Debates of Jan. 28th, 2021

Canada—United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement Implementation Act

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, the interpreters are having connection problems again. They are having a hard time hearing my hon. colleague's speech and following what he is saying.

The House of Commons interpreters are doing amazing work. Connection problems and the fact that some members wear masks complicate things and make it impossible for the interpreters to do their work properly, so this is a major problem. Francophone members of the House of Commons have a right to understand the debates, as do anglophone members. That is democracy.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I can see that the member is not wearing a mask right now, so that is not the cause of the interpretation problem. I do not know how good the connection is at the moment, but we are certainly experiencing some difficulties. I recognize the right of all members to understand what is being said.

I will look into this issue, see what can be done to solve the problem and get back to the House. In the meantime, I will allow the member to continue in hopes that the interpretation will work as it should.

The hon. member for Prince Albert.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely correct. I want people in both English and French to hear what I have to say, because they need to understand the bad job done on this agreement. As I said, coming from Saskatchewan, we are a trading province. We sell and export, whether it is potash, grain and oilseeds, forestry products—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I will ask the hon. member for Prince Albert to disconnect and reconnect his microphone to see if that fixes the problem. If that does not work, we might try one more thing.

The hon. member for Prince Albert.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, Saskatchewan is a trading province. We sell potash, forestry goods, grains and oilseeds all around the world. Trade is very important to us. What is frustrating for us is the instability. What is also frustrating for us is when we see a problem coming on the horizon and no action is taken to deal with that problem.

I will go through the timelines to show what was going on.

In September 2017, the Prime Minister sat down with the then British prime minister and talked about the importance of having a seamless transition after Brexit. In July 2018, they did better and gave notice that Canada and the U.K. transitional trade agreement would be a seamless trade deal. In March 2019, when the U.K. published its first round of tariffs, we should have said that this was fine, that we did not need to do a deal.

Tariffs are not the only things to talk about in a trade deal. Did we talk about regulatory harmonization? Did we talk about labour transitions and moving labour back and forth? Did we talk about environmental aspects? A lot of other things can go into a trade agreement, not just tariffs.

What is frustrating in this whole deal is that the Liberals pulled out. They walked away. Not once did they consult with anyone in the chamber, or the business community, or in a variety of different ways or even Parliament. They just withdrew. In the meantime, our competitors did not. In the meantime, other countries said that there was still more to be had there and they kept at it.

In January 2020, the EU-U.K. withdrawal agreement was ratified. There was a transition period until December 31, 2020. Then did we say the EU deal was done, that we had better get at this thing? In May 2020, we see the new tariff schedule and realize there is a problem. One would think the Liberals would have reacted then. At that point in time, and I remind the members of the government, we were asking those questions. We were asking where the government was in regard to having a seamless transition with the U.K. We were told not to worry.

In July, the Liberals finally thought they should do something. In August, they entered into some sort of agreement. It is interesting that when they talked about trade negotiators, I asked what the deadline would be once they started the negotiations. I was told it would be December 31. How do we get that through Parliament in such a way that it could be ratified and done by December 31, that we actually had something secure in place?

Then there is the whole idea of a transitional agreement, or a continuity agreement, which they are calling it today. When look at it as as continuity agreement, we get it. We needed to buy some time to put something in place to provide that seamless transition. That is fine, but then we see there is no trigger mechanism to force a renegotiation. There is nothing in there such as a sunset clause or another trigger item to force both sides back to the table to get the real trade agreement completed, something that addresses a lot of the Conservative issues that are hanging over the EU trade agreement.

I know our agriculture producers have been saying over and over again that the Canada-EU agreement has some issues that need to be dealt with and we do not want to inherit those issues with a U.K. trade deal. There things need to be worked on, but there is nothing to trigger that in this continuity agreement.

Looking back in November going into December, we would have something in place for December 31, but nothing that would ever be ratified right now. It is total disrespect for everybody involved in trade with the U.K. It is a big deal. It is our fifth-largest trading partner and we sell almost $20 billion worth of goods there. We import roughly $9 billion worth of goods. We have a trade surplus with the U.K. and we want to maintain that trade surplus.

How can the Liberals be so nonchalant about it? How can they not take it more seriously? One of the things I have complained about over this last year is that we do not have a full-time trade minister. We have a minister who is in charge of trade in small and medium enterprises. Do not get me wrong. I am not criticizing the minister. This is not her fault. It is not her fault she is given too much. Both roles require full-time ministers. Small and medium enterprises need to have a full-time trade minister and trading companies and trading businesses that trade abroad need a full-time trade minister.

