Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today. There has never been a more important time in our history to talk about trade. Therefore, I am going to talk about Bill C-30. I would invite all my colleagues on both sides to really take this opportunity to rise to the challenge that we are facing.

Twenty years from now we will remember the moment that we seized as parliamentarians to really move forward on trade. The world is waiting for us to ratify this agreement. This is going to be great for Canada. This is going to be great for Europe. This is the gold standard of international agreements.

Obviously, I am delighted to rise in the House today to speak to a very important bill, Bill C-30, an act to implement the comprehensive economic and trade agreement between Canada and the European Union, or CETA.

As Minister of International Trade, CETA is one of my top priorities. Many ministers have worked on this free trade agreement in recent years and, thanks to their efforts, the Prime Minister was able to sign this agreement in Brussels at the end of October 2016.

CETA negotiations began in 2008. It took many years of hard work to reach an agreement that addresses issues that have never been covered in Canada's other trade agreements, including NAFTA.

It is now up to us, as parliamentarians, to complete the legislative process and bring CETA into force so that all Canadians can finally benefit from it. This agreement is the result of a historic initiative to promote the prosperity of our country, and I would venture to say that Canadians in each of the 338 ridings represented in the House of Commons will benefit from it.

By signing this agreement we are gaining market access and improved trade conditions that go beyond the NAFTA provisions. What is more, we achieved this in a progressive and responsible way. This agreement will provide Canada with the growth and jobs its needs, while fully upholding Canadian and European standards in areas such as food safety, environmental protection, and workers' rights.

CETA will open opportunities for Canadian businesses in the EU's estimated $3.3-trillion government procurement market. Once CETA enters into force, Canadian firms will be able to supply goods and select services to all levels of EU government, including the EU's 28 member states and thousands of regional and local government entities. Imagine the opportunities for all the SMEs here at home.

Under CETA, consumers will benefit from lower prices and a wider range of choices. This agreement will also be beneficial for workers, since it will create more high-quality jobs associated with exports. It will also be beneficial for our businesses, no matter their size, as they will see lower costs resulting from the elimination of tariff and non-tariff trade barriers.

This is a progressive trade agreement that prioritizes the middle class, opens new markets to Canadian producers, and means greater prosperity for Canadians from one end of our great country to the other.

I would like to talk about the importance of trade. Canada's participation in international trade is vital to the entire nation's prosperity. Canada has always been a trading nation. Exports are key to our economy. They contribute to growth, productivity, and, of course, employment. Taken together, they represent about 30% of Canada's GDP. One in six Canadian jobs depends directly or indirectly on our export activities.

The small and medium-sized businesses in all of our ridings play a leading role in our economy. Employing some 10 million Canadians, they account for nearly 90% of private-sector employment in Canada.

Small businesses alone make up 90% of Canadian exporters and, in 2011, were responsible for $68 billion, or 25%, of the total value of exports. Creating new commercial opportunities for SMEs is therefore essential to growing our economy, because job growth and opportunities for the middle class depend on those businesses.

In 2015, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada released a report profiling SMEs and their characteristics as Canadian exporters. The report found that 10% of Canadian SMEs exported goods and services in 2011, with export sales accounting for about 4% of total company revenues.

The report also points to superior financial performance by exporters compared with non-exporters. Specifically, exporters generated higher sales, pre-tax profit margins, and returns on assets, on average, compared with non-exporters.

In addition, the report indicated that exporters are more research and development intensive than non-exporters, spending 8% of annual revenues on R and D, on average, compared with 6% for non-exporters.

Lastly, exporters are also more growth oriented than non-exporters. Indeed, the sales of 10% of exporters grew by 20% or more per year between 2009 and 2011 compared to only 8% of non-exporters.

I know that my colleagues in the House already appreciate the fact that trade and, in particular, the role of small businesses within all our ridings, is important to Canada's economic growth.

SMEs clearly play a major role in fostering the future prosperity of the country, and Canada firmly believes in the importance of helping our SMEs to be successful because this will create jobs and strengthen the middle class across the country. Concrete tools such as CETA are important as they motivate businesses and encourage them to seize opportunities in major foreign markets such as the European Union.

I will now turn to the government's role and the impact of the positive trade policy on Canada's businesses. The findings of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada's report support our government's continuing commitment to stimulating growth of SMEs and advancing an export agenda by entering into new trade agreements. These agreements help our SMEs because they ensure access to export markets abroad and they create conditions conducive to the competitive participation in these markets.

