- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Dufferin—Caledon
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $136,309.03
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Mr. Speaker, Conservatives have a very long, storied and proud tradition of supporting free trade. We only have to look back to the negotiations of the original Canada-United States free trade agreement, which was, of course, something Conservatives were in favour of and that Liberals campaigned very hard against. I was a young lad back then, but I remember a commercial from the Liberal Party on this, talking about free trade. It said that there was only one more line that we had to remove, and then it erased the border between Canada and the United States. That was a long time ago, but I just want to talk briefly about how strongly Conservatives support free trade. We believe in free trade between free nations as an integral part of improving the prosperity of all people.
We were also the people who started the negotiations on CETA. The CETA deal is a Conservative deal that was started by Prime Minister Harper as part of our aggressive trade expansion. The same thing with the CPTPP, which was a Conservative initiative. Conservatives are very supportive of free trade.
This original free trade agreement between Canada and Ukraine was originated by a Conservative government under Prime Minister Harper. The member for Abbotsford, from the Conservative Party, was the lead negotiator on that. He will speak to this, and we will have some wonderful insights on this agreement.
When we talk about the importance of the Canada-Ukraine relationship, we have to talk about the 1.3 million Canadians of Ukrainian origin who live here in Canada. Many of them were integral in the development of western Canada. They are an incredible and important part of the social fabric of Canada, and their contributions to Canada cannot go unnoticed. As a result of that, in part, we have very strong people-to-people ties between Canada and Ukraine. Of course, we are strong supporters of Ukraine during the illegal invasion being prosecuted by Russia.
With respect to this agreement in particular, this modernization would build on the 2017 agreement, which updated or added 11 new chapters to the free trade agreement. The updated chapters included rules of origin and procedures, government procurement, competition policy, monopolies and state enterprises, electronic commerce, digital trade, labour, the environment, transparency, anti-corruption and responsible business conduct.
There is also a significant number of new chapters, 11 new chapters, in this trade agreement, and I will talk a little more about that later in my remarks. However, these are on investment; cross-border trade and services; temporary entry for business people; development and administration of measures; financial services; services and investment, non-conforming measures; telecommunications; trade and gender; trade and small and medium-sized enterprises; trade and indigenous peoples; and good regulatory practices. This is a substantial change from the original agreement that was signed in 2017.
On that, I would echo some of the comments made by the NDP, which is that this agreement is actually substantial. It is a very large trade agreement. Of course, we have to take our time to make sure we study free trade agreements in detail and thoroughly. However, it does seem as though the government is trying to rush this forward, and I am not sure that is necessarily the way Parliament should look at things. We should do our jobs as parliamentarians.
I would like to talk about the original trade agreement. In 2022, Canada's total merchandise trade with Ukraine was $420 million, $150 million in exports and $270 million in imports. The way the original agreement was designed, as it was negotiated by the Conservative government, was that this would be, in a sense, a bit of an asymmetrical agreement.
It was set up such that Ukraine would have a little more advantage in the early stages of the agreement, with the anticipation that there would be a final agreement in which more things would be added. Originally, this was primarily a merchandise agreement. We can see now that a lot of chapters have been added on the services side. I suspect that as a result of that, we will see the trade balance perhaps narrow between Canada and Ukraine, but in general increase the trade between the two countries.
After the ratification of the original agreement, exports to Ukraine, other than coal, grew about 28% between 2016 and 2019, which reinforces the view that trade, especially free trade, is good for both countries. We saw a significant increase in the two-way trade between two countries as a result of the free trade agreements, which goes back to why Conservatives absolutely and unequivocally support free trade agreements.
Interestingly enough, the top three exports to Ukraine were motor vehicles and parts, fish and seafood, and pharmaceutical products. The top imports from Ukraine were animal and vegetable fats, oils, iron and steel, and electrical machinery and equipment. Canadian businesses certainly have an opportunity to expand their trade with Ukraine.
I have undertaken to consult with industry with respect to this. I have spoken with agricultural companies, agricultural industries, etc. The challenge of course is the very condensed time frame, and I should explain this.
