Debates of Jan. 30th, 2020

Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation Act

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member for Vancouver East speaks of transparency in our trade negotiations. It is absolutely critical. We are presuming to negotiate on behalf of all the key industries across Canada, millions of companies across Canada, including small and medium-sized enterprises. It is important that we receive the input required to negotiate a really good deal.

There are elements within a trade negotiation that have to remain confidential. We are not going to spill all of our trade secrets. Of course we are not going to spill our strategy so our adversaries can see what we are doing. The NDP would not understand that because it has never been in a position to negotiate these agreements. On top of that, if we reflect back on the history of free trade negotiations in Canada, the NDP has almost consistently voted against Canada's free trade agreements.

If the member for Vancouver East is suggesting she will support the new NAFTA, that is a change of heart, and I welcome that change of heart.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, the two parties, the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, are bickering over who is better at negotiating free trade agreements. There have been many expectations right from the start of this NAFTA renegotiation process. The Bloc Québécois and Canadians have always been critical of the secrecy surrounding these agreements.

Since yesterday, the parties have been saying that this is a fundamentally bad agreement and that we knuckled under. To the Bloc Québécois, the aluminum loophole is unacceptable because it affects good jobs and workers, not to mention the green economy. There could have been a lot more transparency on this front. All the parties could have opposed the ways and means motion so that we could study this gap in committee, but they did not.

What proposals do you have for improving NAFTA? Yesterday, the Bloc Québécois made some suggestions. Are the parties open to improving the provisions concerning the aluminum sector for the workers, the good jobs—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I would remind the hon. member that she is to address the Chair.

The hon. member for Abbotsford.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, there is one redeeming factor in this agreement, which is that it provides certainty for our business community. It is a worse deal than we had before, by any measure, but it does provide certainty in our relationship with the United States. I would like to highlight that. That is why Conservatives are in favour of sending this to committee for the fulsome review it deserves.

The member asked what the improvements are. That is why we want to get it to committee, where we can dig down deep into this agreement and see what can be improved, as well as see the willingness of the Liberal government to make those improvements, including the improvements that the member suggested put Quebec at a real disadvantage when it comes to the aluminum industry.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, this situation reminds me of a story of when I was young. It was my parents' anniversary. My father came home and my little sister looked at my father and yelled, “Roses, roses.”

My mother was behind me modestly smiling and my father presented my mother with a beautiful bouquet of tulips. My mother was a little disappointed as she had wanted roses, but instead received tulips. In this moment, she decided, similar to this agreement, that it was good enough.

There has been a big debate within the Conservative caucus that this is not a great deal, as the previous speaker indicated. We have lost a lot. Why is that? Let us look at it for a moment.

There was a memo written by a prime minister, as published in the National Post, which indicated three reasons. The first is the inconsistency we have seen within negotiations and taking strong stances without thinking that the President of the United States might cancel NAFTA, which certainly the opposition felt was a very real possibility, as well as all Canadians.

It was the government's decision to work almost overwhelmingly agreeably in the beginning with Mexico. I joked, desearía estar Obrador. I would love to be Obrador in this moment with Canada wanting to work so closely. In fact, it was quoted as, “the U.S. is both irked and mystified by the Liberals’ unwavering devotion to Mexico”, rather than Canada and Canadians. That is the second part.

The third, of course, is that it was a criticism of the Liberals for pursuing their progressive trade policies in these talks. Did they really think that somehow they would force the Trump administration into enacting their entire agenda on union power, climate change, aboriginal claims and gender issues? While the Canadian government was doing that, the Americans were laying down their real demands, and we got outmanoeuvred and out-negotiated, as my previous colleague mentioned.

Let us look at the things we lost. My colleague also touched upon that, but I will remind members again that on aluminum, we were not afforded the same provisions as steel. On dairy, 3.6% of the Canadian market opened up to imports. The accord now dictates specific thresholds for Canadian exports of milk protein concentrates, skim milk powder and infant formula. If the export threshold is exceeded, Canada adds duties to the exports in excess to make them even more expensive. Also, within dairy, we have seen milk classes 6 and 7 eliminated.

As well, the temporary entry for business persons has not been updated to reflect the new economy. As someone who studied in the States, I certainly have an appreciation for the J-1 visa. Then, of course, there is the H-1B visa. As my colleague recognized, Buy America was absolutely not addressed, another way we were outmanoeuvred.