This is especially true in the context of current global value chains because international production requires goods to cross many borders. It is especially important to facilitate the flow of goods across borders to ensure the success of our businesses today and tomorrow.

The European Union is a key market for global value chains. It has more Fortune 500 companies than any other place in the world, including the United States. Broader access to these value chains provides a large number of Canadian SMEs a major opportunity to realize their goals and aspirations on an international scale.

I know that every member of the House would like to help the SMEs in their ridings conquer those markets, and CETA is another tool in the toolbox for our SMEs. Canada's SME exporters continue to focus predominantly on the U.S., with 89% of exporters selling to the United States and 74% of the value of exports generated by U.S. sales.

With CETA, we will see SMEs diversify their exports and pursue opportunities in the European Union, the world's second-largest market for goods. The EU's annual imports alone are worth more than Canada's entire GDP.

In this period of slower economic growth and of growing protectionist and even anti-trade tendencies in many areas of the world, it is particularly important to implement agreements such as CETA.

I will give an overview of CETA for all of my colleagues in the House. CETA represents many firsts for free trade in Canada and the European Union. CETA sets new standards in trade in goods and services, non-tariff barriers, investments, and government procurement, as well as in other areas such as labour and environment.

It offers preferential access to the large, dynamic European market.

It creates tremendous opportunities and gives Canadian businesses a real competitive edge.

It gives Canadian businesses a first-mover advantage compared to their competitors from other markets, such as the United States, which do not have trade agreements with the European Union.

CETA is a comprehensive trade agreement. Once it comes into force, it will cover almost every sector and aspect related to trade between Canada and the European Union. Of the EU's some 9,000 tariff lines, approximately 98% will be duty free for Canadian goods as soon as the agreement comes into force, as compared to the current 25%. An additional 1% will be cut over a seven-year phase-out period.

This agreement is vital to create growth in Canada and, as we know, growth means jobs for the middle class.

The elimination of tariffs under CETA creates immense opportunities for many of Canada's exports to the EU, where tariffs remain high. Let me give members a few examples: fish and seafood, which secures an EU tariff of up to 25%; wood, with an EU tariff of up to 8%; information and communications technology products, with EU tariffs of up to 14%; and machinery equipment, with EU tariffs of up to 8%.

Canadian services providers will also benefit from the best-quality market access the EU, the world's largest importer of services, has ever provided in a trade agreement, as well as the most ambitious commitments on temporary entry the EU has ever been granted.

Beyond increased market access, CETA includes many other significant achievements.

A protocol of conformity assessment will allow Canadian manufacturers in certain sectors to have their products tested and certified in Canada for sale in the EU. This is a significant innovation that will save companies time and money and will be particularly useful to small and medium-sized businesses.

This is also the first bilateral trade agreement in which Canada has included a stand-alone chapter on regulatory co-operation, which is forward looking and promotes early engagement as measures are being developed.

As well, CETA includes a detailed framework for the mutual recognition of professional qualifications, a key aspect of labour mobility.

Canada is one of the largest exporters of services in the world. It exported $16 billion in services to the EU in 2015 alone. CETA gives Canadian service suppliers the best market access the EU has ever granted to any of its free trade agreement partners. CETA will ensure that Canadian service suppliers compete on an equal footing with domestic providers, in certain sectors, and receive better treatment than most competitors from non-EU countries.

Provisions set out in the chapter on cross-border trade in services will provide for better market access assurances in many sectors of interest to Canada's economy, including professional services, environmental services, technical testing and analysis services, and research and development services. This is great news for all Canadian entrepreneurs.

CETA's labour mobility provisions will also enhance the ability of Canadians and EU business persons to move across borders. CETA provisions will make it easier for short-term business visitors, intra-company transferees, investors, contract service suppliers, and independent professionals to conduct business in the EU.

Investment also forms a substantial portion of the Canada-EU economic relationship. In 2015, the known stock of direct investment by Canadian companies in the EU totalled $210 billion, representing 21% of known Canadian direct investment abroad. In the same year, the known stock of direct investment from European companies in Canada totalled $242 billion, representing over 31% of known total foreign investment in Canada.