What we have before Parliament is the enabling legislation to implement the free trade agreement, but that is probably not what we are debating today. We are not actually going to look at and debate whether “subsection 42.1(1.1) of the act is amended by adding the following paragraph after (a).” I suspect that is not what we will debate here today.
The implementation legislation is how we implement the changes to relevant statutes and other things to implement the actual free trade agreement. This implementation bill's enabling legislation does not seem to have much in it that any of us will spend a lot of time debating in this chamber, although I could be wrong, as some members do enjoy debating those kinds of things.
The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan might enjoy going through and deciding whether “paragraphs (b) and (c) of the definition Ukraine in subsection 2(1) of the act are replaced by the following” is a good or significant change, but that is not what I will talk about today.
What we can talk about are the general principles of supporting free trade and the free trade agreement itself. In that is some of the difficulty that was expressed by the NDP member. He said he had not had the time to discuss this legislation with his caucus and colleagues, which takes me back to discussions with stakeholders.
As part of looking at whether this will be a trade agreement that benefits Canada, we want to talk to stakeholders to see whether they view some of the changes to this free trade agreement as being good or bad. In particular, in the agricultural sector, we are going to be talk about things like sanitary and phytosanitary measures. We are going to look at whether the quotas that will be allowed, the products that are coming in without tariff, are appropriate. This could be in the beef sector, the pork sector or in a whole bunch of agricultural sectors.
Those consultations are ongoing right now. I have reached out to the industries that would be affected by that to find out where they stand on it.
When I attended law school, we had professors very clearly say that the devil was often in the details. I am not 100% sure that Parliament should just pass things without any scrutiny whatsoever. We have learned that when other trade agreements were put forward by the Liberal government and passed rapidly, we ended up with some challenges.
If we look at, for example, free trade with the European Union, we have all kinds of challenges now with the sanitary and phytosanitary measures surrounding beef and pork. It is a particular issue right now in our negotiations with the U.K. It is almost impossible for Canadian beef or pork producers to export into the United Kingdom. They also have great difficulty exporting into the European Union. Why? It is because there are sanitary and phytosanitary measures preventing those exports from taking place. We would think that after this amount of time that these things would be resolved. However, for both things, there are very complicated dispute resolution procedures in place to try to resolve issues of sanitary and phytosanitary measures.
Sanitary and phytosanitary measures are important. They are put in place to ensure the health of people consuming the products. They are also protections put in place to protect biodiversity, to ensure things are not contained within certain products that could harm biodiversity. These measures are important, but sometimes these sanitary and phytosanitary measures are used as non-tariff barriers, or NTBs. NTBs have become sort of the new way to frustrate free trade. As we look around the world, we see that NTBs are growing in number and there are challenges in resolving those free trade agreements.
I took the time to look at the section in this free trade agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary measures. I am pleased to see that this section sets out that they will be resolved within the rules set out by the World Trade Organization. That is quite a difference from the measures that have been put in place for the resolution of sanitary and phytosanitary measures within CETA, which the U.K. benefits from in the transitional agreement. Trying to resolve those issues through that process has proven to be, if not incredibly complicated, almost impossible. It is good to see that is in this agreement.
If we look at the opportunities for Canada, one of the things I raised in my question to the minister was that the agreement talked about the phase-out of coal. However, in Europe, we have seen the rise in the use of coal by a number of countries as a result of them trying to stop buying Russian gas. As we all know, the purchase of Russian gas is providing revenues and profits to Russia so it can use those monies to fund its illegal war in Ukraine.
Many European countries have asked Canada to export more LNG, and the United States has actually taken that up. It has built a number of LNG export facilities over the last number of years to take advantage of the demand for LNG, including that demand in Europe. Unfortunately, Canada has not taken advantage of that and, in fact, has lost all kinds of opportunities.
However, when talk about transition, we do not transition from coal to a solar panel. Those kinds of transitions generally do not work. We do not transition from coal to a wind turbine and solar. Those things do not work. Both of these things provide intermittent power. Intermittent power makes maintenance of the electric grid more expensive and it is unreliable when there are surges in demand. We need a strong baseload of electricity generation.
