Debates of Feb. 4th, 2021

Opposition Motion—Proposed Special Committee on Canada-United States Economic Relationship

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I would ask the hon. minister to address his questions and comments to the Chair and not to the hon. member.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

I apologize, Madam Speaker.

In our dealings with the United States, we have traditionally taken an approach that involves not only a coordinated set of messages and approaches within the federal government itself and its ministries, but also with the provinces. We believe this is very important, and we will continue to do this together in advocating for our interests as a country in our dealings with the United States. We think this has worked very well in the past and will continue to use that approach in dealing with the United States.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his detailed speech. However, one thing I was trying to get sense of from his speech was whether he supports today's motion presented by our party.

Does the minister support today's motion?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Speaker, that is a good question.

As the member knows, we have a very efficient system of standing parliamentary committees, which cover a number of areas, such as foreign relations and foreign affairs, international trade and natural resources, and so there are existing committees. Having said that, the relationship between Canada and the United States is the most important between our two countries and, of course, we welcome further bodies where we can continue the discussion about that important relationship.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his candour in his speech and responses to questions.

Like the minister, I recognize that we are a country that enjoys a very close relationship with the United States, our closest friend, ally and trading partner. We do almost $2 billion of cross-border exchanges every single day.

My question is very simple, and gives the minister another opportunity to answer the question. Does he support the motion before us today?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Speaker, in answer to my colleague's question, as I mentioned in my previous answer, we already have a number of standing committees. However, there is a very special relationship between Canada and the United States, and it is the most important relationship that Canada has with another country. The creation of the committee being proposed today would add another forum for discussion on the matters that concern us as Canadians in our dealings with the United States, and we are certainly open to that.

[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, the minister commented on international trade between Canada and the United States and how important it is for both countries that we continue to have that positive dialogue on international trade.

Could he provide further thoughts on that issue?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

We will have a brief answer from the minister, please.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague said it all: We need to continue to maintain a very close and continuous dialogue with our counterparts in the United States. That is what we did during the negotiations on CUSMA, and it worked out to our benefit. That is something we will continue to do to advance Canada's interests in the future.

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

Madam Speaker, first, I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with my esteemed colleague from Beauport—Limoilou.

I am pleased to rise today as the Bloc Québécois critic for international trade. First, I would like to say that the Bloc Québécois supports the official opposition’s proposal to create a special committee to take a close look at Canada-U.S. economic relations.

The text of the official opposition’s motion lists certain topics that will be studied by the committee, but specifies that the committee will not be limited to these matters. That is fortunate, since there is no shortage of topics.

The government will have to answer for its various fiascos. In its negotiations with the United States, the government used farmers under supply management as a bargaining chip. The same government abandoned our aluminum industry, the cleanest in the world, and failed to settle our forestry file, namely the softwood lumber issue.

The government will also have to explain its dealings with the U.S. government with respect to the COVID-19 vaccines. The pace at which Canada is receiving the vaccines it procured, with no guarantee as to delivery date, is a cause for concern. Deliveries were delayed or postponed several times. Quebec even had to suspend its vaccination operations because it had no vaccines.

Unfortunately, we know that the Liberals do not like it when committee members ask questions. The government turned a deaf ear to a Bloc Québécois request to create a special committee tasked with reviewing all COVID-19 spending despite the clear need for that review.

The most recent protectionist measures implemented by the U.S. government are chilling. Illusions are being shattered and the Care Bears are gone. We are dismayed to have to face the truth we did not want to see: former President Donald Trump did not invent protectionism and trade wars; they existed before him, and they will continue to exist long after.

The most recent protectionist measures are a reminder that governments make policy based on their interests. No country, even a political ally, will give its neighbour a gift out of the goodness of its heart. The concept of “doux commerce” is a myth. The market is not, as was once held, a place where a buyer and a seller meet and all is well. That is an outdated romantic notion. The market is a competitive place where every tactic is fair.

