Debates of Jan. 28th, 2021

Canada-United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement Implementation Act

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate anything my colleague shares in the House and his incredible work on trade on behalf of Canada.

He spoke about our relationship with the CPTPP and how important it would be to have the U.K. engaged in that well. The government talks about a whole-of-government approach. In this case, when it comes to trade, what I am hearing is that we need a whole-of-the-world approach.

I would like to hear a little more from him with regard to the impact Canada could have on the U.K. participating in that way.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. Because Canada and the U.K. are among the most trusted trade partners in the world, it is absolutely imperative that we find opportunities to promote our trade interests beyond our bilateral agreement. That is why I am very supportive, personally, of the U.K.'s interest in joining the CPTPP.

Sadly, the World Trade Organization has floundered badly. Its adjudicative powers, effectively, were emasculated by the administration of Donald Trump, so we do not have a robust global system of rules-based trade, which is why a lot of countries over the years have resorted to bilateral and plurilateral agreements such as CETA, the agreement we are debating today and the CPTPP.

I very strongly promote opportunities to take our trade agreements and use them as vehicles to promote freer and fairer trade all around the world, because Canada is among the best countries in the world at doing this.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today as the Bloc Québécois critic for international trade and speak about the Canada-U.K. trade continuity agreement, or CUKTCA.

CUKTCA seeks to ensure that the flow of trade between Canada and the United Kingdom remains unimpeded. Let us remember that Canada and the European Union are bound by a free trade agreement, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, and that the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union put an end to the provisions that connected London and Ottawa.

I will divide my speech into three parts. First, I will address the serious problem with the transparency of the negotiation process. Next, I will talk about the agreement itself and, finally, I will close by talking about the real meaning of Brexit from a historical perspective and about the precedent it sets with respect to Quebec.

First, let us talk about transparency. Members of the Standing Committee on International Trade discussed the transitional trade agreement with the parties directly involved without any documents whatsoever. It was truly a theatre of the absurd. We were asked to study the agreement without access to its content. We received witnesses who offered comments and recommendations on the agreement, but we had no real information on the content of the agreement. We were only told that the deadline was fast approaching and that we had to adopt the agreement by December 31.

We might also say that we were asked to give the government carte blanche, even though it sacrificed supply management on three occasions and in the latest free trade negotiations it abandoned Quebec's key sectors, like aluminum and softwood lumber. That is why we are reluctant to blindly trust the government.

In fact, the committee had to submit its report on the transitional agreement on the very day we received the text of the agreement and before we even had a chance to read it. The Bloc Québécois was very clear on the fact that we would not just stamp an agreement without reading it or having the time to study and analyze it, in other words, without being able to do our job as parliamentarians.

The members of the House of Commons are responsible for defending the interests and values of their constituents, but they are being forced to approve agreements at the end of a process in which they have no real say, despite the efforts of the Bloc Québécois, which tabled a number of bills regarding this matter between 2000 and 2004.

Under the 2020 agreement between the Liberal Party and the NDP, the Deputy Prime Minister undertook to provide more information to MPs, and that is a step in the right direction. However, as the recent agreement showed, it is clearly inadequate.

We need mechanisms to involve parliamentarians and the provinces in the next round of talks. It is vital for the government to keep parliamentarians informed every step of the way. Requiring this would reduce the risk of parliamentarians having to voice their opinions on agreements without having all the necessary information to make an informed decision. This would make the negotiation process more transparent.

The Bloc Québécois is calling for Parliament to adopt procedures that would increase democratic control over agreements. The minister responsible for ratifying an agreement should be required to table it in Parliament together with an explanatory memorandum within a reasonable period of time. Parliament's approval should be required before any agreement can be ratified.

Quebec was allowed to send a representative to the negotiations with Europe in the lead-up to the ratification of CETA between Canada and the European Union in 2017. However, it was the European Union, not Canada, that wanted Quebec there. Quebec has not had this opportunity again, but it should.

We believe that Quebec and the provinces must be invited to the bargaining table, since they have official standing to block an agreement that would interfere with their jurisdictions. Quebec's jurisdictions extend beyond its borders, as the Privy Council in London acknowledged decades ago in a decision that led Quebec to adopt the Gérin-Lajoie doctrine.

Of course, it is not a perfect system.

During the CETA negotiations, Quebec's representative said that Quebec's delegation was there to be a cheerleader for the Canadian delegation and its actions essentially amounted to backroom diplomacy. In other words, Quebec's role mattered, but not at the table where decisions were being made.