Finally, auto rules of origin were ignored and I will add that forestry was as well, which my colleague expanded on quite significantly. The softwood lumber dispute was not even addressed during the negotiations. The following quote says it very well, “The United States is measuring this deal by what they gained.” Our Deputy Prime Minister “is measuring it by what [s]he didn't give up.” That is not good enough at all.

Conservatives feel we have a duty to support this bill at second reading on behalf of Canadians. Canadians would certainly be better with it than without it, but even the commentary around it is very lukewarm. If we look at the commentary from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, it states, “The CUSMA...was an imperfect but necessary agreement to provide greater predictability in our relations with Canada’s largest trading partner.” That is not very enthusiastic.

In addition, my good friend and colleague Goldy Hyder with the Business Council of Canada said that the new NAFTA is, as my mother thought the tulips were, “good enough” for Canada, something that “gets us through this administration.”

I will now refer to the Deputy Prime Minister's letter to Canadians. It states, “We faced a series of unprecedented trade actions from the United States. It was a protectionist barrage unlike any Canada has faced before.” I wonder why that is. “This national consensus is remarkable.” Yes, that this deal is okay. “That said, there is a reason why more than 75 per cent of Canadians support ratification of this agreement.” I would argue that it is fear and resignation.

Who are the winners? As my previous colleague mentioned, President Trump. This is clearly one for the president.

He got a legit, comprehensive deal done with two foreign countries and Democrats, who are currently trying to impeach him. He can also say he delivered on a key campaign promise: to renegotiate or “terminate” NAFTA. The deal should be a positive for the U.S. economy, another boost in an already improving economic picture for 2020. It also gives him confidence and momentum in his trade battle with China.

This, of course, is the reason we have the special committee.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi played this right. She made the decision to focus on the one issue of labour rights rather than asking for an overwhelming barrage of a number of interests. We were really outplayed there, without question.

It is said in this Washington Post article that USMCA will “create 176,000 new jobs in the United States”. Congratulations to the U.S. I wish we could say the same.

What did it say about Canada? It said, “The Canadians managed not to cave too much to Trump.” That is pretty sad. That is hardly good enough. The paper went on to explain all of the things that we lost, which is very unfortunate, because there are a lot.

Why are we pushed into a corner on deals such as this? It is because the Liberal government has no clear foreign policy strategy based on consistent values like the previous Conservative government had, and we have absolutely seen this consistently.

In 2017, the Prime Minister promised to lead Canada into a new era of international engagement. He said his foreign policies would focus on improving Canada's commitments to multilateralism, human rights, the rule of law and effective diplomacy. But when it comes to foreign policy, the Liberal government has fumbled every single step of the way. It has conducted its foreign affairs, including this trade agreement, with style over substance.

We could go on and on: the Prime Minister's disastrous trip to India, the concessions he made here and his government's inability to bring home two Canadians arbitrarily detained in China. All of this has done everything to damage Canada's reputation on the world stage and our relationship with trade partners.

Rather than following proven approaches to diplomacy, the Prime Minister has chosen to rely on social media and this has absolutely hurt Canada.

The Deputy Prime Minister has also done this. She irresponsibly tweeted about civil society and the imprisonment of women's rights activists in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia responded by freezing all of its investments in Canada and expelling our ambassador. As a result, Canada was left with zero ability to influence Saudi Arabia on human rights.

The Prime Minister has failed to deliver the new era in Canadian international engagement that he promised. Canada's inaction and lack of strategy when it comes to major players has allowed these countries to expand their spheres of influence around the globe. Make no mistake, others are watching, including Donald Trump. Being a good ally and contributor on the world stage requires more than just talk. Strength and confidence are respected.

It is time to renew Canada's reputation globally, promote the values that we stand for and assert our sovereignty as a nation once more, which we did not do in the negotiation of this agreement.

Canadians deserve better than “good enough”. Would we have surgery by a doctor who is “good enough”? Would we fly on a plane with a pilot who is “good enough”? Canadians deserve a principled, well-thought-out foreign policy, but the Liberal government is not delivering it. We care about the Canadian people, the dairy worker, the auto worker, the rig worker and their families. That is why we are supporting this at second reading to send it to committee. Canadians deserve better than “good enough”.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Madam Speaker, the member opposite keyed in on two things toward the end of her speech, supply management and the dairy worker. I find it very rich that members of the opposition benches talk about how important supply management is when the member for Abbotsford, who previously spoke, was the minister responsible for negotiating away major parts of our dairy sector under CETA and CPTPP.

