International Trade committee  Good morning, and thank you for this opportunity to present briefly on who we are, why this trade agreement and trade generally matters, and then to take questions. CIAC is the voice of Canada's chemistry industry. We represent the large industrial chemical producers and chemist

International Trade committee  As a small portion of the world, a lot of our impact will be multiplied if we can replace things happening in other parts of the world. You already used the gas-coal analogy, but I'll use the chemicals analogy. For every tonne of chemicals we make from gas, the life cycle of thos

International Trade committee  I'm not sure, because reducing gas emissions, methane emissions, is something we're all pursuing in every aspect of our operations. Reducing waste and making it a stream for other sectors to make stuff from is a good thing. I think what they're talking about is fugitive emissio

International Trade committee  The market access that is specifically being opened up will be Japan and Australia. I think there is one other area that's material.... We already have Singapore, and it's already duty free. Those are the two main ones. We are going to have an opportunity to move existing Can

International Trade committee  The chemical industry in Canada is making its products from natural gas. The chemical industry in Japan makes theirs from oil. There is a significant advantage to making them from gas. The U.S. makes its chemicals from gas too. There would be a significant disadvantage. That Ja

International Trade committee  I think we'll have to take that in two parts. When it comes to the industrial chemicals area, every one of our members already has experience in exporting, in going after international markets. The concern today is that we are going to lose some of the American market because t

International Trade committee  Okay. No offence, please.... Thirty-eight per cent of our employees have university degrees. That is second to IT in manufacturing. They have 41%. This is a good sector to grow. Trade agreements have dispute settlement mechanisms, but trade agreements are about giving up a littl

Transport committee  My name is Dave Podruzny. I represent the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada and also Canada's chemical producers. Industrial chemical producers move more than three-quarters of our products by rail. We do so because it's the safest way to do it and it's the most economic

Transport committee  If I may offer a comment, I'll speak in English, because it's better than my French. Is it sufficient? I have to say no. We need to have some discipline in the process. Right now, we are, number one, captive to all the information supplied by the railways and all the data that

Transport committee  This is something we take very seriously. What we have started to do for the last 40 years, under a responsible care ethic, is engage in training exercises for first respondents. We do what we can to have a safe vessel that goes to the railways, but in addition, we regularly, a

Transport committee  One has already been raised, which is that transparency in information is very important. Another one is deliberately having your system mesh well with what happens south of the border. We move virtually 80% of production into the U.S, so a seamless move because of similar standa

Transport committee  I'm always stunned when I hear that someone says railcars are sitting somewhere. Our members, as I said at the outset in my opening comments, look after 100% of their own railcars. I can say that we have had to increase the ownership and leasing of cars by a third because the tur

Transport committee  I would add that intermodal shipping is important to us because of our international shipments. We have to get containers to ports and then load them on, so port service is just as important and can become a constraint from time to time. Then we move them by marine to get to inte

Transport committee  I'd be very concerned that we not wait for the perfect. At this point, there is a service issue. There is a service imbalance. There's an information issue. I believe that intermodal is very important and getting to international markets is very important. Most of our product i

Transport committee  I think it's an all-of-the-above approach, because an investor looking at whether to come here versus whether to go somewhere else is going to want to have a robust system in place to move the finished products. As I said at the outset, 80% of our production has to move by rail.