The only way Quebec will be able to advocate for itself on the world stage is by gaining independence. The Canadian negotiator will always be predisposed to protect Canada's economic sectors at the expense of Quebec's.

Now I want to talk about the agreement. I remind members that international trade has played a huge part in modernizing Quebec's economy. We made a strategic choice that gave SMEs access to new markets, most importantly the U.S. market, of course, which allowed us to break our total dependence on Canada's trade and economic framework.

The Bloc Québécois fully subscribes to the idea that free trade is necessary, but we do not mistake politics for religion. If a free trade agreement threatens Quebec in any way, we will not hold back from pointing out its biggest flaws and speaking out against them. We believe that the environment, public health, agriculture, culture, first nations, workers and social services must never be treated like commercial goods. We also believe that nothing justifies giving up our sovereignty for the benefit of multinationals.

What does this mean for the Canada-United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement, or CUKTCA? I will start with some background. There are already a number of trade agreements and treaties between Canada and the U.K., both with and without the European Union. The United Kingdom is Canada's biggest European trading partner, but let us put things in perspective. Investment and imports and exports of goods and services between Canada and the U.K. actually represent a relatively small percentage of each country's economy. Still, the United Kingdom is an important partner.

Ontario is the most affected province because it exports unwrought gold. That sector accounts for more than 80% of Ontario's exports to the United Kingdom. The U.K. imports a lot of cars and pharmaceuticals from Ontario, but their significance in the U.K. economy is fairly limited.

The United Kingdom is Quebec's second-largest trading partner. However, imports and exports of goods with the United Kingdom have been declining for the past 20 years. The U.K. now accounts for only 1% of Quebec's total exports and 3.5% of Quebec's total imports. In other words, Quebec has a trade deficit with the United Kingdom.

One sector that is really important is the aerospace industry, which provides the most stable trade between Quebec and the United Kingdom. Our aerospace sector is both a customer of and supplier to the United Kingdom, so maintaining that trade relationship is crucial for this strategic industry, which is struggling. Many research partnerships have been established, and the industry welcomes the idea of an agreement. Of course, the aerospace sector needs a proper aerospace policy, and we continue to fight for that in the House. This agreement is good for our aerospace sector, which in itself is a good enough reason for us to support it at this time.

Our personal financial services sector and our engineering firms may also benefit, since investments in infrastructure could explode in a post-Brexit United Kingdom.

Other reasons we welcome this agreement include the fact that the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism will not apply immediately. This mechanism allows a foreign multinational to take a country where it has invested to an arbitration tribunal if a policy or law made by that country impinges on its ability to make a profit. Any law intended to protect the environment or to enhance social justice or worker protections could be targeted. This upends democracy by giving multinationals sovereign powers. We are against that.

Under the CUKTCA, this mechanism would not come into force until at least three years after the agreement has been adopted, on condition that the mechanism is in effect under CETA, which is to say it will not happen. Since Canada and the United Kingdom are supposed to start negotiations this year to conclude a permanent agreement, we can say that it will likely not come into force.

Nevertheless, that should not be one of the items that Canada will defend when negotiating the permanent agreement. The Bloc opposes it and will stand firm against it. I moved a motion to study this mechanism at the Standing Committee on International Trade, and it was adopted. We should be studying it relatively soon. I truly hope that we will never again include this mechanism, which was removed from the the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement last year. In this case, Canada and the United Kingdom are western democracies with well-developed legal systems. There is therefore no reason why differences between a foreign investor and a host country cannot be decided within the existing legal system.

There is also the thorny issue of supply management. We support the pure and simple, iron-clad protection of supply management, and therefore the preliminary exclusion of agriculture from the negotiating table, except for the sectors that would find it advantageous and would specifically ask to be included. CETA, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, was detrimental to our agricultural model, and it caused real losses to our farmers. We would not have agreed to give up additional market share in the CUKTCA, the Canada-U.K. trade continuity agreement.

Fortunately CUKTCA does not include such provisions. The United Kingdom was not granted additional market access for cheese or other supply-managed products. However, some testimony during meetings of the Standing Committee on International Trade suggested that British cheese producers were pushing for more exports to Canada. In all likelihood, this problem will be put off until next year, new breaches in our agricultural model will be on the table in final negotiations, and London will put those demands at the top of the list. This is timely, because the Bloc introduced a bill to prohibit any future breaches in supply management. The House needs to walk the talk, so I hope it will pass the bill.

I now want to talk about local products. From the beginning of the pandemic, for several months now, people have been singing the praises of buying local, which is great. We need to practise some degree of economic nationalism, which comes more naturally for Quebec than it does for Canada.

