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 That is an outdated romantic notion.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.