It just shows that the Prime Minister does not understand the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises. Nor does he understand trade and the impact it has on the economy. It shows how he treats this and how nonchalant he has been about it.

What really frustrates me with the government is that the response does not happen until it is a crisis. It is a crisis that has blown up in our face and now we have to deal with it. Now we have to react. As I said earlier, we could see this coming on the horizon. We could have been proactive and done a lot of things to head this off.

We should be talking about a finalized trade agreement at this point in time. We should be like other countries that have complete trade agreements with the U.K. right now. We should have been talking about this last September.

As we look at this, it shows a pattern with the government. It has to be a crisis. We can see another crisis on the horizon called “buy American”. Again, the government entered into a deal with the U.S. We would have thought it would have learned from previous trade deals that buy American was an issue. We would have thought that it would have solved the forestry problems, aluminum and steel problems, but no. The government put its head in the sand, ignored the hard stuff and kind of got it through. Now we can see what the President is doing with buy American.

There are two ways to look at buy American. It could be a huge problem. No question about it. However, I will also remind the government that under the agreement between Stephen Harper and Obama, a Conservative and a Democrat, we got a waiver from the plan to buy American. Canadian businesses could do business on a federal level in the U.S. I would also remind colleagues that our biggest problem back then was with municipalities and states. There was no agreement there. Now 38 of 50 states have signed on to WTO agreements that allow us to use a waiver to sell into those contracts.

The Prime Minister is best buds with President Biden. I expect him to cash in on that. I expect him not to make the same mistakes he did with Obama, because Obama was crying out for help on TTP. If the Prime Minister would have listened at the time, we would not have had to go through another U.S.-Canada trade agreement. It would have been done in the TPP.

The frustration I have is not with the agreement itself. Businesses want it. They need it. We have to help them get through. We have to ensure there is bankability and stability.

I hope the Prime Minister does not say anything over this time period until it is actually in force that would cause the U.K. to say “screw you and bugger off”. In the meantime, let us get this done and move forward. Let us go forward with a real agreement that businesses can take to the bank.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Small Business]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague who sits on the international trade committee for all of his advocacy and work on international trade matters.

I listened with a lot of interest to his speech. One thing that concerns me is this recital of the negotiation calender without the context, which is completely normal. That is because we do not share our hand in poker. There are many reasons why in trade negotiations we may have to strategically pause to restart on a better footing. There are many reasons why in negotiations there are opportunities that need to be seized at particular moments in time.

With this agreement we were able to, as the member himself pointed out, secure stability for our exporters in the context of Canada having a trade surplus with the United Kingdom and not making any concessions on the supply-managed sector, which is so important to constituents in his riding.

Is it better to rush through something to get a deal that is so-so, or is it in the interests of Canada to get the best—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

There is only five minutes for questions and comments. I would hope that members keep their questions within the one-minute mark to allow other members to participate as well.

The hon. member for Prince Albert.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, I enjoy working with the parliamentary secretary on the trade committee. She is doing her best to defend the government, which is hard to defend, so I compliment her on how hard she tries to do that.

With respect to the strategy around this, there is no a strategy. There have been no consultations. There has been no work done with people outside of government to ask what is needed in the agreement. There has been nothing done that would allow the government to say that its stakeholders are saying it should do this or do that, and that it needs to step away because of it.

You talk about how you protected supply management, yet you do not have a deal. You have a continuity agreement—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

We have a point of order by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands. I want to remind the member speaking that he is to address all questions and comments directly to the Chair. That was the point of order brought forward.

I want to go to another question, so I will let the hon. member finish up very quickly.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, my point is that nothing is protected. This is just a continuity agreement that is not even in place yet. Let us see what the final agreement has in it and whether you take care of supply management then. The reality is that you have not done a good job taking care of your commitments with respect to supply management.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I remind the member to address questions and comments to the Chair and not directly to the member.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I want to circle back to the parliamentary secretary's remarks. She was saying that sometimes one might pause strategically in trade negotiations to try to get a better outcome, but the outcome here, it seems to me, has been to obtain the status quo, and doing so late in the game, blowing through a couple of different deadlines and causing a considerable amount of anxiety for Canadian businesses in the process.

Does the member have some thoughts on whether this was a case of a well-deployed strategy that got results, or the misstep that it appears to be?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, the reality is that this is not a strategy. I see this as a crisis reaction. That is quite common with the current government: It is not until there is a crisis that it reacts. Sometimes it creates a crisis so that it actually can act. If it had been proactive and respected Parliament like it claimed to do, we would have been dealing with this last September. We would have put this through committee, people would have been consulted appropriately, we would have had a chance to have the appropriate number of witnesses, and this would have been in place for January 1 so it could move forward. None of that was done.

