Industry committee  The issue with the new NAFTA agreement is that we're trying to avoid U.S. imperialism here in terms of our trade agreements. The issue with the new NAFTA was something that we raised in an article we wrote for The Hill Times about five years ago when we were in the midst of negotiations.

Industry committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'm going to skip my introduction about the Canada West Foundation and start directly with my testimony. I hope everyone is already familiar with our foundation. We are a policy research centre for the four western provinces of Canada. From western Canada we've spent years—over a decade—working on the issue of right to repair.

International Trade committee  Thank you for that question. Before I dive in, for Mr. Blaikie, I'm happy to talk with you off-line about the issue you raised. It's a major subject among us pinheads, so I'm happy to talk to you in depth off-line about that. On Keystone, there are a couple of points. One is that the direction on Keystone was clear.

International Trade committee  Thank you for your question. I will answer in English so that all committee members understand. Yes, that rationalization of different rules amongst agreements is done through the legal scrubs and through processes at Foreign Affairs and the trade commission. It's also the work of export promotion agencies and export support agencies to help work with businesses on nationalizing those and coming up with the best advantage.

International Trade committee  Sure. Very briefly, the one-on-one bilateral agreement sets up rules on things including origin, phytosanitary measures and other arrangements that work only for that market. As a business, if you have a supply and production chain that, say, goes into other countries—Japan, Singapore or Australia—and you want to use goods and services from a wider array of economies to make you more competitive as a business, you run into problems with having to retool things to work just with Indonesia.

International Trade committee  Modern trade agreements have moved from reducing tariffs, which are already generally fairly low—the World Trade Organization rounds have done great work there—to focusing on those issues. I think the new trade agreements we see are working very diligently to address these issues.

International Trade committee  I'll give you one: On the procedures taken with the Americans in the U.S.-China phase one agreement, there are stricter requirements, yes or no, no fudging in terms of compliance with non-tariff barrier issues. We've done an exhaustive look at the U.S.-China phase one agreement.

International Trade committee  I thank the member for Elmwood—Transcona for that question. I would actually counter that, for Canada, on paper we do have a long list of agreements, but our ability to actually have agreements that work with business, that reduce the cost for businesses and the ability of businesses to get there, is not as good as those of our competitors.

International Trade committee  I would suggest doing something nuanced rather than doing a wholesale re-evaluation. When students go back—

International Trade committee  I'm sorry.

International Trade committee  You're absolutely right in the analysis of what's happening. We saw similar movements with past pandemics. There is, for instance—something we don't discuss—a North American pandemic agreement, yet the measures we've taken in the past in such agreements really, in the light of performance in the current pandemic, don't appear to have been too effective.

International Trade committee  The next generation, the one- and two-year-olds, will all learn the words, “You're on mute”, before they learn “mom” and “dad”. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, members of the committee. I am pleased to be here again to discuss this topic of critical importance to Canada, and particularly to the west—international trade in the era of COVID-19.

Canada-China Relations committee  Canada must increase its capability. We don't have the research institutions, the non-academic think tanks, that can engage on an ongoing basis. This is a critical weakness, when you look at Australia or the U.S., though it's difficult when we stray from the practicalities and go into political grandstanding and into attacking organizations that have worked hard to help Canada and have worked hard to increase our capacity and understanding.

Canada-China Relations committee  It is apparent that the rules-based order has failed. If the Americans continue with this managed trade track, we need to have a plan B to follow the Americans.

Canada-China Relations committee  We haven't seen that elsewhere. I would have you take a look again at the example of Brazil. How do we manage this? The rules-based system has been important to Canada and our history. We're facing a time, though, when the U.S. is trying to destroy or undermine the rules-based system, so we have to try to reinforce it with reaching out with like-minded countries or work with Japan.