I was at the Dairy Farmers of Nova Scotia AGM last week. I reminded farmers that it was the United States that was pushing the fact it wanted to get rid of supply management and it was the Conservatives who simply gave it away under CETA and CPTPP.

Will the member opposite recognize or perhaps enlighten the House on that inconsistency, where we fought to maintain the system and the Conservatives got rid of it under no pressure?

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, I think we are coming up on three years ago this May when we made a clear decision as a party to support the dairy sector. We have supported the sector in policy. I take offence to the member trying to pass the responsibilities, the negative effects in fact of his government's work on to us. This accord was negotiated by the Liberals, not by us.

We have been consistent in our principles and policies. We did not have a chance to act. Dairy farmers were counting on the Liberal government to effectively negotiate this part, in addition to the whole NAFTA agreement, and it failed.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank our colleague from Calgary Midnapore for talking about the issues that Canadians from coast to coast are concerned about with respect to this trade agreement. She gave an elegant speech on softwood lumber, for which we have seen major concerns in western Canada, particularly in B.C., along with aluminum and milk.

My concern is this. We have lost our sovereignty. When we want to trade with non-market economies like China, we have to get approval from big brother, the United States. Why did this happen? Why did the government agree to this?

I would like the hon. member for Calgary Midnapore to comment on that situation.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is such a good point that it speaks to a bigger problem, one which I tried to address within my speech. That is the complete lack of a strategic, coherent, foreign policy by the government, including a great power strategy, which was evidenced by our discussions today at the Canada-China committee.

Sadly, I think what my colleague is referring to is a symptom of the greater problem that exists, which is an overabundance of selfies and costumes and not enough strategic, coherent policy.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Madam Speaker, auto rules of origin were avoided in her speech. I would like to remind her that I have Toyota Motor Manufacturing in my riding. When I spoke with the organization, it mentioned this was a great deal for Canada. Many of its Toyota vehicles are exported to the United States, and we wanted to ensure we had a great deal.

With respect to exports, one of the things the United States administration was very focused on was that 50% would be U.S. content. We fought vigorously and said that at no cost would we have this and we strictly opposed the United States for it.

Also, originating content was at 62%. We bumped that up to 75%. Now auto workers, particularly in Mexico, have to make over $16 an hour. Therefore, could she comment on how the auto rules of origin were avoided?

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will just say that “when you lose, you lose”. I think of a great commercial I saw last Friday in the United States. It said “stay home, save 100%”. This would apply in this situation. It is fine to look for little gains. I mentioned that this was good enough. Ultimately, it will probably raise prices for Canadian consumers for automobiles. However, again, a loss is a loss.

[Lenore Zann, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Madam Speaker, for over a year, Canada has been negotiating very hard for a modernized free trade agreement with the United States and Mexico, now called CUSMA or the new NAFTA. We knew how important it was to get it right and to get a fair deal that was good for Canadian workers and good for Canadian businesses and communities. We did everything in our power to protect jobs, create more opportunity for Canadian workers and their families and to ensure the growth of our economy. I believe it has paid off.

The new NAFTA will benefit Canadians from every corner of the country and will reinforce the strong economic ties between our three countries. I hope to see support from all colleagues in the House to get the job done.

The new NAFTA also maintains our country's preferential access to the United States and Mexico, which are Canada's largest and third-largest trading partners respectively, while modernizing long, outdated elements of the North American Free Trade Agreement. This includes labour obligations regarding the elimination of employment discrimination based on gender.

This new NAFTA is the very first international trade deal that recognizes gender identity and sexual orientation as grounds for discrimination in its labour chapter. That is very worthy of our support. This includes our obligations regarding the elimination of discrimination based on gender. That is huge.

When it comes to supply management, the U.S. starting position was to completely dismantle Canada's supply management. The U.S. summary of objectives for NAFTA renegotiation was to eliminate the remaining Canadian tariffs on imports of U.S. dairy, poultry and egg products. Our government has defended our supply management system. This agreement will provide some market access, but most important, the future of supply management is now not in question. This is very good for our dairy farmers and for many of the farming sectors.