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

Madam Speaker, I have a very simple question: What impact does the member believe this agreement will have on our agricultural producers? I am thinking of supply management in particular. What will be the impact of reopening these negotiations?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is interesting that supply management always comes up in every trade negotiation. The trick is to provide the market access for the commodities that are not supply managed, such as grains, oilseeds and beef, while still maintaining the pillars of supply management here in Canada. Sometimes that is done through compensation or other mechanisms that allow supply management to thrive and grow in light of allowing market access for the groups.

We have no clue what the current government would do with supply management, depending on what is on the table. It has no history of even following through on commitments that were made in trade agreements before, where it was supposed to compensate the supply-managed sector and never did, or it took so long to do it that the sector almost had to protest to get the government to act and fulfill the commitments it had made to the sector.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be the last of the Conservative Party members to speak on this topic today. We are here to talk about the Canada-U.K. Trade Continuity Agreement that will replicate essentially the same terms and conditions as Canada has in the Canadian-European trade agreement, but in this case with the U.K. because the U.K. is no longer part of the European Union. This continuity agreement largely maintains the terms and conditions of CETA, but makes sure we have stability and continuity to be able to continue the trade agreement with the U.K.

What I would argue, though, is that this agreement is the floor or should be the minimum requirement of our relationship with the U.K. from a trade perspective going forward and should be viewed as barely the starting point.

My colleagues today have spent a great deal of time talking about the delays, the lack of consultation and all of the things that have challenged us in getting to this point with the agreement, which has left us behind the power curve with a trade continuity agreement. I would like to move beyond this agreement and talk about how we absolutely must make broadening and expanding our trade relationship with the U.K. a priority.

First, Canadians need the government to provide a plan with defined timelines to replace this continuity agreement, which is supposed to expire in a year, with a comprehensive Canada-U.K. trade agreement. Second, Canadians absolutely need the government to facilitate, support and coordinate an increase in our trade with the U.K. A trade agreement is merely the beginning; we need further action to ensure that the agreement is leveraged and actual increased trade results from it.

Even before COVID, we saw that the global economic balance of power was fundamentally changing, with economic power being used by some countries as a mechanism to increase their political power and strategic interests. Trade has been used as a weapon to influence behaviour. We only have to look to some of the things that the People's Republic of China has done to Canadian soybean, canola, pork and ginseng exports, frustrating the process and introducing non-tariff trade barriers that have mitigated our ability to leverage our exports, causing a distinct disadvantage in our economic outlook. We can also look at the devastating effect China has had on Australia with its embargo on critical Australian exports, which has undermined Australia's economic stability during COVID.

Therefore, with some of our partners, we need to be wary of trade being used as weapon. After COVID, we will need stable, dependable and robust trade. It will be critical for Canada, as some countries will race to gain even greater strategic advantage in their recovery. The key to defending against those who would seek to use trade as a weapon and to secure our recovery is to minimize our vulnerabilities and diversify and balance our trade, placing greater emphasis on relationships with countries that share our values, defence and security priorities and unwavering respect for the rule of law.

That is why our trade with the U.K. must be a priority. The U.K. is Canada's fifth-largest trading partner behind the U.S., EU, China, Mexico and Japan. We export considerably more to the U.K. than we import from it, but of the $19.8 billion we export, over 64% is gold, and we only represent 1.98% of the U.K.'s exports.

There are lots of opportunities for us to expand our exports to and imports from the U.K., but with our exports being significantly more than our imports, one could argue that we continue to need the U.K. to buy from us more than they need us to sell to them. That is the downside. It makes us vulnerable, but the upside is that there is a great opportunity to expand and mitigate that.

While the focus of the government at the moment, and our country, must be on vaccine acquisition and distribution, it is not the only thing we need to be focused on. I know that we are capable of doing more than one thing at a time. We need to prepare. We need to leverage our current trade opportunities and to broaden them with the U.K.

First of all, we need to start by developing a comprehensive plan and to include the provinces. We need to include businesses and we need to ask for broad consultation and to identify what those core capabilities are where we can use the trade agreement that we have right now and broaden it. We need to basically ensure that the government plays a key role in facilitating and supporting businesses as they expand into those new markets.

We absolutely need a dedicated minister of international trade. We need more trade representatives who are focused on all regions of the U.K. and northern Ireland. We need to ensure that we have dedicated programs and infrastructure to support and facilitate Canadian businesses to understand where the opportunities are in those markets.

