International Trade committee  They did up until.... Then, about 18 months ago, two U.S. domestic manufacturers filed a complaint. About 90 days ago, the U.S. Department of Commerce found in their favour and imposed countervailing duties of between 33% and 165% on Chinese cable. I know anecdotally from being in the U.S. that there are still people getting around it with transshipping.

International Trade committee  Most certainly, and that's part of this free trade agreement. We would encourage that. We are working with Electro-Federation Canada, which is our recognized industry trade representative. Probably in the next 90 days we will be approaching federal representatives to actually file a complaint.

International Trade committee  Yes. We make both copper and aluminum conductor cables.

International Trade committee  Yes, exactly.

International Trade committee  It does. Right now each country has its own action or situation. The U.S. Department of Commerce just in the last 90 days has fined and levied duties on Chinese cable, but I'm not sure about Mexico, and Canada has not done that.

International Trade committee  Most certainly. We're working with our industry association right now to that end. Our concern is it's very late for our industry. We are the last Canadian-owned aluminum cable manufacturer. Everybody else has either left, closed or sold out to multinational companies.

International Trade committee  Not in our sector of the industry. We make fairly large power cables. The imported cables, probably because of the weight, have been less of an issue than the aluminum cables. I know in the data cable telecom industry, imports have been devastating.

International Trade committee  There is some overlap. Aluminum is used in large industrial cables for mining applications and power feed for large commercial buildings and condominiums. Aluminum is taking over copper because there's about a three to one price difference and it's lighter to work with and is readily available.

International Trade committee  We would enjoy seeing that. We have not seen that. That is one of our concerns, because we are suffering from that right at this very moment.

International Trade committee  We did not understand the question.

International Trade committee  We are working with our industry association currently to have the Canadian government recognize unfair dumping of aluminum products in Canada in order to level the playing field for Canadian manufacturers.

International Trade committee  The most significant area is aluminum. There are many aluminum products, but in our specific industry, it's electrical cables. We have Chinese sales-people driving down the 401 to distributors, offering to sell products at less than the cost of raw materials. We buy all of our aluminum from the province of Quebec, and all the aluminum that's coming from China is coming from a state-subsidized manufacturer.

International Trade committee  No. Our concerns are that under CUSMA there are things that could affect our trade. We've enjoyed, in our products, a fairly barrier-free trade for a number of years, and CUSMA won't affect that. We did have some very minimal effect in the tariff spat here two years ago. Our issues are more that as we become an integrated economy, Canada will stand out as not being a fit partner.

International Trade committee  Good day. I'm Todd Stafford. I'm the president of Northern Cables in Brockville, Ontario. Northern Cables is a 24-year-old Canadian owned and operated manufacturing company based in Brockville, Ontario. We are the remainder of what was once a large domestic aluminum wiring cable manufacturing industry in Canada.

International Trade committee  If you're printing a product that doesn't have a standard.... For a lot of products, they need a CSA or UL standard, so the onus would go back to those bodies to ensure that the product has a UL. You hear about recalls. In our industry, we hear about recalls all the time, with things coming in from offshore, mostly at the Dollar Store, that have a false UL symbol on them, so there's a big recall.