These numbers are significant. Canada needs more investment. More investment means more jobs for Canadian workers and more growth for our economy and a stronger middle class, something that each and every member in this House would be able to support. CETA provides greater incentive for EU companies to choose Canada as the attractive destination in this world for their investments.

CETA includes provisions to facilitate the establishment of investment, to protect investors against such practices as discriminatory treatment, uncompensated expropriation, arbitrary or abusive conduct, and to ensure that capital may be freely transferred. CETA's obligations are backed by a mechanism for the resolution of investment disputes, which includes both a first instance tribunal and an appellate tribunal.

Let me tell the House about the progressive nature of CETA, and that should make every member of this House very proud. Investment and dispute resolution are some of the themes that have been discussed at length here in Canada and across the EU. Canadian and EU citizens have voiced views and concerns on these important issues, and others, such as environmental protection, workers' rights, consumer health and safety, and a government's right to regulate.

One of the most important things that our government did right after taking office was to listen to the critics of CETA, critics who were gaining steam both in Canada and in Europe, and to understand some of the legitimate concerns people had. We worked with Canadians, including industry and civil society alike and, I would say, members and critics on the other side as well. Together with the EU, we responded to ensure that the economic gains from implementing this agreement would not come at the expense of these vital elements.

This includes making changes during the legal review of the agreement, as well as publishing a joint interpretative instrument with the EU at the time of the signature of CETA. It provided a clear and non-ambiguous statement of what Canada and the EU and its member states agreed with respect to a number of CETA provisions, including those in areas of public concern. CETA cements the paramount right of democratic governments to regulate in the interests of citizens on the environment, on labour standards, and in defence of the public sector. This is even more important in today's world, where we are faced with increasingly challenging times for trade and the global economy.

Let me tell the House about CETA in the world, the context we are living in today, in conclusion. We are seeing many nations now turning more inward and pursuing more protectionist measures following decades of ever-increasing openness. Many people are feeling that globalization has left them behind. People are faced with income inequality. They are suffering from economic hardships. They are worried about their jobs and future prospects. These are real and legitimate concerns.

That is why, at my first WTO meeting, I said to all the ministers, “Let us have a WTO for the people. Let us always make the people first in whatever decision we are taking.” It is all about people.

However, closing borders is not a solution. Doing so will decimate economic growth and make us all poorer as a result, especially for a trading nation like Canada, for which participation in global commerce is key to our prosperity. This path is clearly a perilous direction.

In conclusion, that is why it is important that Canada stands up to this protectionist trend and continues moving toward an open society for free and open trade. We must do so in a way that puts the middle class at the centre of our ambitions and at the heart of any deal. Not only is this the right thing to do, it is in our national economic interest to do it. I urge every member to speak in favour of CETA, vote in favour of CETA and for decades to come, people will remember what we did, a historic agreement.

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3:40 p.m.

Conservative

Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON

Madam Speaker, I am thrilled to see that the Liberal government has followed through on our commitment to put into place CETA.

I am concerned about one part of the agreement. The agreement itself is good, but there are some commitments that our government made that were clear to the supply-managed sectors and to the fisheries investment fund for Newfoundland and Labrador.

I wonder if my colleague would comment and actually commit here today in the House that his government will follow through on the commitment that our government made to the supply-managed sectors, especially dairy, and also to the fisheries investment fund for Newfoundland and Labrador.

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3:40 p.m.

Liberal

François-Philippe Champagne Liberal Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC

Madam Speaker, the first thing I will do is acknowledge that this has been an effort that has been made on both sides of the aisle. I am fortunate to be occupying this seat in the ministry at this time, and I do recognize that it has been a joint effort in getting us to where we are.

I met with the dairy industry yesterday. I meet with people every day, and I can reassure the member that we will protect supply management. I have said that publicly and also to our farmers.

With respect to Newfoundland and Labrador, I am aware of the situation. We will respect our commitment, because it is in the best interest of all Canadians. I want to make sure that all Canadians, wherever they live in Canada, see the benefit of CETA for themselves and their families.

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3:40 p.m.

NDP

Tracey Ramsey NDP Essex, ON

Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his passionate speech about trade. I share a passion for trade with him as the critic for our party, and we are strongly in favour of trade, but fair trade.

We need trade agreements that address all issues. Unfortunately, I did not hear the minister bring up the very real issue in CETA about the cost of pharmaceutical drugs. Twenty-five percent of the implementing legislation in CETA are changes to the Patent Act that will extend the cost of pharmaceutical drugs for all Canadians.