Competition has reigned since the stone age. You could even call it economic warfare. Let us not mince words. People may say that world organizations are there to regulate all of that, but let us not be naive: they will never eliminate the impact of the balance of power. There are still some countries that are stronger than others.

Consider the World Bank. Decision-making power is based on a country’s capital subscription. It is like a shareholder meeting where countries are represented by a board of governors. As in a shareholder meeting, the weight, the voting power, of each country is based on its economic value. At this time, the United States is the World Bank’s principal shareholder.

The United States is unabashedly committed to economic nationalism, hence the Buy American Act, which we are discussing today. We recognize that that is essentially a legitimate strategy. I would even go so far as to say that, like the United States, which promotes national production, Quebec should also reduce its dependence on external markets when it comes to the procurement of essential goods.

Economic nationalism is a principle that is completely foreign to Canada, except maybe when it comes to the banking, oil and auto sectors. In contrast, it is part of the DNA of Quebec, which has a number of Crown corporations that serve as strategic tools. Take, for example, Hydro-Québec, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and the former Société générale de financement.

That is a fact of life for us. We understand why the Americans want to privilege their own markets and companies at a time when buying local is being promoted. Every nation makes policy based on its own interests. We are here to defend the interests of Quebec, and we know that the United States is our main trade partner. We are doing well by having access to U.S. markets. Nearly 12,000 Quebec companies do business with Uncle Sam.

I want to draw members' attention to a very specific and extremely important aspect of U.S. hyper-protectionism, and that is the fact that the country's law is often put to the service of its power.

That is something that the committee proposed today should pay attention to, because Washington implemented a very effective legal system targeting the extraterritoriality of American law. The U.S. Congress believes that the laws it passes in the United States apply to the entire planet. There are many such laws, particularly regarding the oversight of foreign investments, but there are two main aspects to this tentacular way of doing things: the fight against corruption and the fight against embargo violations.

The fight against corruption in the United States began after the Watergate scandal. A number of high-profile investigations revealed that U.S. companies abroad were using bribes to gain privileged market access. In 1977, the government of the day passed a law forcing those companies to declare bribes in their financial records. The fight against corruption is beneficial in and of itself, of course, but it is surprising that the U.S. is not a party to the International Criminal Court.

It is strategic. The fight against corruption does not stop there. Look at the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which governs accounting rules for companies that are publicly traded in the U.S., whether they are American or not, and for their foreign subsidiaries. The act gives agencies access to the information they want, including a company's strategic secrets. Then there is the Bank Secrecy Act, which provides access to information about U.S. banks' foreign partners.

I will now turn to the issue of embargo violations. The United States believes that there are rogue states with which their companies must not do business. In 1996, they passed the Helms-Burton Act, whose stated objective is to dismantle the Cuban regime by targeting every business around the world. A few months later, the U.S. D'Amato-Kennedy Act continued the process with Iran and Libya. These acts set a ceiling on businesses wanting to trade with these countries. They even refer to trade as trafficking, which shows how much these countries are seen as a plague. Note that trade with these countries is not in any way condemned by the UN or the WTO. It was because of a violation of a U.S. law imposing retaliatory sanctions against Iran that Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, not because of an ordinary crime. Forcing other countries to abide by U.S. laws is therefore extremely important. In 1997, to resist the U.S. offensive, Canada amended its Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act. In reality, however, it continued discussions with the Americans to get exemptions for its businesses, thereby legitimizing the 1996 legislation.

In early 2002, the United States deployed an extremely powerful tool to combat terrorism, increasing sanctions in the name of national security and actively promoting the economic interests of the U.S. The American courts then have the power summon a company, require that it co-operate and make their case by threatening to simply deny it access to the U.S. market. When lawyers get involved, the business runs the risk of having them siphon off highly sensitive information, internal strategies, and all the data, messages and internal communications that it cannot erase from its servers. The Department of Justice funnels data to intelligence services as set out in various U.S. laws. In practice, in the world of international trade, this results in agreements. In the U.S. justice system, the judge only makes an appearance at the end, which makes it entirely possible that the foreign company will be gutted.