Under CETA, Quebec lost a large share of the Canadian content requirement in the procurement of public transit vehicles. In the past, an agreement between the Government of Quebec and the Société de transport de Montréal required that 60% of the content in the city's subways and buses be Canadian. CETA now stipulates a local content requirement of no more than 25% in Quebec and Ontario, simply because of a grandfather clause. What is more, Quebec can also require that the final assembly take place in Canada. The other provinces are not included in that provision because they do not have any provincial legislation to that effect. The local content requirement of 25% under the grandfather clause is a step backward, but it could have been much worse had Quebec not been at the CETA discussion table.

The same provision is included in CUKTCA simply because it was copied and pasted from CETA. It is pretty clear that this will not be one of Canada's priorities in future rounds of negotiations for the permanent agreement, which once again shows the fundamental importance of inviting Quebec to the negotiating table.

The agreement aside, Quebec and its plan for independence can learn some lessons from the process itself. Of course, the United Kingdom and Quebec are in very different situations. Every U.K. citizen is free to praise or condemn Brexit. They are free to vote as they wish. The fact remains that Brexit is a historical first. We are talking about a state that left a customs union to which it belonged and is therefore no longer part of certain trade agreements. In that regard, the U.K.'s situation is similar to that of Quebec. Opponents to the plan, who have always played on economic fears, say that Quebec would not have enough public funds and that it is better off giving its money to Ottawa or spending it on the monarchy.

As for trade, we were told that Quebec would not automatically be a member of agreements signed by Canada, which would mean a blank slate and starting from scratch with trading partners. However, those trading partners would have no desire to cut ties with Quebec.

What guarantees are there with respect to treaties? Some time ago, a constitutional expert named Daniel Turp, a former member of the House of Commons and the National Assembly of Quebec, explained that countries would presume continuity if the new country expressed its desire to maintain the relationship in a given treaty. Mr. Turp's thesis focused on multilateral agreements, however. The jury was still out on trade agreements.

The only precedent for trade agreements dates back to 1973, when Bangladesh seceded from Pakistan and became independent. Pakistan was bound by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, better known as GATT, and Bangladesh automatically became a member from one day to the next. However, GATT was a multilateral treaty that did not need to be renegotiated to admit a new member. What would happen with a bilateral treaty? That is the question the British are answering now.

To sum up, Canada has already signed an agreement with the European Union, namely CETA. To ensure that the U.K.'s departure from the EU does not leave a void in relations between London and Ottawa, an interim agreement is being reached very quickly between the two countries, one that incorporates the content of CETA and will remain in force in the short term until both partners renegotiate a permanent agreement, thereby ensuring stability until then.

Brexit is showing Quebec the way forward when a trading nation achieves or reclaims its sovereignty. A newly independent Quebec would of course emulate this approach and quickly reach interim agreements to ensure that our businesses have access to markets while waiting for permanent agreements to be renegotiated with our partners.

Far from being caught off guard, the United Kingdom has already signed trade deals with 60 of the 70 countries the EU had deals with. One could say, then, that the U.K. was definitely not caught with its pants down, if you pardon me the expression. It even has an agreement with Japan now, where the EU had no such agreement.

Because they are provisional, transitional arrangements do not preclude newly independent countries from going back to the negotiating table, preferably sooner rather than later. Is there a fundamental problem in renegotiating what someone else has already negotiated for us? That is what the United Kingdom is going to do with Canada this year. If we did that too, we could support sectors that are important to Quebec, such as agriculture, aluminum and lumber. Indeed, there are many more advantages than disadvantages to defending only one's own interests at the negotiating table.

The Brits and Canadians are therefore quite unwittingly overlooking an argument that is often repeated to argue against Quebec independence. When it comes to trade sovereignty, if Brexit has given us a sneak preview of “Québexit”, why not go for it?

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated hearing everything the member said. We have a lot to work through as a country in dealing with trade. I appreciate his concerns; I truly do.

The Liberal government calls this a transitional agreement, yet there is no end date and no penalty for not moving forward with negotiations or not getting a new agreement finalized.

Does the member have any concerns about the misconception of calling this a transitional agreement?

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.

That just adds to the absurdity of it all. Before the holidays, we were asked to study an agreement without access to the document. We were told that it was just transitional. To say that is to minimize the importance of it. We were told to adopt it before December 31, that it was urgent. Fortunately, that did not happen. We were firm on this. However, there is no firm commitment to go back to the bargaining table. Of course, that is a problem. I share my colleague's concerns on that.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, unlike my Conservative colleague who just asked a question, I do not appreciate the comments the member made, especially those toward the end of his speech when he talked about reasons for Quebec being its own country. I realize that is one of the main objectives of the Bloc, but the reality of the situation is that Canada is as great as it is because of all the partners here. It is as great as it is because Quebec is part of it. I, for one, certainly never want to see us even talk about going down that road, especially at a time like this when we are getting through a pandemic.