I certainly heard the minister speak passionately about average people, average Canadians in our country feeling left out of trade deals, and it is largely because the governments of the day refuse to address the real issues and how they will impact Canadians in their everyday lives. I would like to speak to the minister about that and say that Canadians have very serious concerns about the cost of pharmaceutical drugs in CETA due to the patent changes that I mentioned.

Mr. Verheul, the lead negotiator for CETA, visited the trade committee and said that they do not really have an analysis on the increased cost of drugs due to the patent changes. We know that Health Canada was required to provide one to the PBO study.

My question is simple to the minister. Do you have internal studies projecting the cost of drugs to Canadians, yes or no?

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3:40 p.m.

NDP

The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes

I will remind the member to address the question to the Chair and not to the individual member.

The hon. Minister of International Trade.

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3:40 p.m.

Liberal

François-Philippe Champagne Liberal Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC

Madam Speaker, first, I would like to extend kind words to the NDP critic. We already spoke on a number of issues, and I am blessed to have colleagues like her on the other side who are looking at progressive trade agreements in the same way that we are.

I cannot exactly address the member's question, but I promise to get back to her on that.

I can say that, in my first mission as the minister of international trade, everyone I met at the WTO said that this agreement is the gold standard in the world. It is the model for the world. Just about every minister who was at this WTO conference in Davos, Switzerland came to me and said that we have crafted with Europe the gold standard, whether we are talking about the environment or workers' rights. I explained to them that we want to be a leader in progressive trade.

I am sure that the NDP critic will work with me to make sure that everywhere we go in the world, whether together or individually, we will promote Canada as the champion of progressive trade in every instance that we can around the world.

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3:40 p.m.

Conservative

Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB

Madam Speaker, I would first like to congratulate my friend on the other side for his appointment as Minister of International Trade.

There is no doubt that an agreement with an economy that is about eight times bigger than Canada, the European Union, is great news for Canada. It is always great to have trade and to establish trade relations.

The hon. member mentioned something about supply management and how it is effectively working for the European Union, which I know we practise here too. In comparison, does the hon. member have any idea how that works best for us compared to the European Union, and are we on a level playing field in this case?

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3:45 p.m.

Liberal

François-Philippe Champagne Liberal Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC

Madam Speaker, the member and I have the pleasure of sitting on finance committee together. He has always been a constructive member in whatever we did.

Let me just remind members of the benefits of CETA. I mentioned a number of them obviously in my speech. We are going to be touring across Canada to explain the benefits of CETA because in every riding of this nation people are going to benefit from this agreement.

There are some things that we need to remember for Canadian businesses. CETA would reduce red tape and reduce barriers to trade. It would provide access to public contracts at all levels of government in the European Union. It would improve access to trade in services and would improve labour mobility. These are just a few examples.

I would like the critic and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join us in explaining CETA to Canadians as well as its benefits to them and their families.

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3:45 p.m.

NDP

Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC

Madam Speaker, a week or two ago I was visited in my office by representatives of the IOWU and the Seafarers International Union of Canada, who have been closely following CETA since it was negotiated. They expressed very loudly their well-founded concerns about the impact of CETA on cabotage rules in Canada, specifically on the rules that will allow European ships for the very first time in Canadian history to ply internal Canadian waters and engage in the dredging of our ports. Beside the obvious impact on security in our country by having foreign-flagged, foreign-crewed vessels plying our internal waters, something the U.S. has never allowed and to this day will not allow under the Jones Act, these representatives are concerned about the loss of the good, well-paying jobs of longshore union members and seafarers.

I wonder if my hon. colleague could answer their concerns. What can he say to them when they say the minute the government signs CETA, Canada will lose good paying jobs on its internal waterways?

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3:45 p.m.

Liberal

François-Philippe Champagne Liberal Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC

Madam Speaker, I want my hon. colleague to convey to the members of the unions that he just referred to that my door is always open to meet them. Since my appointment, I have sent a message saying that I will be happy to sit down with them. The member may know that my riding is close to the St. Lawrence River. I meet these people regularly. I would be happy to meet individuals from across the nation if they want to come and see me to discuss the issue. My door is always open.

We want to make this work for all Canadians. I am sure members appreciate that this is the gold standard of trade agreements.