In 1993, Secretary of State Warren Christopher stated before Congress that to face economic competition the U.S. needed to employ the same means used to win the Cold War against the Soviet Union. Make no mistake, Washington suspends the economic sovereignty of any nation that engages in practices deemed unacceptable by Uncle Sam. We must not be complacent and naive about this. The U.S. is competing, at times fiercely, with Russia, China, Japan and Germany, but we must not accept everything and anything. We must study this matter, and I hope the committee will do so.

The United States is a powerful partner, but we must not lose sight of the nature of this power. We must not get caught up in wishful thinking only to possibly wind up disillusioned.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his passionate speech.

Quebec and Canada have been losing good jobs since the United States dictated the neo-liberal free trade agenda. This has been going on for decades. Unfortunately, the Canadian federal government continues to stay the course, failing to protect the good jobs in our communities and our country.

Does my colleague think that we should adapt our vision of free trade to prioritize the interests of workers in Quebec and Canada?

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

The short answer is yes. Neo-liberalism is a poison. It is an unfair, ecocidal system that is not even effective. We must absolutely demolish it. We agree on that.

Free trade in itself is quite beneficial to Quebec. We had to reduce our dependence on the Canadian market. However, trade must not be confused with agreements largely favouring multinationals that are against democracy. In other words, we are in favour of free trade, but our support stops if that trade is detrimental to the environment, our workers, social justice or our ability to legislate.

Our answer is yes, any trade decisions must focus on workers.

[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, I hear members of the Bloc consistently talk about supply management. Supply management is something the Liberals introduced many years ago. I am sure the member is aware that trade is a two-way street.

The member implied that the Liberals wanted to compromise on supply management. Is it the Bloc's position that we should not have a trade agreement if it impacts supply management in any way?

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

Madam Speaker, since the member generally attends the debates in the House, I think he knows our position, but I can remind him of it.

Our position is this. Supply management should never again be used as a bargaining chip. The Liberals may have introduced supply management, but they have sacrificed it three times. Compensation is all well and good, and we will always fight for it because it is the least the government can do. However, compensation will never replace the breaches in a system that works and that should be promoted. We believe that supply management should simply be taken off the table. It should be non-negotiable.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Madam Speaker, my question for the member is about two very important issues that were presented with respect to our relationship with the United States. One is Line 5 and the other is the buy American provisions.

Will the member confirm that he recognizes the importance of preserving critical infrastructure and making sure that our country enjoys an exemption from the potential buy American provisions?

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

Madam Speaker, we agree with the idea of setting up a committee to take a close look at things and analyze them.

However, we need to think about what the best strategy would be. That is the purpose of committees, to look into such matters.

Of course, our position on oil infrastructure is not the same as that of the official opposition. We understood the intentions behind that part of the motion when we read it. Nevertheless, it is a mandate and a suggestion for a theme. This observation mandate does not oblige us to embrace a particular position, which is why we support today's motion.

We cannot be opposed to the creation of committees that force the government to be accountable and that enable us to examine things more closely.

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

Madam Speaker, the motion before us today reflects what the public needs. People need answers and a vision for the future that brings hope. They do not need sound bites that make for great video clips and advertising.

One might ask how studying the economic relationship between the United States and Canada can bring hope. The United States is our largest trading partner. In fact, 70% of Quebec's exports are destined for the American market. Canadian exports to the United States are worth $650 billion. Those figures represent normal times, but these are not normal times.

Today I will address some unanswered questions, namely, the importance of learning from the past, doing better and properly preparing for recovery.

Last week, exactly seven days ago to the minute, I made a speech in the House during which I asked a lot of questions. Those questions reflected the concerns of the people of Beauport—Limoilou, Quebec and all of Canada. Those questions reflected the suffering of people who no longer know what to think, whom to believe or where we are going.

Will the vaccines arrive in time? Will everyone be vaccinated in 2021 or 2022? No one knows. There are targets, of course, but a target is not a plan. I will come back to that.

