are cost, we need to do that ongoing procurement.
What is mentioned in the recommendations is also the issue that we need to have data collection. That data simply was not available. Witnesses were able to finally bring it together through their own knowledge, but we did not receive any real information from the ministry or from the government. We should also be looking to seek exemptions in such sectors as steel and other highly integrated sectors of the Canadian economy.
Finally, what we have said in our supplementary opinion to this report is that we need a buy Canadian plan. This helps give us leverage to negotiate the agreements that actually do bring jobs to Canada.