Art Eggleton

[Cuba, March 19th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the vice-president of the European Commission is quite supportive of the position that Canada has taken. It has been well enunciated by the Prime Minister, my colleague the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and myself in indicating our objections to this bill and the extraterritorial measure of the United States as it applies to our country and people who trade with Cuba.

We believe it is fundamentally wrong. We are taking action with respect to NAFTA. We have issued a letter to our partner, the United States, to commence with consultations under NAFTA.

The European Union shares our concerns. In fact, we have had very wide support from many countries right around the world. We will be raising this matter, together with the European Union, in various international forums such as the World Trade Organization and the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development to get the kind of support needed so that the United States will exercise the necessary discretion not to implement this bill.

[Cuba, March 5th, 1996]

I think not, Mr. Speaker. The American senate, the American house are determined to pass this bill. The president has decided he is going to sign it. It is largely out of the unfortunate incident that occurred of the planes being shot down by the Cuban authorities. We condemned this incident and were one of the first countries to do so.

However, some discretion is being left with the president. This morning I consulted with ambassadors from a number of countries. Further I will be consulting with the business community. We

intend to follow this through. The president has some discretion with respect to this matter.

We think this bill is a dangerous precedent. We hope he will use that discretion to make sure that Canada and other third parties in this dispute are not affected by the United States' desire to get at Cuba.

[Cuba, March 5th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has said, quite eloquently, how the government feels, which is that the Helms-Burton bill in the United States should not affect this country or any other country.

We should not be told that if we trade or have business with Cuba, which is perfectly lawful, that we are going to be punished. That is the message I took quite clearly to Washington yesterday. That is the message of the Prime Minister in the Caribbean supported by the leaders in the Caribbean community.

[Speech From The Throne, March 5th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, there are two parts to that question. I will take them in reverse order.

The government does give priority to the breaking down of internal trade barriers. Some people have said there are more barriers to trade within Canada than there are between Canada and other countries. That is true in many respects.

The government is cognizant of that. It wants to remove those trade barriers. That is why it entered into an accord with the provinces last year. It will continue to work to break down those barriers, to bring about the free flow of goods and people and investment within our country. That remains a very high priority of the government and my colleague, the Minister of Industry, will be able to provide more information on what specifically is being done by him and by the government to meet that priority.

With respect to the free trade agreement and the position that the government took when it came into office, we had witnessed for a number of years the start-up of the free trade agreement prior to the NAFTA agreement. The initial impact of that agreement was quite negative in many respects for many companies, particularly branch plant companies. There were a lot of closings and a lot of people losing jobs. The previous government had indicated that it would have an adjustment program that never materialized. Many people suffered under that situation.

Having gone through that restructuring, Canadians are beginning to see the benefits of the free trade agreement, the benefits of NAFTA. More benefits can be gained if we can increase the number of rules, including dispute settlement mechanisms. That has always been the government's message and my party's message.

It is what we said we wanted to do with the trading remedy groups in NAFTA. We want increase the rules to decrease the times and the opportunities for a member country to take countervail or anti-dumping duty action. Those two actions have no place in the free trade agreement. We want them out. We want a rules based system and we will continue to get through NAFTA and through the World Trade Organization a priority of working toward more liberalized trade in the world, but also based on some very clear rules.

[Speech From The Throne, March 5th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague said a number of things. What struck me the most is when he said we must think Canadian. I am glad to hear that from a member of the Bloc Quebecois.

What we need to do is think Canadian. That is what was the great success was behind Team Canada, notwithstanding that the premier of Quebec never went. Other premiers went, the private sector went. They produced some $20 billion in contracts that produced tens of thousands of jobs throughout Canada, including Quebec.

The Quebec government needs to get on to Team Canada. I am delighted to hear the member say that we need to think Canadian. He said a number of things. I got the impression he was dismissing our relationship with the United States. This is over 80 per cent of our trade. We cannot dismiss that relationship out of hand.