Our farmers and our dairy producers will be compensated and dairy farmers can start receiving their first cheques this month. In Nova Scotia, we are very pleased about that.

I forgot to say, Madam Speaker, that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Vancouver Centre.

Another aspect of the trade agreement, which is important to Nova Scotia, is agriculture and seafood as well. Our government has worked extremely hard to negotiate and to defend these interests of Canadians. We protected the North American agriculture and agrifood trade. We have protected the Canada-U.S. bilateral agriculture trade of $63 billion; the Canada-Mexico bilateral agricultural trade of $4.6 billion; and through the new NAFTA, we have also made gains for farmers. Through CETA, the CPTPP and the renegotiation of NAFTA, the biggest free trade deals in Canada's history, we have been able to preserve, protect and defend this supply management system.

When it comes to forestry, we feel that Canada's forestry industry supports really good jobs across the country, especially in Nova Scotia, which is important to me. However, we feel the U.S. duties on Canadian softwood lumber are unfair and unwanted. Work remains of this.

Nova Scotia remains Canada's number one leader in seafood exports, with more than $2 billion in exports or 29% of Canada's total seafood exports. The U.S. remains our closest and largest market, but China is now second, with an increase of 36% of our seafood in the last few years. We hope the new virus does not affect us too much. We have seen some effects momentarily, but we hope that it does not last.

Finally, our government will always stand up for our cultural industry, because it means protecting a $53.8 billion industry, representing over 650,000 quality jobs for Canadians. That is 75,000 jobs in Quebec alone.

The new NAFTA has important benefits for Quebec, including preserving the cultural exemption. It gives Canada flexibility to adopt and maintain programs and policies that support the creation, distribution and development of Canadian artistic expression or content, including in the digital environment. This is very important to creative industries. As a former actor, writer, producer, I for one know how important that is to our bottom line.

That is why Canada stood firm to protect the cultural exemption and our economic interests during the renegotiation of the new NAFTA. We will always defend our cultural sovereignty, because that is the right thing to do for Canada.

When it comes to the environment, the new NAFTA has a new enforceable environmental chapter. This replaces the separate side agreement of before. It upholds air quality and fights marine pollution. We believe that commitments to high levels of environmental protection are an important part of trade agreements. After all, without the environment, we do not have an economy. These protect our workers and they protect our planet.

When it comes to drug prices, our government knows how proud Canadians are of our public health care system. As Canadians, this is part of our identity. We do not have to sit here arguing whether universal medicare is good; we know it is. We also know that the affordability of and access to prescription drugs remains an important issue for so many Canadians, especially our seniors.

That is why budget 2019 takes bold, concrete steps to lay the foundation for national pharmacare, like the creation of a new Canadian drug agency. This is an important issue for our government. Our government will always stand up for our public health care system, and the changes to data protection for biologic drugs may have an impact on costs. I can assure the people that we will work with the provinces and the territories on the potential impact of these changes.

We have worked hard to achieve a very good deal that will benefit all Canadians. The enforceable provisions that protect women's rights, minority rights, indigenous rights and environmental protections are the strongest in any Canadian trade agreement to date. Of that, I believe we can all be very proud.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech given by my colleague from Nova Scotia. I noticed that she reacted quite favourably to the idea of farmers getting cheques.

In my riding, that also means that these farmers are now dependent on subsidies. If there was one thing our farmers could say they were proud of, it was their ability to contribute to Canada's economy without relying on handouts from the government. The consequence of signing three consecutive free trade agreements with concessions is that it affects close to 10% of quotas, and therefore hinders their ability to generate income.

Is the member really happy to compensate farmers instead of ensuring they can generate their own income?

[Lenore Zann, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Madam Speaker, I feel it is a lot better than it was, especially when we start at the beginning, when the Americans did not want to allow any subsidies whatsoever. As I stated in my speech, they were dead set to try to get rid of the things we had in Canada which they did not have in America. They wanted to get rid of supply management.

When I was running in the last election as a newcomer, I definitely supported supply management. It is so important. I know it is important for the dairy farmers in Quebec. The member has many different industries in Quebec for which this is very important.