Although the nature of these agreements always put us in a position where negotiating seems to conflict with our ability to discuss them in the House, this trade agreement is a good thing for all of Canada. It is a good thing for Quebec. It is a good thing for Ontario. It is a good thing for Alberta and B.C. It is good for the entire country. It is an opportunity for us to come out of this pandemic and grow our economy so we can recover in a meaningful way.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my goodness, I do not know where to begin. I was talking about all the benefits of the agreement and I said that it was very good for Quebec. I do not see what more I could add.

Canada is a great country. Quebec will be a very great country as well. I must admit that I do not understand my colleague's arguments at all. I find it funny to hear him note that the Bloc Québécois is in favour of Quebec's independence. It is about time my colleague figured that out. The Bloc Québécois has been around for 30 years. I invite my colleague to consider a career as an investigative journalist.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I would like to say that his last comment made me laugh.

In my opinion, the free trade agreement with the United Kingdom demonstrates that instead of learning from their mistakes, the Liberals are repeating them. The NDP shares the concerns about protecting supply management, which we defended tooth and nail. Former MPs Brigitte Sansoucy and Ruth Ellen Brosseau, in particular, vigorously defended it.

I would like to talk about two other things.

Our dispute resolution mechanism allows investors and large corporations to take advantage of us. It undermines our democracy and the representation of our citizens. Under the free trade agreement with the European Union, Quebeckers and Canadians will pay more for prescription drugs. In my opinion, in a health crisis, it is truly ridiculous to make the same mistake and accept an agreement that will increase the cost of drugs that sick people need.

I would like to hear what he has to say about that.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for his question. I also thank him for his ongoing support of supply management.

If the investor-state dispute settlement system were implemented immediately, I would have been much harsher. However, since the process is fraught with challenges, we might as well say that will not happen with this agreement.

As I mentioned earlier, the CETA countries must absolutely agree on the terms and conditions of a mechanism. That is by no means certain. Since it could take three years, we can imagine that a permanent agreement will be renegotiated before that. The road ahead is fraught with challenges.

With respect to drugs, the price increase will not be immediate. We obviously share my colleague's concern on this matter. When the agreement is implemented in a few years, we will need a compensation program and Ottawa will need a program to compensate those who will bear the brunt of the hike in drug prices. We agree on principle that it makes no sense to hike drug prices in the middle of a pandemic.

[Louise Charbonneau, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his enlightening speech on the CUKTCA. He knows this topic well.

Could the member talk more specifically about how milk producers will be affected and about how the United Kingdom will continue to be able to send its cheeses here until 2023? I would like to hear his thoughts on that provision in the agreement.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Trois-Rivières.

Current cheese exports are based on quotas given up in the agreement with Europe. After that, there was an agreement between Europe and the U.K. about previously allocated quota. It is a step backward, but that is because of the previous agreement.

There is no additional step backward in this agreement. That is one reason we are supporting it at this stage. Even the slightest step backward would have been grounds for us to oppose it. The agricultural model is much too important to be sacrificed even a little bit. We have been very clear about that.

This is only putting the problem off until later, though. We know British exporters want more, which means the problem will probably surface again in a year. London will fight for it during the next round of negotiations, which is why we need to pass the Bloc's bill banning any further breaches in supply management.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that wonderful speech.

He talked about how important farmers are to Quebec. I know they are important to his region. They are important for mine too. In the Lower St. Lawrence, the dairy industry adds up to about 572 farms, seven plants, 5,895 jobs and a GDP contribution in excess of $400 million.

In light of these facts, I would like my colleague to explain to us why it is important, essential even, that Canada not give up additional quota for cheese or other supply-managed products when negotiating trade agreements like the CUKTCA.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, supply management is a proven system that works. I would rather talk about promoting supply management than about defending it.

Supply management is based on a very simple principle. Agriculture cannot be treated like any other commodity. It is as simple as that. Agriculture is too important. We are talking about our food sovereignty, what we have in our fridges and on our plates. We need farmers three times a day.

Supply management tells us that we cannot treat agriculture like one factory among many, that it cannot be treated the same way as any other product under the laws of supply and demand. We need to wholeheartedly defend supply management and fight for it tooth and nail. This system has prevented overproduction crises. It has prevented farmers from being wiped out financially, even when they are in very precarious situations.