I am certainly willing to meet with those individuals and I hope my colleague will convey that message. I will listen to them and we will work together to improve the situation for all Canadians through CETA.

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3:45 p.m.

Liberal

Marwan Tabbara Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON

Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate the minister on his new appointment.

Would you also agree with the B.C. minister—

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3:45 p.m.

NDP

The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes

I just want to remind the member to address his question through the Chair.

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3:45 p.m.

Liberal

Marwan Tabbara Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON

Sorry, Madam Speaker.

Would the minister also agree with B.C. trade minister Teresa Wat, who said that compared to NAFTA, CETA is Canada's most historic trade agreement?

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3:45 p.m.

Liberal

François-Philippe Champagne Liberal Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC

Madam Speaker, there has never been a better moment to be the minister of international trade, because at every forum I have attended people have looked at Canada because of its progressive trade agenda.

I want to stress that we achieved this because we worked with people in the NDP and the Conservative Party. We worked with everyone in the House and also with our European colleagues to make sure that this agreement would be the gold standard.

Honestly, everywhere I have been in the world people refer to Canada and the EU as beacons of free and open trade. People are looking at our agreement and saying it should be the basis of all future trade agreements. I could not be prouder.

The member is totally right.

We will continue to push forward. I invite all members to do the historical thing and that is to vote for CETA.

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3:50 p.m.

Conservative

Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to join the debate on Bill C-30, an act implementing our latest free trade agreement with the European Union. I was very glad to hear the minister speak on the subject. I congratulate him as well on his appointment to the ministry. For all those who did not make it, their time will come I am sure, when the minister faces tough questions and will be unable to answer them in the House.

As I have done before, I have a Yiddish proverb, and I love using them. “Words must be weighed, not counted”. I know when it comes to counting words in the House, two members will disagree with me that they should be weighed. The member for Winnipeg North and my dear colleague, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, might disagree with me in their race to the top. However, weighing the words is far more important.

I know many members have come to the House to talk about the details of the bill, the different sections they agree with or agree less with, and the impact it will have on Canada's economy. I want to take it back just a little to talk about the meaning of free trade, the meaning it has had for Canada, and the impact it has had on our history.

Canada has been a trading nation from the very beginning, since pre-Confederation, by our forefathers and those who came here early on when beaver pelts were considered the currency of our country.

In the earliest debates on Confederation at the time, when Canada was founded, there were great debates on how Canada would become a true country. They were about the maritime customs union. That is what the early pre-Confederation politicians of the day were debating. It took Sir John A. Macdonald, taking charge of the situation and hijacking these meetings, to turn it into a discussion about how they could form Canada, a country devoted to trading, both within the British Empire and with our neighbours to the south. From that moment on, the great debates in our country have truly been about how we can make free trade work for us.

At the time, those debates were called reciprocity. The reciprocity treaty had been annulled the year before, in 1866, and that was the great foundation of our country. That impulse that we no longer could trade as easily with the United States, formed a great need among politicians to come together, create Canada and be able to trade more openly with our British motherland, the great mother parliament.

It was Alexander Mackenzie, the second prime minister of Canada, a great Liberal prime minister, a great believer in free trade, who said that reciprocity was really what Canada was all about. It was very important to him and to his party that it be implemented and returned to what it was.

As I mentioned, it has been a foundational debate in Canada: how and with whom can we trade, and as freely as possible. It has never been about how the government can trade with another government, but how people can trade. People create corporations and enterprises. They are entrepreneurial. They look for the best deals, and it is not just about price. It is about the product people want. It is about obtaining the type of product and not looking at only the price, but the quality, its origins, whatever country it comes from, and being able to obtain it freely in a country without government interference telling them, through a tariff or regulation, or imposition of a ban, they cannot obtain it.

In a previous decade, it was a Conservative government that negotiated many free trade agreements, with 46 different countries, which brought the total up to 51 in Canada. That was 4.6 agreements per year.

Sometimes when I speak with students, especially students of history, I like comparing Canada to the Hanseatic League. It is in ancient Europe. We are about to embark on a great free trade agreement with Europe, including many of the countries whose cities were formerly with the Hanseatic League of ancient Europe. Canada is on the cusp of achieving a vast free trade empire, of which Prime Minister Harper used to speak. We have this great opportunity. Free trade will reshape our country and Europe as well. It is that combination of sharing a common history and common culture for many of us. It is an opportunity to shape the future for the next 20 to 50 years. It is not just for ourselves. It is also for our children and grandchildren, who will have opportunities that we did not have when we were much younger.