Although I always believe we can do better, this was very good negotiations on our part with America at this time.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, one of the frustrations on this side of the House is that we will support the deal at the end of the day. We understand that the Canadian economy wants bankability and stability. We get it. However, people are not happy. They are plugging their noses, saying let us get bankability and stability, but it is not as good as what they had before in a lot of ways.

There are simple examples of things that could have done in this deal that would have made things more progressive right across North America, and one is the labour mobility. Why did the government not modernize that area? Why did it not take the companies from 1994 and modernize that part of the chapter to 2020? There are all the high-tech sectors and the biotech sectors. There are all these professionals in new technologies that cannot travel back and forth under that labour mobility chapter.

Why would the government not, if it were looking forward, have modernized that part of the chapter?

[Lenore Zann, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Madam Speaker, I hear the member opposite, but when it comes to the 21st century and tech jobs and also IT, one can do that from anywhere. It is not necessary to be in one country or another. Many countries are working together on these types of jobs, and one can do them from a small place in Yarmouth and be in touch with somebody in the Carolinas. I think movement is a rather old-fashioned idea now. We can do things on screens. We can be talking to somebody from across the world on a screen and still be working together.

I think that, as I said, things can always be better, but given the circumstances we have now and with our trading partner to the south, we are doing extremely well. I am really pleased that we got the deal that we did.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member talked about drug prices and about fundamentally being on Canadians' side. However, when it comes to pharmaceutical prices and transparency in trade deals, the Liberals have consistently shown that they are on the side of big corporations.

The Liberals promised an entire chapter to promote gender equality, but where is that? We see only superficial language on gender equality. They promised an entire chapter to promote indigenous rights, yet there is no mention of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

New Democrats believe in strong environmental provisions that can be fully enforceable, and in making sure that we are in line with our obligations in the Paris Agreement. We only got rid of chapter 11 investor-state provisions because of the work of Democrats in the U.S.

Why do Canadians need to rely on U.S. Democrats to stand up for them?

[Lenore Zann, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Madam Speaker, again, this is the first time we have ever had women's and gender rights expressed in a free trade deal of this sort. I think that is a huge step forward.

Personally, having lived and worked in the United States as an actor, I came home to Canada and Nova Scotia because this is a much better country to live in. I will fight for Canada. I will stand up for Canada. I feel we are much better off here. We will always fight for our rights, for indigenous rights, for first nations, for women's rights and for multicultural rights because that is just the right thing to do, and we are Canadians.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Madam Speaker, as members well know, since August 2017 when we were told that NAFTA was going to go by the board and we would have to start thinking about how we would renegotiate, a lot of things were put out there as, “this is not going to happen anymore”. Therefore, since August 2017 and until we were able to ratify this and sign on to the new CUSMA, we have done a great deal of work, and Canada did that work.

One of the things we need to talk about, because anyone could find loopholes in this deal, is that any deal or negotiation means that no one side is going to get everything it wants. There is a bit of give and take here in order to get this and keep this.

We had a very strong set of negotiators. I want to point out that our negotiators were not just our Minister of Foreign Affairs, our Prime Minister and our bureaucrats. We brought labour and industries to the table. We brought Canadians and farmers and people who had a vested interest in this to our table. We all began to talk about what the most important things were for us to get when we were at the table.

Having negotiated for the doctors in British Columbia on occasion, I can tell you that we have to go in and say, “We are not going to budge on this.” We knew what we wanted, and we dug our heels in, and that was decided on by the team of people who were negotiating with us. We all realized what we had to give up, and we all decided what was strong.

This deal is better in many ways than the old NAFTA. That is because the team decided on what was most important. We must not forget that we have maintained privileged access to the U.S., which is our largest trading partner. We do 76% of our trade with the United States, so that was an important thing.

We have heard people talk about sovereignty. It is said that Canada's sovereignty went by the board. One of the things that is very clear, and what we dug our heels on and retained, is what is indeed sovereignty for Canada.

We managed to keep control over our key cultural sector. Canada is different culturally from the United States, and we know that. We see a huge $54-billion cultural industry in Canada, which has created about 650,000 jobs across this country, with 75,000 of those being in Quebec alone. Because Quebec is distinct in language and culture, we have been able to maintain sovereign control over that part of who we are as Canadians, and that is important to remember.

We also kept true to some of the more important things: our values, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Our values are very clear in terms of what we stand for as Canadians. Gender equality, LGBTQ rights and minority rights were negotiated and kept strong. We have strong and enforceable language on all of those things, which we did not have in the old NAFTA.