This must be a fundamental battle in every respect. We will continue to wage that battle until the future of supply management is secure.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in the virtual Parliament to speak to the agreement that was signed between Canada and the United Kingdom, what they are calling a “trade continuity agreement”, and the legislation that would implement that here in Canada.

It has been a bit of a rocky road to get here, and there are a number of problems with the way this has unfolded and that do bear description here in the House. However, I want to start by talking a bit about the nature of trade.

This is another agreement in the vein of corporate globalized trade that we in the NDP recognize has not been good for workers. Canada has signed a number of these free trade agreements, whether the original NAFTA or CETA or the TPP, and various reforms at the WTO. All of these have coincided with a period when a lot of well-paying jobs that fed families and provided the kinds of benefits that Canadians expect as part of a good quality of living, whether that is a decent pension, health benefits or other things that come with a good job, left the country. It is not a coincidence that this happened as these agreements were signed which made it easier for big corporations and some of the biggest economic players to move their capital and operations around to find places with the lowest standards for how they treat their workers and the planet. All of that was done in a context where the taxes these folks pay were continually being reduced as well. Therefore, what was saw was a period when working Canadians lost a lot of their good employment that provided them with a good livelihood, while the people at the top were able to move their assets around and keep more and more of the economic pie for themselves.

It has not worked out well for everyday Canadian workers, and it is why we do not like the model. That does not mean we do not like trade.

The NDP is very well aware of all of the opportunities that exist for Canadian businesses, including some of our small businesses, when trade is done right, for them to be able to expand their reach. We just want to see agreements that allow those opportunities to translate not into gross profits for a few Canadians at the top, but into more good-quality jobs for Canadian workers who will produce the things that get traded with other countries. However, if it just means that all of the value-added work goes somewhere else, that is not in the ultimate interests of Canadians, and there is a fair bit of evidence to suggest that that has been the trend over the last 30 years or so.

Why am I talking about that? Trade between Canada and the United King is as old as Canada, and at least with Europeans. We have had a long-standing trade relationship; it is an important one. A lot of the similarities and affinities between Canada and the United Kingdom provide for creating a real gold-standard trade agreement. If we listen even to the conservatives in the United Kingdom, they talk more about climate change and have put more emphasis on putting climate change at the forefront of their new trade agenda than even the Liberals here have done. There is a real opportunity to work with them and others in the United Kingdom to create a gold-standard deal that takes seriously the impacts of globalized trade for climate change and seeks to control and reduce those impacts.

We have an opportunity to create a gold-standard deal that takes seriously the rights of workers and human rights and seeks to actually incorporate those into the deal, not in a side letter that is not enforceable but actually into the core of the deal, to ensure that workers will be fairly treated and that if there is additional wealth created by an increase of trade between our two countries, it will find its way to workers and not just to the people at the top.

I would also hope that our good relationship with the United Kingdom will allow for an agreement that recognizes and takes seriously the rights and role of indigenous people in Canada, so that we do not run roughshod over those in the way that an agreement is concluded.

However, we do not have that here with this agreement. What we have, after knowing this was coming for a long, long time, is effectively a carbon copy of CETA, which was agreement in the corporate model that I just described and that we do not agree with. We did not agree with it at the time because we knew that an agreement like CETA and its intellectual property provisions was going to put upward costs on the price of pharmaceutical drugs in Canada when we already pay among the highest price for prescription drugs in the western world.

Why would we conclude an agreement that makes those drugs more expensive? Why then would we carbon copy that agreement when we have an opportunity to do something different with our largest trading partner in the European Union, representing about 40% of our trade with Europe? That does not make sense to New Democrats, who have been elected to Parliament on a mission to reduce the price of prescription drugs for Canadians.

It does not make sense when we think about the integrity of our democratic institutions. These same corporate trade deals have also put serious limits and inhibitions on democratically elected governments to regulate in the public interest. That was also a part of the reasons for our initial opposition to CETA, the investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms. Now, I recognize that those would not coming into force immediately upon the passage of this legislation, but I find it shocking, frankly, that they are even in there at all, because we have not heard the British government talk about the need for investor-state dispute settlement clauses.

Those are the clauses that have allowed foreign corporations to sue the Canadian government for hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 30 years. Those are the same clauses the Deputy Prime Minister herself said in the House last June were one of the biggest achievements she was most proud of from the CUSMA negotiations. In her words, "the investor-state dispute resolution system, which in the past allowed foreign companies to sue Canada, will be gone.”