Why is there so much secrecy around vaccine contracts and agreements in Canada but not in the U.S., where the public has access to the information? How much does it cost to procure, transport and store the vaccines? Why are we not getting more vaccines and equipment from our closest neighbour and biggest partner? What consequences does the Buy American Act have on Canada? What are the diplomatic or local solutions to these consequences? What solutions could we come up with? What are our objectives and means to achieve them? When do we want to achieve them by?

In short, what is the plan?

It is not right that I, as an elected member, have so many questions unanswered. Imagine how the public feels right now. It is not right that Canada has slipped to 33rd in the world for its vaccination efforts and the government offers so little by way of answers to us and the public.

It is not right for a G7 country to be on the COVAX list, a list that is meant to help disadvantaged countries get access to vaccines. Am I missing something? Since when is Canada a disadvantaged country? What is happening?

The committee will allow us to study these issues and work together on finding solutions and the means to implement them. I will use the example of equipment and vaccines to illustrate the usefulness of the committee.

The past is no indication of the future. This adage is true only if we learn from past mistakes. As I was saying, we were warned about the possibility of a pandemic. We had the SARS crisis in 2003 and the H1N1 crisis in 2009-10. A 2013 note in the journal Études internationales, made after these crises, revealed that not only did pharmaceutical companies line their pockets, but resources were wasted in both cases.

Can we talk about this, promptly analyze what has been done and what still needs to be done, and then make sure that we do not make the same mistakes? Taxpayers' money should never be wasted.

It is not too late to avoid the mistakes of the past, and it is our duty to ensure we do not repeat them. However, I sincerely believe that what was done in both of the earlier crises was done in an effort to meet Canadians' needs. That does not mean that mistakes were not made. It means that our intentions were good.

We are precisely in the same position now. If we do not take a realistic, non-partisan look at our decisions, we risk wasting more of our valuable resources once again. It is especially important to take a look at our economic relations with the United States in order to avoid repeating the same mistakes.

How does our relationship with the U.S. affect our supply capacity? Is what we have a true partnership? If so, all the better; is there a way of improving that partnership? If not, why is our relationship not a true partnership? Is someone getting fleeced? Is it us? Is it the United States? Is it a little of both depending on the situation? We have a duty to examine the true impact of our most important partnership.

Let me get back to the mistakes made in past crises. We also need to avoid what was done in the months following these crises: The Conservatives made cuts to university research, and the Liberals did not reinvest massively in this area.

I know that it is no fun to have our mistakes pointed out and be forced to admit them. I am aware of that, but the responsible and rational thing to do is to recognize our mistakes and work to correct them and to avoid repeating them.

I have more questions. The former U.S. administration nearly crushed our efforts to combat COVID-19 mainly by imposing restrictions on exports of 3M supplies. Was there a cost attached to negotiations for the unrestricted supply of these supplies? Are there restrictions on vaccines? What are these restrictions and why do they exist? I will reiterate that there is a Pfizer facility in Michigan. Why is that facility not supplying us with vaccines?

Our existing trade agreements are controlling the current situation and we must take the time to study whether or not they benefit both partners. We can do better and we now must do better for Canadians and for the future. A plan requires objectives and we have many of them: six million vaccine doses in March, 20 million more by June, for a total of 80 million in December. We have many objectives, but not the means to achieve them or a strict timeline. Everyone is calling for solutions.

A committee could study all this and ensure that we have an optimal recovery for Quebeckers and Canadians, along with our most important partner, which we hopefully can depend on.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a good morning here in Alberta.

I want to ask my hon. colleague if she is aware of the Line 5 pipeline that goes through Michigan right now and how it will affect Quebec and Ontario, bringing jet fuel and propane to her part of the country.

What does she think the Prime Minister should do to maintain the relationship we have with the United States?

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

Madam Speaker, Line 5 is an example of an issue we must think about in the current situation. Is Line 5 important? It would seem so.

Why does Michigan want to close down this line? The answers and solutions may be found by listening and understanding. That is what partnerships are all about.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague's comments were very insightful and I enjoyed listening to her intervention.