I pointed our earlier that we have a $28 billion surplus, much of that with the United States. Our trading relationship with that country is quite successful and it is bread and butter on the table for Canadians. We need to continue to nourish it.

I went to Washington yesterday to talk with the U.S. trade representative, Mr. Kantor, and the Secretary of Commerce, Mr. Brown, about the relationship. It was a meeting that had been planned some time before the Helms-Burton legislation became quite the controversy that it is today. It was designed as a get acquainted session and an opportunity to explore a number of bilateral issues.

To put this in some context, more than 95 per cent of the trade that exists between Canada and the United States is not a problem at all. These discussions are relevant to no more than 5 per cent of trade. We must continue to advance that relationship. We must make sure that we have more rules on which to base our discussions and settle our disputes.

As was quite evident in the recent settlement of the softwood lumber dispute, in NAFTA there is no subsidies code. There are no rules about subsidies so that the United States can come in and countervail.

Fortunately, with the support of the provincial governments, the Government of Quebec, the industry of Quebec, the Government of British Columbia, the industry of British Columbia being the two biggest representing 85 per cent of the softwood lumber exports to the United States, we were able to work out an agreement with the United States that provides for five-year secure access for our lumber market, an $8 billion export market. By doing that, it will prevent countervail from occurring in this area and save thousands of Canadian jobs.

In spite of the fact that we did not have rules on subsidies, we were able to get that agreement. We need to keep working on the rules to make sure that we are protected. We are dealing with a big country. We have to protect ourself with a rules based system. More liberalized trade, yes; also, more rules based trade.

With respect to Cuba and the Helms-Burton bill, I made it clear to Mr. Kantor and Mr. Brown of the United States government that Canada protested the bill. We certainly join with them in deploring the shooting down of those planes by the Cubans. We want to work with them and to try to advance democracy and human rights in Cuba.

To take this kind of measure against third countries, including Canada, to say in effect that if you trade with Cuba, you cannot trade with us, as somebody in the States said, is wrong. It is a dangerous precedent. I made that quite clear.

My hon. colleague asked me this morning about what we will do. I met with ambassadors from many countries and heard many similar kinds of concerns expressed by them. I will also be consulting with Canadian businesses. We are looking at our options as we read the final text of the bill. We have not seen the final wording yet. It is going to pass the Senate and the House of Representatives. It will be signed by the President.

The President of the United States will have some discretion. It is limited, but he has some. We will be urging him to use that discretion to not take this out on their long time friend and number one trading partner, Canada, or third world countries. We have not heard the last of this issue.

The throne speech talked about the need for further investments in the area of science and technology. This certainly is where a lot of research is going to be needed. We recognize that innovation is going to help lead to more productivity. It will help lead to the kind of competitive position we have to have in world markets to be able to increase our exports. We well recognize that. We also recognize that more firms need to export. That is why we set a goal of saying we would double the number of exporters by the year 2000. That is why we are going to take a more proactive means of achieving increased export volumes and increased investment.

My hon. colleague knows full well from those remarks and from the statistics which have been coming out lately which clearly

indicate our ever increasing export opportunities that the government is giving this the kind of priority that it needs to have.

[Speech From The Throne, March 5th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am indeed rising to speak on the speech from the throne specifically with regard to the area of which I have jurisdiction as minister, the area of international trade.

Expanding trade is not a matter of choice for Canadians. With a relatively small population we simply must find markets beyond our own. This is a challenge which Canadians are taking on with tenacity and success. Exports have been growing at an unprecedented rate and now represent nearly 37 per cent of our gross domestic product compared to 24 per cent in 1991. One in three jobs in Canada now depends on exports. That is one in three.

The final figures have just come in on our merchandise trade and I am delighted to announce today that it now stands at a record surplus of $28 billion. This record surplus smashes the previous record of $20 billion that was set back in 1984.

Significantly much of this export growth is taking place in value added sectors which means that we are no longer simply exporting raw materials for others to refine and then sell back to us at increased prices. This is good news for the long term economic prospects of Canadians.