Here they are again, not because our trading partner was asking for them. How did they even get into the agreement? If Britain does not want them and Canada does not want them, why are they there and why is possible for them come into effect, which is the default incidentally, after three years if another decision is not taken in the meantime?

We object to these being present at all, and I am interested to know who at the table was concerned to put them in there, given that our government was trying to take credit for having signed an agreement with the United States and Mexico that finally got rid of them, which we thought was a good thing.

The other thing CETA did that we oppose was further attack the supply-managed sectors in Canada. We heard comments earlier that I agree with completely. The way we procure our food and supply our food is not as if it were commodity like any other, and so we want to make sure that our agricultural producers are compensated fairly for what they produce and that we can support those local producers and that our food supply chain is secure.

All of these agreements tend toward a more globalized food supply chain. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that when it comes to the things that really matter and that we cannot do without, we should not be depending on international supply chains. Supply management in Canada is a great tool to ensure that our local producers are paid fairly for the work they do, can stay in business and that Canadian consumers can get the products they need to eat at a fair price reliably.

Those were things we did not like about CETA. We had lots of time, and, frankly, when it came to signing CETA in the first place, it was a mystery to us in the NDP that the government rushed ahead with it. The Conservatives had negotiated this deal, the Liberals came to power, and in the meantime Britain decided to hold a referendum on whether to remain in the European Union. New Democrats thought it might be significant to the nature of trade between Europe and Canada whether the United Kingdom was a part of Europe or not, considering that it represented about 40% of our trade with Europe.

It still strikes me as totally ridiculous that the government decided to go ahead and pen a deal with Europe when we did not know if the United Kingdom was leaving the European Union, which we subsequently found out it was, and that 40% of trade with Europe was not going to be captured by that deal. It does raise problems. We will see what happens as we try to negotiate a successor agreement and what that will mean for the supply-managed sector. New Democrats are very concerned that there are further concessions in the offing. We will believe it when we see that that it is not really on the table for the Liberals, because we have seen them break that promise before.

The other thing that bears mentioning when it comes to CETA is the following quote from a report called “Taking Stock of CETA: Early Impacts of the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement”. It states:

Between September 2017 and May 2019, total Canadian exports to the EU, measured monthly, were essentially flat. Meanwhile, over the same period, total imports from the EU increased by over a third (33.8 per cent). This imbalance has resulted in a doubling of the monthly Canadian trade deficit with the EU, from –1.51 billion dollars in September 2017 to –3.43 billion dollars in May 2019.

In recent decades, the United Kingdom is the only major European country with which Canada has consistently run a trade surplus. But since September 2017, the Canadian merchandise trade surplus with the U.K. has shrunk significantly (falling by two-thirds), with exports declining by 32 per cent while imports rose 14 per cent.

That is an assessment of the deal on whether it is working for Canada. The government did not bother to negotiate a different agreement. It is asking for a carbon copy of an agreement that has seen Canada's trade deficit with Europe increase. Even the empirical evidence on the deal so far suggests that this has not been a wondrous deal for Canada.

I have a lot of sympathy for Canadian businesses that want certainty in an uncertain time. I think the government really let them down in terms of the process, but it did not just let them down in November and December when it failed to get this legislation before the House and passed before December 31. The government let them down a long time ago, when it walked away from the negotiating table and was not even trying to negotiate the kind of gold-standard deal that I spoke about earlier, or any kind of different deal at all.

Here we find ourselves, past the deadline. These businesses have already gone through that jarring uncertainty and what it means for their business models, so I understand their disappointment. I think the government ought to have behaved in a way to try to provide a lot more certainty about what was coming, but I think it is a disappointment that, in addition, all we are getting is the same as we had in CETA with all of the problems that were there, and with all the evidence that shows that this has not been a deal that is working out very well for Canada.

I would say perhaps one of the only redeeming aspects of this entire farce of a process around negotiating our post-Brexit trade relationship with the United Kingdom is that it afforded an opportunity for certain committees of the House to reaffirm our commitment to the Good Friday Agreement, which Canada played an important role in brokering. New Democrats, my colleague from Saint John—Rothesay at the foreign affairs committee and I, presented a motion at the international trade committee and the foreign affairs committee that passed, I am glad to say unanimously, affirming Canada's support for [Technical difficulty—Editor] wants to be part of a trade relationship with the United Kingdom that in no way jeopardizes the Good Friday Agreement and, in fact, seeks to reinforce that peace, which was hard won in the nineties.