My colleague spoke about an issue that is very close to my heart, and that is vaccine availability around the world. She spoke of the recent news that Canada has accessed the COVAX vaccines. Aside from this being a terrible global economic decision, we know that there will be increased morbidity of approximately 30% if the vaccine is not rolled out equitably around the world. It is an ethical and moral failure of the government, in my opinion.

Could my colleague speak more about Canada's accessing the COVAX vaccine, and maybe a bit about Canada's diminished ability to create its own vaccine and our diminished ability to respond to future pandemics?

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her very interesting question.

Canada should not be on the recipient list. Canada should be on the donor list. Canada should be improving everyone's lives, here and around the world, because we have expertise.

Unfortunately there have been budget cuts over the years. Legislation has been passed that has had horrible consequences for our businesses and our manufacturing capacity. We need to turn things around. It is unacceptable to take vaccines meant for the poorest and worst off.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, the member for Beauport—Limoilou.

My question is the following: Why is the House dealing with this particular motion right now?

We have had problems, in particular with the administration of former president Donald Trump. He decided to stop exporting N95 masks. He also took positions against our sectors, like the aluminum sector, and other industries that are very important to our country.

Why does my colleague think the Conservatives moved a motion now against the administration of President Biden, but never did so against former president Trump?

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

Madam Speaker, that is an excellent question that we could have asked. It almost needs to be a standing committee.

We should study our relationships on an ongoing basis to ensure that they are real partnerships.

Why did we not do so with the former administration? That is an excellent question that should be put to the members of the official opposition. Why do this now? Better to do it now than never and better now than when it is too late. We have to study problems together in order to find solutions. We must do so before we reach the point of saying that we should have done it before.

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

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak to this motion today that highlights the importance of the relationship between Canada and the United States. It is something that I think all Canadians know very well, particularly Canadians in business and those many workers who either cross the border every day or work in industries that have goods crossing the border every day.

I want to start by recognizing the importance of this relationship to the well-being of the country, both economically and beyond, because those economic ties also create social and political ties that are important to keeping a productive peace and partnership within the North American context.

Over the last four years, we saw just how difficult life could get for Canadians when the administration in the United States was not of a view to respect, support and cultivate that long-standing relationship. A number of problems came up. I am thinking particularly of workers in the softwood lumber industry. It was not a new problem, but that administration put its stamp on the relationship, in the way the former president was wont to do. It caused a lot of hardship for Canadian companies and workers who really ought to have been able to sell their products according to the terms and conditions that so many other goods are sold under to the United States.

We continue to look for a resolution to that issue. A number of governments of different stripes have turned some attention to that issue and come up short. I think of the Harper government that abandoned successful suits through various trade agreements, just on the cusp of victory. That was the feeling of many people in Canada at the time. Then we saw a new comprehensive trade agreement negotiated with the United States in the last Parliament, and an equal lack of success when it came to resolving some of the long-standing issues in the softwood lumber trade.

Focusing some of Parliament's attention on this issue again is always welcome in an attempt to come up with real and constructive ways forward that are not just about the politics of the issue, but are about how we can support Canadian workers in good jobs to be able to continue what they are doing.

I think about workers in the steel and aluminum industry who, notwithstanding progress towards a trade deal that was supposed to cover these things, seriously upset their industry. A lot of anxiety and damage was caused by tariffs that never should have been imposed in the first place, and were imposed for the most specious of reasons. The claim by the previous U.S. administration that Canada was somehow a national security threat was just ridiculous to anybody who knew anything about the issue and did not have a political agenda in the United States.

There are a lot of issues. It is an important relationship. It is something that we absolutely ought to be looking at.

I make note of the fact that we have a special committee right now on Canada-China. It bears mentioning, as many members in the House will know, that this has been an extraordinary time for Parliament, and has taxed its resources. Folks who have been around for a while and are used to sitting on committees that sometimes meet after hours or in the evenings know that has not been possible, in part because the House resources are extended by providing service to our normal committees, to the House itself and to a special committee of the House.