Other agreements have gone onto the wayside, like the TPP. It is my great hope the government will take up the TPP negotiations again and ensure we sign it with the partners that are still willing to go ahead with it. It is a great loss for the United States not to be moving ahead with the TPP at this time. I still have great hopes that Congress will change its mind and actually move on this. Again, it puts Canada right in the middle between CETA and the TPP and our free trade agreement with the United States.

We have an amazing opportunity to become the hub country through which goods can move, corporations can come and not just create good paying middle-class jobs, but also reshape our country and provide new opportunities and new ways of doing business, and creating wealth for the government to tax and pay for the public services Canadians have come to expect.

While TPP is a great loss for the United States, CETA is a great loss for the United Kingdom. A great many politicians in Europe and the United Kingdom have said this will be a be a loss for the United Kingdom, but they still look forward to negotiating free trade agreements both in Continental Europe and Canada, and finding opportunities to increase trade and to make it possible.

I like to quote from Daniel Hannan, a politician. Sometimes I also look at his videos and his speeches. He is now a former member of the European parliament, and was one of the big promoters of Brexit. He said that the union between the United Kingdom and the European Union was not some great utopia of free trade due to the regulations that were imposed on them. He said that the goal of a great many politicians in the United Kingdom still was to achieve free trade with Europe, Canada and with as many countries as possible to give this great opportunity for their citizens to trade freely with others. It is still good to aim high as much as possible. I am glad the government is pushing forward the legislation to implement the treaty and then to move on from there to other negotiations, to other perspective countries and regions with which we could achieve some type of free trade agreement and provide opportunities for Canadians to trade.

On January 24, The European Union trade committee voted 25 to15 with one abstention. The rapporteur for the CETA said that this was a strong response to growing protectionism and that trade would enable them to continue to bring wealth to both shores of this trans-Atlantic friendship. That is a great way of looking at it. It is not just about the business component. It is also about this great friendship we have had, which predates NATO and the British and French influence on this continent. It is a long-standing relationship that America in the very broad sense, America, Canada, Mexico., has been able to enjoy with Europe. We have a shared history. Our histories and politics are intertwined. We participate in international bodies together. Although we can disagree, and sometimes very profoundly, we maintain that friendship, and that agreement does not turn into rancour, warring among each other anymore, thankfully. Now we have an opportunity, through free trade, to mutually reach an agreement between ourselves that will be beneficial for our citizens and our residents.

Both Canada and the European Union recognize in the deal the right to regulate domestic rights, and both will remain intact. That is found in section 7(d) of the legislation. This should allay the concerns that multinationals will somehow gain more influence and be able to pit one government against another, or pit a regulation in order to try to indicate that it is unnecessarily targeting them in some way. Section 7(d) tries to allay some of the fears of some people who no longer support free trade, the great pull internationally toward more protectionism that we saw 100 years ago. We need to push against that. It is a good sign from the Liberal government that it is moving ahead with the European free trade agreement. It says that we are open for trade and business. We want to find ways to trade more freely with others. We want to reach an agreement to reduce tariffs, to align our regulations to give those opportunities to Canadians to trade freely with them.

CETA will not remove barriers on four specific areas: public services, audiovisual, transport services, and a few agricultural products, including dairy, poultry, and eggs. The European Union expects the trade between its bloc and our country to rise by 20% when the agreement is fully implemented.

If we look at some of the numbers from 2015, according to the European Union, if we count just the imports from Canada, they totalled just about $40 billion. If we look at the exports to Canada, it was $49.5 billion. This is just a rough conversion from the euro.

We could also look at the Observatory of Economic Complexity, which is a website I highly recommend to people interested not only in numbers but to have them visually explained, to visually show what the numbers actually mean in real trade and to convey the numbers in a way that is catchy and attractive to the eye. For Canada, if we have a rough comparator, it means in value.

We exported $45.2 billion in cars in 2014. If we compare that to the exports we got from Europe, it was $49.5 billion. Therefore, we can see the opportunity we have. The car industry in Canada is a sector of the economy. It is very big in Ontario and not so very big in Alberta, but it is an opportunity if we just compare these two numbers. The top imports to Canada were vehicle parts, $20.4 billion, which is about twice as much as our EU trade; refined petroleum was $17.9 billion; and delivery trucks were $12.7 billion. Again, we expected the boost to Canadian trade would be somewhere in the area of $12 billion. Therefore, that boost alone would be like doubling the delivery trucks we import.