It is also encouraging to note that while the United States remains by far our largest trading partner, there has also been a significant increase in our exports to other major markets around the world. Our trade is growing. Our exports are diversifying and our markets are expanding.

What accounts for this phenomenal success? There are three main reasons. First, of course the lower Canadian dollar has made

it easier for Canadians to sell their goods and services in international markets. But that is not the full story.

Second, we must also recognize the role played by our success in liberalizing trade, in opening up these markets around the world through the World Trade Organization and through the North American Free Trade Agreement. By levelling the playing field for Canadian firms our trade policy successes have allowed many seasoned exporters to take on new markets. It has also meant that many Canadian businesses have begun to export for the very first time.

Third, our exports have soared because of the initiative and the imagination of individual Canadians and individual Canadian companies which have found ways to compete and to compete profitably in the global marketplace. They are the authors of their own success and their achievements are benefiting all of us in Canada.

The successes of the past impose upon us the responsibility to maintain and exceed that performance in the future. If we are to continue to offer quality jobs to Canadians, we must continue to set our sights higher and we are doing just that.

Last October my predecessor as Minister for International Trade challenged Canadians to double the number of active exporters by the year 2000. This is indeed an ambitious goal, but consider the potential of it.

Relatively few Canadian companies are currently exporting. In fact 50 firms alone account for half of the exports of this country. There is lots of margin for improvement. To expand exports we need to dramatically increase the number of companies exporting and encourage current exporters to expand into new markets.

There is also the other side of the coin. Just as Canada must increase its exports to others, so too must we attract quality, technology rich, foreign, direct investment to this country because more than one job in ten and more than half of Canada's exports are directly due to international investment in Canada. Companies which invest in this country end up carrying much of the exports into other countries.

Foreign investment brings us the latest technology and helps our subsidiaries compete in world markets.

All regions of Canada benefit from such investments. For example, Stora of Sweden recently announced the construction of a new $650 million pulp and paper facility in Nova Scotia, creating 300 new jobs. The Montreal subsidiary of Ericsson Communications also of Sweden is providing 700 jobs for Canadian engineers and technicians. The recently announced expansions of Toyota and Honda in Ontario mean 2,200 new jobs for Canadians. The recent decisions by Merck-Frosst mean 200 new jobs for research scientists in British Columbia and Quebec.

These are large numbers but behind each one is an individual Canadian who is granted the dignity of holding a job, of paying his or her own way and who can begin to dream that their tomorrows will be brighter than their yesterdays. This is what foreign investment really means.

We know that the competition for such foreign investment is keen so we must be both aggressive and strategic in our efforts to attract and retain it in Canada. We have the best country in the world in which to invest and we need to continue to get that message out.

It is absolutely essential to offer foreign investors an investment climate that is second to none. That is why the government remains committed to deficit reduction. That is why we are working to eliminate regulatory burdens, barriers to interprovincial trade and to end disputes and regulations which restrict the flow of business and business people.

If, as it has been often said, trade is the lifeblood of our economic prosperity, then access is its arteries. The free circulation of goods is essential to our economic health. Our government will continue to open new markets and create new opportunities for Canadian companies.

To ensure the continued development of our trade, this government has identified three key priorities. The first is to effectively manage our most important trading relationship, that with the United States. The second is to liberalize trade around the world based on clear rules and level playing fields. To this end we are working through the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement. The third is to ensure that Canadian companies realize the benefits presented by the global marketplace. This means championing Canadian companies abroad, helping companies find new markets, assisting with financing where appropriate and attracting new investment to Canada.

These priorities were not pulled out of thin air. They are the result of extensive consultations with Canadian industry and with our provincial partners. We will continue in this collaborative manner as we proceed to implement these priorities.