We know that it is not just about bandwidth, but also about the people who support that work, especially our interpreters. We have heard a lot of reports about the rate of injury among interpreters. There is a high vacancy rate now within our normal contingent of interpreters. There was a story at the beginning of the year, and we are not far into the year, about how the substitute roster for our interpreters was beginning to see attrition as interpreters were injured.

Part of that had to do with the amount of time they were spending on Zoom, so there are issues about members using headsets, but there are also issues about the amount of time they are spending doing their jobs in this way with equipment that is not meant for it.

As members get excited about studying important issues, we ought to think about how we can use the existing time and resources of our standing committees. As the NDP's member on the Standing Committee on International Trade, I would be very happy to take this up as a study through the normal committee process. It is important that we study the issue. New Democrats are very open to a discussion about how best to do that, and we recognize that House resources come into play and that parliamentarians have a responsibility to think meaningfully about how we deploy our parliamentary resources to best effect.

I want to reiterate our openness to looking at different ways to ensure that we pursue the subject matter of the motion, but do it in a way that makes the most sense given the resources that are available.

This motion singles out a couple of topics for an interim report. I note that, when we had the debate on the Special Committee for Canada-China Relations, the House was not as prescriptive. It did not single out particular issues. I said earlier that previous debate in the House will reflect that the Canada-U.S. relationship has many dimensions. Even if we just look at the economic relationship, there are a lot of dimensions to it and many of them are important to Canadians who work in all sorts of industries.

While I appreciate the extent to which certain issues have come to the fore with the change in U.S. administration, I wonder at the wisdom of being so prescriptive. One of the virtues of establishing a study, whether at the standing committee or in some special forum, is to have parliamentarians get a handle on what some of the major issues are after hearing testimony from players in that economic relationship, and then giving them the latitude to decide when an interim report would be timely, and on what issues.

In the last Parliament, we saw how things could take a turn with a more hostile U.S. administration. We are all looking forward to a more constructive relationship with a new U.S. administration. It presents certain risks and opportunities. It is definitely a great moment to be looking at Canada's relationship with the United States because there are a lot of opportunities right now.

While some members want to focus on the negative side of those opportunities, particularly when it comes to the energy sector, and make hay from the fact that a U.S. president followed through on an election commitment that also reflects a long-standing policy of his party, the fact is other opportunities are opening up, particularly when it comes to clean energy. The U.S. administration has announced a desire to focus on the problem of climate change, and for many Canadians that is a welcome emphasis. A lot of Canadians would like to see their elected representatives giving serious thought to the kinds of economic opportunities that will open up. They are happy about the positive environmental consequences of having a U.S. administration focused on the problem of climate change, but also to ask what kinds of economic opportunities this will open up over the next four years and how Canada can position itself to take advantage of those economic opportunities and create meaningful employment for Canadians while we tackle the climate crisis here.

Of course, talking about buy America is very important at this time. The U.S. President's emphasis on buy America is not new, and has often been touted across political lines. However, the emphasis on it is rightly a worry to many Canadians who depend on access to the U.S. market in order to earn their livelihoods.

Regarding automobiles, New Flyer Industries here in Winnipeg is a bus manufacturer that sells the lion's share of its product into the United States. It has structured its business model knowing there is always an emphasis on buy America within the United States. We are hopeful the company's business plan will insulate it from that. However, it is by far not the only company that will be affected.

That is why it is important to talk about the opportunities the new administration presents in terms of clean energy and transitioning away from fossil fuels, and how we ensure Canadians become employed in it. We also want to talk about the effects of the buy America policy and the various industries it will impact, particularly the auto industry. As one example, if there is public procurement for buses in the United States as part of that clean energy program, we want to make sure that Canadian manufacturers are getting access to those opportunities.

When we talk about Canadian procurement through CUSMA, we have provided American companies access to that too, but one of the glaring omissions of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement was that Canadian companies do not get reciprocal access to American projects. That needs to be fixed.