Again, it would be like almost doubling the vehicle parts sector of our economy. It is a huge opportunity, a chance for Canadians and Canadian companies to find ways to meet the needs and wants of people overseas and, likewise, for those people in other countries, such as the European Union, to find ways to meet the needs of Canadians without having the government necessarily interfere in that free exchange of goods and services.

The 751-seat European Parliament will be holding a vote on February 15. Therefore, it is very timely to be having this debate and passing the bill. It would be a good signal to send to the European Parliament that we are onside and that we want to proceed as quickly as possible to pass this bill in both the House and the Senate so Canadians can start to do the legwork needed on the ground to prepare themselves to trade with our partners in Europe. I am sure European companies and European residents are getting ready to trade with Canadians.

Sending the message that we still believe in free trade is more important today than it has ever been before. As I mentioned before, there is a great rise in protectionism across the globe. A great many people have seen, for the past 30 years potentially, in their own individual cases the lack of opportunity. They have not been able to obtain the jobs they wanted. The free trade in their countries perhaps was not as successful as they had hoped, or the sector of the economy they were in, perhaps for extended periods of time, suffered from an agreement where someone else with a comparative advantage was able to trade at a lower price or for different quality goods.

Again, we are always trying to find opportunities to help Canadians retrain and find new sectors of their economy to go into, to find entrepreneurial routes to create wealth. Although there are those situations, we have to support this renewal through this agreement, this renewal of our faith in free trade that it is good for Canadians and that it has been part of our history. We can broaden this transatlantic friendship and with that, protectionist sentiment notwithstanding, we will make this work. It will not be perfect. Every sector of the economy may not profit as equally as another, but we will find opportunities to make it work. Where it does not work, we can always make an agreement with our European partners to get it done.

I will go back to my example of the Hanseatic League. That league was based on trade in Europe, especially around the Baltic Sea. It dominated trade for almost 400 years. Yet Hansa societies were working to remove restrictions on trade, especially regulatory restrictions on trade. Permitting and restrictions were a big deal in those countries, in those cities. It was very difficult at the time to freely trade among all regions there. The Hanseatic League, basically, made it possible to trade freely almost among themselves, to provide and ship goods to other areas that needed them.

The opportunities that the league found profoundly reshaped the Baltic states and cities. We can still see it today in the city from which I come. I was born in Danzig, Gdansk in Polish. After 1466, it became the leading grain port and made Poland the dominant exporter of grain through the association it had with the league. I lived in that city for four and a half before my family came here in 1985. It is marked by that profound association it had with the Hanseatic League. The entire port areas are either shipyards or old grain ports. The most historic well-known heritage buildings are old Hansa society buildings. They are all grain storage facilities. Those are the things people mostly recognize.

Even though there was such awful destruction in World War I and World War II and during the many riots and uprisings in Poland during the 1800s during the partitions, those buildings still stand today. They stand as a kind of reminder to generations that have come afterward of the opportunities trade has given cities like Danzig and cities like Hamburg, which greatly profited from the ability to associate with others freely and to trade freely with them.

I am convinced that CETA will reshape Europe and Canada for decades to come in a positive way, a better way. We will find opportunities to trade and will find, perhaps, wants and needs that we did not know existed in Europe. Likewise, they will do it here. We will grow that relationship we have with them, both in trade imports and exports but also in the friendship we enjoy. We will come to a better understanding of what our countries require or do not require. People perhaps will be able to move across to other areas of the world, again seeking opportunities, chances to create wealth for themselves and for their families to live, work, and play as they wish.

The freedom to associate has to also mean the freedom to trade. “Free trade, one of the greatest blessings which government can confer on its people, is in...every country unpopular”. Perhaps members think that was said in 2017, but it was not. It was actually said in 1824, by Thomas Babington Macaulay, the first Baron Macaulay, a British historian and politician, a Whig, no less. At the time, he was looking at continental Europe and saying that he saw a great rise in protectionism and a great rise in people no longer seeing the benefits of free trade and the opportunities they received from engaging in trade with others.