It should come as no surprise that our trading relationship with the United States should be our first priority. After all, 82 per cent of our exports go to that country. In fact, two-way trade between Canada and the United States is a billion dollars every single day going both ways. It is the biggest trading relationship for both of our countries. It is the biggest trading relationship that exists in the world and one on which tens of thousands of jobs depend. It is also one in which, in spite of the headlines that show the controversies and issues in a number of areas, more than 95 per cent of that trade

with the United States goes across the borders harassment free, without any difficulties whatsoever. The relationship is a strong one.

The relatively stable and predictable trade environment that has been created by NAFTA and the WTO has certainly improved conditions a lot. It has encouraged an enormous expansion of this trade and trade in other parts of the world. Our exports have risen by 90 per cent over the last nine years under NAFTA and its earlier FTA.

Over time we have been able to bring more and more of the bilateral trade relationship with the U.S. within the scope of agreed on trade rules. It is not perfect yet and we have still a way to go, but we are getting more of it based on rules.

For example, we will continue to be making the case that anti-dump and countervail laws have no place in a free trade area. While we have not yet convinced the United States of this, we will keep working toward it. We will keep working toward a bilateral trading relationship free of such trade remedy laws. This will be a key objective as we work to expand and tighten the rules in NAFTA.

These principles of rule based trade and freedom from countervail also animate our approach in other multilateral and regional fora such as the WTO and the Asia Pacific. With our partners in the WTO we aim to avoid the hub and spoke approach to trade policies, ensure the development of fair rules and obligations, and demonstrate the benefits of participating in the WTO.

We are also engaged in regional liberalization discussions where these are deemed important to Canadian interests. They include the negotiation by the year 2005 of a free trade area of the Americas. They also include participation in Asia and through APEC in efforts to pursue a Canada-European action plan and do some of the discussions jointly with the United States in a trilateral consultation.

Bilaterally we are close to concluding a free trade agreement with Israel. We are now negotiating a free trade agreement with Chile which will act as a bridge toward the eventual accession of that country into the North American free trade agreement.

With all of these efforts and initiatives we have tried to establish the access to foreign markets which Canadian companies need. Access is only half the battle. Canadian companies must be made aware of the opportunities available to them. They must be supported in their efforts to create beach heads in these new markets. The benefits of investing in Canada must be communicated to foreign investors.

In all of these areas the government is taking action. Canadians are well aware of the Prime Minister's highly successful Team Canada missions abroad. The latest mission to Southeast Asia underlined the merits of the united approach, leading to some $9 billion in new contracts for Canadian firms. This is on top of the $13 billion generated by two previous Team Canada missions.

The government has no intention of stopping there and, as indicated in the speech from the throne, the Prime Minister will lead more such missions in the future. When we look at the fact that for every billion dollars in new trade and exports we create 11,000 jobs for Canadians, that $20 billion has produced tens of thousands of jobs in our economy.

These missions show how much Canadians can achieve when we work together as a Team Canada. Now we must borrow the same approach at home in order to increase the number of companies trading abroad. To this end we have built a domestic Team Canada in partnership with relevant federal departments and agencies, the provinces and the private sector. Its mission is to help existing exporters find new markets, and to ensure that all Canadian exporters have access to the best possible market intelligence about these world markets.

Over the next three months all of the partners at the federal level in the provinces and the private sector will be determining what sectors and what markets we should be keying in on. Where do we focus? Where do we set our priorities?

Team Canada's task will be to identify, prepare and assist companies with export potential, develop their interest in foreign markets, help them gain access to all export assistance programs, and facilitate their export involvement. We are becoming much more proactive than ever before.

It is more important than ever that we commit our resources where they will have the greatest impact. Certainly in our economy exports have had an enormous impact in creating jobs and growth. That is why our direct funding assistance for international business development is now limited and will be focusing on small or medium size companies in which a lot of the growth and jobs can take place.

We also recognize the vital role played by our trade commissioners in all this. In 107 trade posts throughout the world these commissioners provide Canadian entrepreneurs with business leads, introductions to buyers and partners in foreign markets as well as with timely, strategic advice on markets and how best to tap into them.

We must support and strengthen our trade commissioners by enhancing their client focus and by providing means of monitoring client satisfaction.

The final ingredient of export success is access to competitive export financing. This often determines whether a firm can export or not. In times of diminishing resources, when governments can no longer afford to provide all the funding they would like to or

which companies may feel they need, we need to become more creative and imaginative in our approach.

The old ways of the old days when export orders were purchased with highly subsidized export financing must give way to new forms of risk sharing with the private sector.

We understand these new realities and we will work through the Export Development Corporation, the EDC, to expand the export finance system by leveraging public and private sector resources in new and innovative ways.

We will also look at ways to encourage Canadian financial institutions to become more involved in export financing. Some of the banks have already begun to develop strong relationships with EDC. We want to see these relationships grow with true risk sharing partnerships.

As we approach the 21st century our reputation as a trading power is well established and will continue to grow because Canadians have demonstrated their ability to take on the world and win. As a government our role is to solidify the gains we have made, to open new markets to Canadian enterprises, to encourage more Canadian companies to sell abroad, to be more proactive in how we help them and to continue to market Canada as a wonderful place to invest.

Our prosperity as a nation is always dependent on trade. In earlier days in other ways we met the challenges that faced us. I am confident we will again rise to the occasion. Our recent trade performance, as I have talked about it here this morning, has indicated that we can achieve when Canadians work together, when Canadian work in unison, when Canadians work as a team.

I am convinced these successes will pale with the achievements that are still to come.

[Speech From The Throne, March 5th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the speech from the throne reaffirms the government's commitment to expand trade to ensure our prosperity.

[Softwood Lumber Industry, February 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the problem was that between the last dispute and this one, the law changed in the United States.

According to the rules of NAFTA and NAFTA panels, the NAFTA panel only has to determine whether or not a country in the agreement follows its own laws. Because of the change in the law, it created a great state of uncertainty about our ability to succeed in a further countervail measure if we should challenge it through a NAFTA panel.

We dealt with the provinces and with the industry in each of the provinces across the country and were able to come up with a good solution. It is different for the different provinces but is one they all subscribe to. It is one we were able to bring together under an overall Canada umbrella to work as a team with the provinces and with industry to come up with a solution that gives them secure access to the United States market for the next five years. This is something that has never been achieved before without any countervail measure.

We have secured a better access for very substantial volumes of our lumber to the United States market very similar to what we have had over the last two or three years.

[Trade, February 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his congratulatory comments.

While the government joins the United States in condemning the Cuban action in shooting down two civilian planes, we are disappointed by what is resulting in the Helms-Burton bill. We are disappointed by the effect it will have on Canadians and business people from other countries in terms of access to the United States for these business people as well as the potential of lawsuits against them.

We have yet to get the details of the legal text of the bill. We hope to get that later in the day. When we do, we will be looking at it in terms of the options for action the government can take. In terms of NAFTA, in terms of the trade obligations the United States has with respect to that, we want to make sure they uphold their part of that agreement. We want to make sure Canadians continue to have access in the United States and are able within Canadian law to continue to deal in a business fashion with Cuba and other countries.

We will take action on that after we have looked at the options before us.

[Toronto, December 7th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, in answering the question I am pleased to note in the gallery opposite a holder of an office that I had the pleasure of holding at one time. I am pleased to note and welcome the mayor of Toronto, Her Worship Barbara Hall, to the House.

In the greater Toronto area we have approved over 300 infrastructure projects involving an infusion of some $850 million, which has created in excess of 11,000 jobs in that area. With the co-operation of Mayor Hall and the Toronto City Council many of these projects have been in the downtown Toronto area.

All these projects, just like all projects across the country, have helped to put Canadians back to work, have helped to strengthen the infrastructure in our communities and to bring in additional investment dollars. They have all been done in a co-operative way, which proves that the federal, provincial and local governments can work together for the improvement of the quality of life of Canadians.