When people say we gave up our cultural sovereignty, etc., we did not. We kept the things that were vital to us. I want to remind everybody that those decisions were not just made by the government. They were made by a team of everyone coming together who decided that these are the things we are going to fight for and we are not going to give up on. We got most of those things.

We have heard about the cultural sector that we have protected. In my province of British Columbia, the film industry is massive. In fact, the number one special effects globally come out of British Columbia. We were able to keep that moving and growing. This is important when we talk about jobs and the people who are benefiting.

Looking at British Columbia, we have heard a lot of talk about softwood lumber and the forestry sector, but we did something very important. We managed to keep a very strong and enforceable dispute resolution mechanism when it comes to looking at things like softwood lumber.

Supply management was something that we were promised by the United States. The U.S. said it was going to take it away from us. We have kept it, so supply management is no longer on the table for debate. How we get better deals for all our dairy products, etc., is an ongoing negotiation and we need to look at how we move forward.

In British Columbia, where 77% of our agricultural exports go to the United States, we have managed to keep that. We have managed also to allow our farmers access to Mexico, which we did not have extremely good access to. Now we have broadened our market within Canada.

Again, for those of you who have long memories, we used to have to go to the WTO on softwood lumber every time. We struggled for years debating it and going to the WTO, and the United States ignored us. Now, we have enforceable and strong dispute resolution mechanisms, so we do not have to spend a lot of time dealing with what we know is going to come up. Everyone is still going to try to deal with protectionism, but we have ways now of fighting that very clearly.

For me, there are a lot of important things in this agreement. One of the things that is key to being Canadian is medicare, our public health care system, which has not been touched. Our ability to maintain, change and deal with our public health care system in the way we have always done is sacrosanct, and it is still there. When we talk about sovereignty, we talk about that as being sovereign. We are bringing in pharmacare. Our government is working on this.

The ability to bring down, from 10 years to eight years, our biologics information and data and put that out for generics means we are going to get cheaper drugs, especially for expensive drugs like biologics.

There are some really important things that do not have to do only with trade but with maintaining who we are as Canadians, what we stand for and what we think is important. This agreement would enhance our ability to continue our health care, especially when health care and Obamacare have been under great threat by the United States. We know that we can keep what we have, and we see how important that is.

Again, we have enforcement language on environmental standards in forestry and our agricultural sector. We have also maintained our plastics ban and all those kinds of environmental issues that Canada has acted on. We are talking with a country that does not believe in global warming, but we have still managed to keep intact our own ability to deal with it.

Our oceans protection plan, which protects species at risk in our oceans and which our government brought forward with $1.5 billion, remains intact. We have an agreement to help to look at how our whales and turtles are under threat, and how we need to maintain and sustain those threatened species.

Also, we would look at fishing and compare stocks to see if overfishing is harming our ability in British Columbia to maintain ordinary stocks of fish, such as salmon. Therefore, while we have endangered species, we also have ordinary fishing species to look at and how overfishing would impact maintaining some of those stocks, which is extremely important.

When we look at labour, we have the ability to enforce the fact that there are going to be strong standards around labour. For instance, in the United States, discrimination based on sexual orientation is no longer there. In Mexico, we had seen a strong push-back against unions and labour rights. We have that in there. It is there and it is enforceable. We also have very strong dispute resolution mechanisms to deal with a country that would deny these labour rights. We have moved forward on a whole lot of things that we did not have before.

One of the important things to remember is that this agreement is very good for my province in terms of the fact that 50% of all the lumber that goes to the United States comes out of British Columbia. It is important for us, and these clear dispute resolution mechanisms are going to stop us from running back and forth as we did in the old days with the WTO.

In closing, I am sure that every one of us in the House, including me, could pick holes in this agreement. Of course there are going to be things we wish we could have had, such as everything we wanted when we went to the table. However, if members have ever negotiated before, they would know that when we go to the table, we go with 100 items, but will go to bat and dig our heels in on 50 of them, because we have to give some up to get some. This is what happened.