Again, it is the great paradox of our time that those who have gained the most from the liberalization of trade, especially since 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union, no longer believe in its ability to reduce extreme poverty. They no longer believe in its ability to reduce extreme deprivation in housing and energy. They no longer believe that it is as effective. We know that all the stats prove it. We can see with our eyes, when we travel to certain areas, that trade has benefited immensely countries in Asia, in Africa, and in Latin America. Things are better today than they were 100 years ago or 50 years ago. Since 1989, countries like Singapore, South Korea, and Poland have immensely benefited, and their middle class has benefited, from the ability to trade freely with others, and so have we.

The trade relationship we have with the United States is the one we know best. It is the one sometimes we take for granted as well. We do not do enough to nurture the relationship we have with our American friends to the south. Sometimes we take it for granted, and we should not, because just as Baron Macaulay said in 1824, the rise of protectionism can always return. We are seeing that today.

What we have to be doing with an agreement like this is passing it as quickly as possible through this House, with judicious debate here and in the Senate. We have to give ourselves the opportunity to at least move it along further so that when the European Parliament, on February 15, has its vote, it will see that Canada is ready to take advantage of this agreement we have negotiated in good faith with the European Union and that we want to follow through on it and deepen the relationship we have had.

The great reductions in poverty and deprivation we have experienced and seen with our own eyes over the past 60 years were not the result of status or socialist command economies. They did not lift more than a billion people out of poverty. It was free trade, free-market economies that succeeded.

Why are people opposed to it today? I will maybe leave off with a quote from Daniel Hannan. He mentions two things that are the problem between protectionism and free trade and the pull between the two: “dispersed gains, concentrated losses”.

We can see that in industries that are protected, that enjoy some type of grant from the government, a monopoly or oligopoly system, such as in sugar and tires. It goes on and on.

On one side, the gains of free trade are dispersed across the population, and it is hard to say, “This is why I have gained over the past 20 years and have been able to obtain a job that feeds my family and gives me the sense of hope and opportunity I have always looked for”. On the other side, concentrated losses, those who lose from it can sometimes lose very profoundly.

My family came to Canada not just because they were fleeing political persecution but because of the opportunities Canada provided. The free trade agreement is deeply embedded in that, and I urge the House to pass this bill as soon as possible.

Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

4:10 p.m.

NDP

Tracey Ramsey NDP Essex, ON

Madam Speaker, I share with my colleague a passion for trade and the importance of understanding that we are a trading nation, and I appreciate his global perspective.

When we look at what is happening across the globe right now, certainly there are implications for CETA. When we look at what has happened in the U.K., with Brexit, it is something we have to address. It is not something we can simply gloss over. If we sign CETA, we now have an unknown in the U.K., and 42% of Canadian exports are to the U.K. The Canadian concessions in CETA were based on the premise that the U.K. would be in the agreement. However, after Brexit, the Liberal government failed to re-evaluate the net benefit of CETA without the U.K. If the U.K. triggers its exit from EU, and also leaves CETA, is the member comfortable with the concessions Canada has made in CETA, given that the U.K. represents nearly half of Canada's exports to the EU?

Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB

Madam Speaker, I want to be respectful in my response, because I will disagree in principle.

I think the government has made the right move to push ahead with this agreement, because eventually there will be a Brexit. It is not perhaps; it is definitely when. Theresa May, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, has been very clear that there will be an exit. However, the U.K. will be signing some type of agreement with continental Europe. It will be the best position for Canada to be in to already have an agreement ready to go with continental Europe and from there to negotiate an agreement with the United Kingdom. I do not see a reason not to move ahead with it, when we know that our partners in the United Kingdom want to negotiate an agreement with us, which will be to the advantage of Canadians.

Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

4:10 p.m.

Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Madam Speaker, trade is critically important to Canada. We are a trading nation. Many of the jobs we have today are directly linked, and many thousands more are indirectly linked, to it. As the minister indicated a little while ago, CETA is the gold standard. This is no doubt something that will assist Canada's middle class, and by helping Canada's middle class grow, we are helping the economy. That is good news for Canada.

Does the member recognize that one bonus is that the European Union is looking to Canada to continue to demonstrate leadership, especially on the trade file? We have a wonderful opportunity to be the linchpin between the U.S. and Europe. By using this agreement, there could be some additional benefit for Canada to move forward in opening new markets for our many manufacturers, services, and so forth.