When we get into buy America, what we really get into is a discussion. When we talk about CUSMA, we were willing to sign on to an agreement as a country that left a gap, as it were, between our access to American public procurement and its access to Canada.

Part of it is driven by a blind faith, by both Liberals and Conservatives over the last 30 years, in the globalized trade agenda. Globalized trade can have advantages, for sure, but it is not the be-all and end-all. When we look at the United States and buy America, one of the things we see is a country that talks about the benefits of globalized trade when it suits its interests, but does not put all its eggs in that basket. It has clearly been willing to defend its own economy and vital interests.

When we look at vaccine procurement we see this again, with the European Union moving to protect its vaccine supply. Europe produces vaccines, and we do not produce them here in Canada. We did not get on the exempt list for the countries that will not have these new European Union measures apply to them. Some other countries that did not are the U.S., Australia and the U.K. What sets them apart from Canada? They all have domestic vaccine production.

Only in Canada do we have two political parties so committed to the global free-trade agreement that they did not do the job, when they were in government, of having real industrial plans for Canada and asking the question, even in the context of free global trade, of how we ensure that the nuts and bolts are here in Canada. Canada privatized and sold off a lot of its domestic vaccine production capability.

There is some capability here but, tellingly, Canada has waited to access that domestic vaccine production capacity. It did not make the investments early in the pandemic, and it sounds like we are going to be waiting at least a year to begin producing vaccines here at all. That is the result of a blind faith in a globalized trading system that even our trading partners do not have.

I think of our government and how, instead of thinking about how to have a domestic plan for vaccine manufacturing, its first thought was to go to the drug companies themselves and ask how to pay more. That was reported earlier this year in The Globe and Mail. The government asked companies manufacturing vaccines in Europe how we could pay more for more vaccine doses and faster access. That was its first thought.

It is that kind of behaviour that may have given rise to the measures the European Union ultimately took to protect its own vaccine manufacturing. That is because the government first thinks of going to big corporations instead of thinking of its duty to regulate in the public interest and make investments at home.

Our airline industry is in serious distress. We have had no plan at all for the airline industry from the government. Rather, we have seen a total laissez-faire approach to let the market decide. It seems that the position of the government is that if our airline industry does not make it, so be it. It offered the Canadian wage subsidy and then was upset when some airline companies took that subsidy and then laid off a bunch of workers anyway. It does not have a plan for the industry. We are meeting with people who represent workers in the airline industry. They say that there really is no plan. This is a strategic sector.

While we trade with other countries, and the U.S. among them, that are interested in liberalizing trade, they do not do that at the expense of having a plan for key industries that are the backbone of their economies. They do not do that at the expense of being able to manufacture important things like vaccines.

Canada has been the sucker for 30 years now when it comes to international trade. The Liberals and Conservatives alike have bought this hook, line and sinker instead of realizing our trading partners are talking free trade when it suits their interests, but have a domestic plan on how to deliver good jobs to their people and how deliver on the public health needs of their populations.

Let us talk about all those things, but let us give the committee the real breadth it needs to decide those priorities as it hears from witnesses.

With all that in mind, including a willingness to not only talk about where the study takes place, but some of the ways we think it might be improved, let us put some emphasis on new opportunities and not just the risks presented by the new administration in the United States.

Therefore, I propose the following amendment to the motion: That the motion be amended: (a) in subparagraph (2) by replacing the words “softwood lumber exports and related jobs” with the words “clean energy, softwood lumber exports and related jobs within a context of the global climate crisis; (b) in subparagraph (3) by adding after the word “policies”, the words “and their impact on the Canadian economy, including the automobile industry”; and (c) by deleting paragraphs (k) and (l).

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

It is my duty to inform hon. members that an amendment to an opposition motion may be moved only with the consent of the sponsor of the motion. Therefore, I ask the hon. member for Kelowna—Lake Country if she consents to this amendment being moved.

The hon. member for Kelowna—Lake Country.