This is a great deal. It is a better deal than we ever had. I hope all members in the House will recognize it and think of Canadians, our economy and the jobs that will come out of it, and ratify this agreement.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague mentioned British Columbia and the effect of the softwood lumber disagreement. I was wondering if she could clarify her comments. I was not quite sure what she said in regard to this agreement and the softwood lumber dispute mechanism. I was wondering if she could clarify for all the people who depend on the softwood lumber industry for their jobs and the economy in British Columbia.

Is the member saying that this agreement kind of gets rid of that dispute?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Madam Speaker, no, it does not. We are always going to have a dispute over softwood lumber with the United States because it has softwood lumber producers as well. In British Columbia this is important to all of us, with 145,000 jobs coming out of the softwood lumber sector.

The important thing is that we are not going to have to go to the WTO every five or six years only to have the United States ignore the WTO ruling. We have won on every one of the rulings. However, if we now have a clear process, a clear dispute resolution mechanism, then as we win those they will be enforceable. We will not be tracking around for seven to 10 years trying to negotiate softwood lumber. That is important.

Procedure for Votes in the Chamber

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Madam Speaker, I rise regarding the question of privilege that the whip brought forward yesterday, as well as the recent comments and explanation that was given by the member for Vimy. I want to take a couple of moments to comment, and I appreciate the opportunity to do so, and then we can continue with the debate on the bill.

I want to begin by thanking the member for Vimy for her explanation today. We all understand what it is like being a new member of Parliament and not always being sure of what it actually means to be in the chamber when the question is being read. I want to let the member know not to feel bad about that and that we all understand. We are glad that she now understands where she needs to be when the question is being read.

There are a couple of items I want to point to regarding two issues I know the Speaker indicated he would be looking at and making some decisions on. The first is on the issue of misleading the House. There is some precedent which I think is important we have the opportunity to hear and consider as the Speaker makes his decision.

On February 25, 2014, the House leader of the official opposition raised a question of privilege regarding statements made in the House by the member for Mississauga—Streetsville. The hon. member for Mississauga—Streetsville had deliberately misled the House during debate on Bill C-23, the Fair Elections Act, when he stated that he had witnessed evidence of voter fraud first-hand.

He further argued that the matter was not resolved by the statements made by the member for Mississauga—Streetsville on February 24 and February 25, where he admitted that, contrary to his original claim, he had not actually witnessed what he had originally claimed to have witnessed and he apologized to the House.

On March 3, the Speaker delivered his ruling, citing what Speaker Milliken was faced with in February 2002 when the then minister of national defence, Art Eggleton, provided contrary information to the House. In that case as well, the minister indicated that he did not intentionally mislead the House and he too apologized.

Speaker Milliken went on to conclude, “In keeping with that precedent, I am prepared to accord the same courtesy to the member for Mississauga—Streetsville.”

We have two precedents where prima facie cases of privilege were found despite members indicating that they did not intend to mislead the House and apologized. There is precedent where when this House and the Speaker are misled, there still is a case of prima facie privilege and that there is a consequence that needs to be found for that action.

With respect to my whip's motion to send this matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, I refer the Speaker to the second edition of Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, page 227, which states:

In the final analysis, in areas of doubt, the Speaker asks simply:

Does the act complained of appear at first sight to be a breach of privilege...or to put it shortly, has the Member an arguable point? If the Speaker feels any doubt on the question, he [or she] should...leave it to the House.

I am asking the Speaker to leave this matter to the House to decide, and if the House decides to send this issue to committee, then the committee can look at, in addition to the misleading statement, the issue my whip raised as to establishing a mechanism for the Speaker to deal with disputed votes, which is particularly important in a minority Parliament.

We need to deal with the issue of deliberately or not deliberately misleading the House and there is precedent for that. As well, we need to deal with the matter of the importance of votes. In a minority Parliament, we still have the question of how we would have dealt with it if it had been a matter of confidence and the government had lost that vote, which we all know is of grave importance.

I wanted to make sure that was presented as the Speaker continues his deliberations.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I thank the hon. member for her submission and will take it under advisement.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-4, An Act to implement the Agreement between Canada, the United States of America and the United Mexican States, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation Act

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, we know that the American cultural industries are the most powerful and largest in the world. Their product covers the globe and they are always aggressively looking for new markets. Despite their power within the United States, as a stakeholder, we were able to achieve an agreement that has a carve-out for cultural industries.

I would like the member to speak to that in the context of the way Canada stood firm and negotiated smartly and strategically vis-à-vis the United States on this issue.