We have a trade agreement. We need to find and figure out how we are going to leverage that trade agreement to turn it into real jobs and business opportunities. It does not happen without effort. It is something that we need to focus on now and we need to have key dedicated government, provincial and industry representatives to be able to get there.

We also need to start working on negotiating the key areas of the next comprehensive agreement. One thing that is missing from this agreement is a dispute resolution framework. Even though we are great friends with the U.K., we need a comprehensive structure that tells us how these things will be worked out if were ever to find ourselves in a dispute.

We do need to jointly address how we would deal with non-tariff trade barriers. Perhaps we need to think in terms of economic alliances, the same way that we look at defence and security alliances. Perhaps we need to unite when one adversary is not abiding by trade agreements when we have trade agreements with other people. That gives us the ability to have a greater influence to change and alter that behaviour.

Perhaps we also need terms to address potential nationalistic and centric policies. We are in an emergency and we have seen countries invoke their defence production acts, but with us largely dependent on international global supply chains, perhaps we need to look at broadening and thinking about, in advance, how we would mitigate those buy American policies or, if there were ever, a buy U.K. type of policy. Could Canada be included as part of that umbrella with the U.K. and address it in that manner?

We need regulatory alignment for existing areas like health, and perhaps vaccines, where we would look at the process that the U.K. goes through to approve and monitor a vaccine and perhaps rather than us having to do it again ourselves, because we were part of it or jointly reviewed it or agreed to the same regulatory conditions, we would be able to facilitate it faster in our country because we have shared regulatory alignment that we have negotiated in advance. We need streamlining for businesses and professionals who want to do things or emerging—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The member's time is up. I know the time just flies by. I am sure that she will be able to add to her thoughts during questions and comments.

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, where I agree with the member is that this is happening at a time when government needs to be very much focused on the coronavirus. Among other things, part of that is obviously the vaccine. In that respect, it is great that we will be able to hit that target of six million by the end of the first quarter, as we have been talking about for many weeks now.

However, when it comes to the issue of trade, I am sure that the member opposite appreciates the fact that by working with Canadians and negotiating teams we have been very successful at accomplishing a significant number of signed-off trade agreements between Canada and numerous countries around the world in the first five years, which absolutely coincides with the generation of over a million good, full-time jobs. Therefore, there is a direct correlation between trade and jobs and growing Canada's middle class.

Would the member not agree that this particular agreement is a continuation and that we will still have the opportunity to look at better ways and to give it more attention in the months ahead?

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, there is no question that trade is important, but there needs to be a sense of urgency and we need to expand these trade agreements, particularly with those who are like-minded with us, like the U.K., because not all trade is equal and not all relationships are the same. People trade with people they trust, and people trust people they feel secure with and can count on in difficult times as well as positive times. Therefore, we need to leverage the trade agreements with partners who are of like mind with us to create those jobs, and we need to do it quickly because recovery will be dependent upon it.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, we are obviously talking a lot about trade since this is a trade agreement. However, the bottom line is that we would not be here today discussing it if this agreement had not resulted from a debate over national independence, given that England expressed its desire to leave the European Union.

This debate has snowballed, and the Scottish independence movement is gaining traction right now. The Scottish people actually want to return to the European Union, as is their right. They want to return, and it is up to them to decide for themselves what they want to do. That is exactly what England did when it decided to leave the European Union, saying that it was not to its advantage to stay.

My question for my colleague is simple: Does she not believe that a people's right to self-determination is a wonderful thing?

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, it certainly is a wonderful thing, but we are here to discuss Canada's role and our need for an expanded free trade agreement with the United Kingdom.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member spoke a lot about regulatory harmonization and common standards. I note that the U.K. was just in such an arrangement and decided to leave in order to have more independence.

My concern always is that, particularly when Conservatives start talking this way, it really means a levelling down of our standards. What we have seen in many cases under this kind of free trade regime is that downward pressure is put on regulations that safeguard the interests of workers and the planet. Could the member might provide a couple of concrete examples of the kind of regulatory harmonization she has in mind?

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, as with anything else, regulatory alignment is always a balance, and so I would leave that to the comprehensive consultation and input from provinces and businesses, as well as my hon. colleagues. This is about things that we need to target and to start looking at, not necessarily whether we have the solutions on them just at this point.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni, COVID-19 Emergency Response; the hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot, Canada Post; and the hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue, Ethics.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Surrey—Newton.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hard-working hon. member for Sudbury.

Today I speak in support of Bill C-18, an act to implement the Agreement on Trade Continuity between Canada and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This—