That is maybe one of the only silver linings to what otherwise was a terrible process. There was no real meaningful consultation with businesses, with unions or with Canadian civil society on what this trade relationship ought to look like. I stress this again, because the government likes to talk as if the deadline snuck up on us or as if we did not know it was coming. We have known for years that Britain was leaving the EU, and it was incumbent upon the government of the day to do the work so that whenever that deadline came there was actually something in place, yet there was no meaningful public consultation process on this.

The trade committee, on its own initiative, held some hearings in Parliament but, of course, like many things due to the pandemic, these were severely interrupted. It does not explain why there was not some effort by the government, in the years leading up to that, to try to engage people meaningfully on the question of the Canada-U.K. trade agreement or to try to involve Parliament, for that matter.

I would like to add that while we are talking about the abomination of process that is this deal, it bears mentioning that the government will talk about this as a transitional deal. I think that is misleading.

I get that our partner in the United Kingdom and the Canadian government perhaps committed in good faith, and it is in the agreement for all to read that they are going to start negotiating toward a successor deal within a year. I think there is some expectation that within three years the deal will be concluded. A couple of things will get more difficult after that three-year time horizon if a successor deal has not been concluded.

The fact remains that a transitional deal implies a temporary deal. The fact that it is a transitional deal, and the fact that it is essentially a carbon copy of CETA, are the reasons the government is saying that we should not be too concerned that there has not been a great process around it all: “Do not worry, we are going to negotiate another deal and it is really just like what we had.”

However, there were problems with what we had. The NDP is not satisfied with CETA. The NDP does not agree that CETA is the be-all and end-all of a trade agreement anyway, and I can tell members that a lot of Canadian workers across the country feel the same way. That fact notwithstanding, when we talk about a transitional deal it implies a temporary deal, and there is nothing temporary about this deal.

This deal has already been signed. The government has done the deed and the legislation, I gather from the debate today, is going to pass. New Democrats will be voting against it, but it is going to pass, and in a timely way. We all know, after what we just went through with Donald Trump, the pandemic and everything else, that three years is a long time in politics. A lot can change, and good intentions sometimes do not bear the fruit that people thought they would.

If, in three year's time, Canada and the U.K. do not conclude a successor agreement, this is what we are stuck with, and we will have been stuck with it after no meaningful engagement with the Canadian public or the Canadian Parliament except for this debate and whatever process will ensue at committee, which is something we are being asked to hurry up with and rush. The government has created a context where there is a legitimate need to act with some swiftness, because Canadian businesses have not had an opportunity to plan for an alternative, even though I think an alternative could have served Canadians better.

There is no sunset clause in the deal. There is no sunset clause in the legislation before us. In other words, there is nothing that compels Canada and the U.K. in any strong sense to conclude a successor agreement that might realize the potential for that gold standard in trade rather than repeating the same old corporate model that has not been serving Canadians well over the last 30 years. To me, that is a real disappointment, and I caution Canadians that this is not just some kind of transitional thing that is going away any time soon. It will only go away any time soon if it becomes a priority of our government and the government of the U.K., and political circumstances allow them to conclude a deal.

If we think back to where we were three years ago, nobody would have predicted what has happened in the interim. It would be a shame if this is the deal that Canada gets stuck with to define our trading relationship with the United Kingdom, because I think we can do a heck of a lot better.

I think we can do better when it comes to not having any provisions at all, like the investor-state dispute settlement provisions that cost Canadian taxpayers money and limit the ability of their democratically elected governments to regulate in the public interest.

I think it would be a shame if we did not get an agreement with the U.K. that takes climate change seriously and tries to mitigate the effects of globalized trade.

I think it would be a shame if we did not get an agreement with the U.K. that recognizes, in some kind of meaningful and enforceable way, the rights of indigenous people in Canada.

I think it would be a shame if we did not get an agreement that took upward pressure on prescription drug costs seriously. At the very least, if the Liberals are going to continue to sign deals like this, they could get a national pharmacare plan in place and help to do something that would bring those pharmaceutical drug prices down for Canadians, both their out-of-pocket costs and the incredible costs on provincial government ledgers for those pharmacare programs that do not benefit from the purchasing power of the entire country.

I hope we are going to get there, and that is certainly where our emphasis is going to be, but in the meantime, it is hard to say yes to a deal that is unimaginative and part of a broken international trade culture.

[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, Canada is a trading nation. We need international trade. We cannot underestimate the importance of that global trading market.

I am not surprised, but a little disappointed, that the NDP consistently votes against trade agreements. The party seems to be of the opinion that the way we get a trade agreement is to say what we want and then wait for the other country to agree to it, or we do not have an agreement.

