International Trade committee  Out west, obviously, we don't have the issue of all those. On the agricultural front, where I do have a great deal more familiarity with the line items, we haven't seen that many changes. Remember that under the original NAFTA most line items were knocked down to zero on the tari

International Trade committee  Good afternoon. Madam Chair and committee members, before I start, I would like to thank you for inviting me to appear before you in order to present some viewpoints from the west. They are not just about NAFTA, because everyone is well aware of how important it is. Instead, I'

International Trade committee  That would be a question, I think, for Minister Champagne, to see what sort of outreach has been done. I would note that on Canadian companies in Mexico, the examples you mentioned are far too few. We have underperformed in the Mexican market.

International Trade committee  We are fourth in the Mexican market in terms of softwood lumber. Two years ago we went to the Alberta forestry association and said, “Softwood lumber is coming back again. You're looking at Asia. Why are you number four in Mexico, after Chile and Brazil?” Their response was a sh

International Trade committee  Manitoba, I think, is the leader in Canada in terms of engagement. What CentrePort has done in terms of taking advantage of things that the previous government put on the table, with the financing initiative, and with reaching out to Mexican suppliers to use Winnipeg as a basis f

International Trade committee  We are not going to mend that. The hard-core opposition to NAFTA, those people who have given up hope on liberalism, I don't know that we're going to be able to move all of them. I was in Washington, D.C., for the inauguration. What struck me most, walking around the streets, ta

International Trade committee  Here's the issue, though. When you look at Trump supporters, they were also mad about Obamacare, and then they realized, slowly, that people were going to lose health coverage. A lot of people didn't care that they were losing health coverage, they still supported Trump. But some

International Trade committee  I'm seeing congressmen who are talking about issues on the table with NAFTA, and are getting an earful from their constituents, who are saying, “Wait a minute, when we talked about NAFTA you didn't mention that it was going to be my job that was gone, you didn't mention that it w

International Trade committee  We have the list. It's not by state, but by metropolitan area in the U.S. It's Canada-U.S. We have to stop talking about the largest trade partner in terms of U.S. states, because I think that's actually fairly meaningless. The largest trade partner means 1% of a state's GDP, but

International Trade committee  We have the list with Canada, Mexico, and who's the largest for New York, for Cincinnati, for New Orleans, etc.

International Trade committee  First is the overall importance of the relationship and being able to communicate that to metropolitan areas and districts in the U.S. We are working together, so our consul general in Dallas, for example—and Colin may be able to speak to this as well—is working with the consulat

International Trade committee  I'll do this one in English for everyone.

International Trade committee  This is going to require a much longer response. We've just carried out a modelling exercise on TPP 11, a TPP without the U.S. Canada will do second best of all the 11 countries, after only Mexico. We will be in essence taking market share off the Americans in Asia, market share

International Trade committee  There are some aspects of free trade in CETA that we can use in the NAFTA talks. I have not studied it thoroughly. I mentioned the TPP and the renegotiation of NAFTA. It was U.S. policy to use the TPP to modernize NAFTA. So the links between the TPP and NAFTA are clearer. It is

International Trade committee  I have two quick points on that. The National Bureau of Economic Research in the U.S. has shown the full extent of trade integration—and my colleagues can join me in this, because we all say this all the time. Every dollar of goods or services that the U.S. imports from Canada c