International Trade committee  Good morning. My name is Matt Wayland, as mentioned, and I'm here on behalf of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, or IBEW. I would like to take the time to thank the committee on international trade for allowing us to present our concerns today on the Trans-P

International Trade committee  The IBEW is against TPP, and more specifically, chapter 12 of that agreement. It is bad for skilled trades workers such as electricians, bad for construction workers, and ultimately bad for the Canadian economy.

International Trade committee  Yes, if I may. You talked about WorkSafeBC as well, and if I can, I'll add to Chris's remarks. Each province will have a work safe program like WorkSafeBC or work safe Manitoba. What tends to happen is those practices or that group isn't on site until there's an issue, and then

International Trade committee  Through the agreement it is possible for contractors or Canadians to go work in those areas. In our industry, in terms of what would typically happen, I could see them going maybe to Australia, where there are similar practices and similar wage scales, but going to Malaysia or Me

International Trade committee  In terms of skill sets, the Canadian Welding Bureau, for instance, has testing modules across the world. As Chris mentioned, if they want to bring welders in, there are different testing booths they can do around the world. I don't know if that would be the same, but it's not jus

International Trade committee  That's correct.

International Trade committee  On the environmental side, I'm not aware of the clause. I've focused specifically on labour, so I can't touch on the environmental side. Obviously, raising standards for labour workers across the globe is important to us. At the same time, I think we look at the standards we try

International Trade committee  There is a Canadian electrical code which supersedes everything. That is the standard across Canada. There is a Canadian electrical code that will identify it, and it's the same with the Canadian building code.

International Trade committee  Very minor, but yes.

International Trade committee  I think Mr. Benson and Mr. Smillie covered most of the points. It's the first time we've seen a trade deal where we've had to deal with labour mobility between those countries. We've looked for labour mobility between Canada and the U.S., and we haven't been able to get that, eve

International Trade committee  I'm not saying that at all. Under the TPP, what could happen is they'd have carte blanche to come over. They have a licence in that country; they'd come over. There's no meeting our codes or making sure they get to our codes or training.

International Trade committee  If I may, I would say that our standards are very high, but they wouldn't shut them down in a heartbeat. I've seen it. I've worked on the tools. I've worked on job sites where it's gone on—

International Trade committee  I mentioned one earlier in my remarks, but yes.

International Trade committee  Absolutely. Someone mentioned GDP earlier. The construction industry is 14% of Canada's GDP on a consistent basis. We have not seen any studies, nor have we commissioned any on our end either, on what impact that would have. The answer is, as Chris mentioned, we don't know—it has

International Trade committee  Anyone around the table, especially as elected officials, if an electrician or a carpenter or a pipefitter or a welder were sitting at home on employment insurance or was out of a job and looking for work, and there were foreign workers coming in through the TPP, not even through