My question to my friend and colleague from Winnipeg is this. Would he not recognize the actual value of international trade for Canadian society as a whole, and indicate to those who may be following the debate what trade agreements, historically, the NDP actually stood in this place and voted for?

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

Madam Speaker, it seems to me the hon. member has the memory of a goldfish. The last trade agreement that was before the House, the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, was an agreement that New Democrats voted for. There were tangible wins for Canadian workers. We got rid of the investor state dispute settlement clause I was just talking about, which somehow reappeared here. It is not because the British government was asking for it, so who was? Presumably, it was the only other partner in the agreement: the Canadian government. Otherwise, I do not see why it would be there.

We also got rid of the energy proportionality clause, which never should have been signed in the first place and was a serious problem when it comes to Canada's energy sovereignty. That is something that has been the subject of a lot of debate in the House recently. Of course, Conservatives did not care a whit about Canadian energy sovereignty when they negotiated NAFTA back then, and I was glad to see that go.

Therefore, yes, when we can point to tangible wins for real Canadians, not just the guys at the top, we are prepared to vote for agreements but, man, do they ever come sparsely. It is because we have both Liberals and Conservatives who are happy to run around the world figuring out how quickly they can sell out everyday Canadians to do a solid for their corporate buddies. The trends are there. One just has to look at the evidence.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Madam Speaker, I enjoyed working with my colleague on international trade, on the very agreement he was speaking about, the CUSMA. He brought forward initiatives for greater transparency in trade agreements, which Conservatives supported him on.

With the CUSMA, we asked to see economic impact studies and the government refused. Even yesterday, I think the Prime Minister was still saying CUSMA was a better agreement than NAFTA even though C.D. Howe said there would be a $10 billion hit to our economy and a $1.5 billion hit to our auto industry. I am wondering, because I am no longer on that committee, if the member has seen any change as far as openness, transparency and engagement of important Canadian stakeholders.

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

We do not have interpretation.

I think that is what the hon. member for Beauport—Limoilou was trying to tell us.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, the sound quality is very poor. Could my colleague bring the microphone closer to his mouth so that the interpreters can hear?

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

He has a headset, but I think it is his Internet connection that is causing the problem since the sound cut out several times.

I would ask the hon. member for Oshawa to repeat his question.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Madam Speaker, I enjoyed working with my colleague on international trade.

My question was about openness and transparency. He moved different initiatives forward to improve openness and transparency in consultation on trade agreements. I remember, with CUSMA, we found out after the fact that the new CUSMA would be a $10-billion hit to the Canadian economy and a $1.5-billion decrease in auto exports. Even as of yesterday, the Prime Minister was saying it is a better overall agreement for Canada.

Has the member seen any changes in the new agreement as compared to the CUSMA? Has anything been put in place to improve the process?

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

Madam Speaker, the answer is that the process around this deal has been very bad. For me, the frustration is that the justification for the fact that there was not a lot of public consultation or engagement about the deal was that we were maintaining the status quo for now, and were going to get a new deal. That, to me, suggested all along that it really would be a temporary deal, and I was shocked to see that there was no sunset clause.

I have heard Liberals at committee say a hard deadline creates drama, but they could have set the timeline at whatever they wanted. It could have been three years or five years. If they are confident that they are going to conclude a deal, then ending this deal automatically should not have been an issue, and that provides the real incentive that one needs to get a successor agreement. I am concerned that we have had a very bad process now for what could end up being a permanent agreement. I want to see the government acting soon on the changes that the NDP negotiated to our trade process and giving notice to Parliament so we can get that process under way.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question about transparency for my colleague. I recall that we were the only ones to vote against CUSMA because of the unacceptable status of aluminum.

The NDP abandoned us along the way because it supposedly had a deal with the Deputy Prime Minister to be notified of the government's intent to enter into new negotiations 90 days in advance and to be informed of the objectives for negotiations 30 days in advance.

I am wondering if my colleague now feels that he was taken for a ride with the deal he made with the Deputy Prime Minister.

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

Madam Speaker, I think the proof of whether the government was negotiating in good faith or not on this agreement is going to be in the pudding. To come back to the frustration I was referring to earlier, the Liberals would say the process for this was not very good and they were already negotiating long before, which was true. However, they suspended negotiations. It is not clear whether a new negotiation was started in August of last year or they were resuming a previous negotiation that was already under way. The waters are muddy there.

It is important that the government begin to follow the process from early on with respect to this new agreement. It is also important that this agreement be a temporary agreement. If all those other things are true that this was not a great process and was just about maintaining the status quo until we get a successor agreement, the government should not be signing what is for all intents and purposes a permanent agreement. To me, that is the real—

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

The hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona.