International Trade committee  The implications for some sectors are quite significant, especially in commodities, because so many of our Canadian farmers of course work in that environment. A small tariff change can basically shut you out of the market. To give you another example, there was a situation where the U.S. put in place a free trade agreement in Central America in which potatoes were coming from the United States at a 0% tariff and potatoes coming from Canada still had a tariff of, I believe, over 15%, and overnight literally millions and millions and millions of dollars of Canadian french fries were no longer moving to Central America because of the difference.

International Trade committee  Would you like me to respond to that?

International Trade committee  You raise a very important point. I think that the standards for corporate social responsibility have been rising over the last numbers of years, as they should. It is our experience that Canadian-based companies are in fact stepping up. When I've visited some of these countries, it is their nationals who are talking about how the Canadian corporation was setting the example for their own national companies to meet.

International Trade committee  Thank you. Those are excellent questions. I'll respond first to the second one you addressed to me, which is on the importance of a rules-based system. Canada, as a middle-sized country, is subject to the whims of larger countries in changing the environment on us and providing preferential treatment to their own companies and to other countries.

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for the invitation to join you today. As you mentioned, I'm here with Ryan Stein, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce's director of international and transportation policy. The Canadian Chamber is pleased to provide its input into Bill C-24, the Canada-Peru free trade agreement implementation act.

Finance committee  Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity. I did speak briefly about the opportunity that exists for private insurance companies. As we all know, Canada is very fortunate to have some of the best in the world to provide the pension gap that was mentioned earlier. I would also like to add that in this current economic downturn, we also have Canadians who have defined contribution pensions and registered retirement savings plans, or who draw income from retirement income funds who have also seen their savings decline sharply in lockstep with the equity market and long-term interest rates.

Finance committee  This is just one more example of how the fact of our 13 jurisdictions in Canada stands in the road of progress. We would strongly recommend that the federal and provincial governments work more closely together. The regulatory regimes have to be closely related, and it would be constructive for the federal government to work to try to find a way to coordinate this between the provinces and the territories.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. Perhaps our numbers might be a little bit different, but we also see that there are some Canadians who do not have the pension coverage they would like to have. At this point in time, our recommendation would be that in addition to the excellent work that has been done by the Rotman School of Business, you should actually talk to some of the insurance companies.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and gentlemen. My name is Shirley-Ann George. I'm the senior vice-president of policy at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. With me today is Mr. Serge Pharand, vice-president and corporate comptroller at Canadian National. It gives us great pleasure to be before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance to present the views of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and our members on this important issue.

International Trade committee  Mr. Chair, if you would allow me, I'll put forward one additional idea before we close off today. We talked about the importance of the NEXUS cards. Unfortunately they're viewed as a card for crossing between Canada and the United States. Even people who have them sometimes don't understand that they can also use them when entering Canada from any country.

International Trade committee  Thank you for that question. The challenge we have with the border is that many incremental requirements have been added. We're trying to bat those off one at a time and deal with them. I think it's fair to say that we may have made progress on a lot of these issues, but there are just so many of them that when you add them all up they result in a thicker border.

International Trade committee  Recently someone was telling us at the chamber that in the previous administration one of the powerful secretaries had commented that dealing with Canada is like dealing with a condominium association: there's this unending list of complaints. It's important that we try to change some of that perspective.

International Trade committee  Of course Canada will have some areas where we agree to differ and will have different regulations; there's no question of that. We need to make an evaluation of these regulations as to whether or not they're needed. Let me give you an example. The automotive industry has done some work.

International Trade committee  I would hope it might start by.... Well, this committee could be very helpful by including it in your report and asking for the other government departments to explain why they do not feel it's essential to meet the same standards.