I hope that when I have the time to go through this agreement in full, I will see this addresses a great area of potential opportunity for Canada and Ukraine with respect to electricity generation. We have amazing expertise in the production of nuclear reactors, as does Ukraine. Canada has all kinds of uranium that it can export. I really hope there will be some things in the agreement that talk about furthering this kind of development and partnership. It would be both good for Ukraine and good for Canada.
However, transitioning from coal would be beneficial to the world. When we look at energy transitions, we know they do not happen rapidly. In fact, they take a long time. All we have to do is think about how coal was discovered 200 to 250 years ago. We have had gas, natural gas and nuclear for a much shorter period of time, but they have not completely displaced coal even though the power density for both gas and nuclear is far more dense than for coal. Therefore, it makes sense to transition to these things.
This is the challenge in suggesting we transition from coal to solar or wind, because the actual energy density is so much smaller. An electricity plant that would use LNG or nuclear would take up 20 acres, but to get a similar amount of energy from wind or solar, we would be looking at 10 to 100 times that amount of land. The suggestion that we can make those transitions quickly from coal to wind and solar is not feasible and it does not make sense. We should be exploring the opportunities that Canada has with LNG and nuclear.
The Conservative Party is 100% behind supporting Ukraine, supporting trade and free trade. Free trade between free nations is something we support 100%. I look forward to going through this agreement and to the debate on this agreement in the House.
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Mr. Speaker, article 13.10 of the trade agreement, subsection 8(d) says, “promote the rapid transition from unabated coal power to clean energy sources.”
We know that the Russian war machine has been powered by energy exports. This certainly seems to contemplate the transition from coal to other less-polluting fuels. To me, this is a massive opportunity for Canada to work on exporting LNG from Canada, which many European countries have asked us to do.
This would not only to starve the Russian war machine of funds but also be good for the environment. Does the minister now admit that this is something Canada should do?
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- Mar/3/22 3:34:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am splitting my time with the member for Red Deer—Mountain View.
I do not think any member of the House or any Canadian can not think of the devastation that is going on right now in Ukraine. The images that we see through social media and on the news are absolutely devastating. They are heartbreaking, and our hearts go out to the people in Ukraine and to Ukrainian Canadians across the country.
Part of this motion is to stand with the people of Ukraine, and we should think about what that means. It does not mean standing with a sign or a hashtag; it means actually doing things, doing deliverable, measurable things that are going to make things a little better for the people of Ukraine in this incredibly dark hour.
One of the things that we are asking for to show how we stand with the people of Ukraine is visa-free travel. The government has so far said it is not doing it. It has steadfastly, adamantly refused, and it has come up with a reason. I heard the minister's remarks today that there may be some pro-Russian people who would therefore be able to come to Canada, so the government is proposing some alternative immigration streams.
The fact of the matter is that leaders deliver. They find ways to deliver things in tough times, and these are the toughest times for the people of Ukraine. To hear excuses as to why we cannot have visa-free travel is absolutely unacceptable for me as a parliamentarian, for Ukrainian Canadians and of course for the people of Ukraine.
What we are offering is different immigration streams. As a former member of the immigration committee, I can say that there are enormous backlogs in every single immigration stream. These backlogs are in the hundreds of thousands, so how will setting up a new immigration stream in a system that is already bogged down, backlogged and not working actually going to stand with the people of Ukraine and deliver? I ask that in all earnestness to my colleagues across the way.
We saw a bureaucratic system try to evacuate Afghan interpreters and Afghan people during the fall of Kabul. The last thing we need is another bureaucratic mess like that. I am begging my colleagues across the floor to please have visa-free travel for Ukrainians. It is absolutely critical.
What we know as well is that the second part of our motion is dealing with energy security. Forty per cent of the natural gas in the European Union is being provided by Russia. We also know that since December, President Biden has been lobbying nations that produce natural gas to try to take off the pressure from natural gas coming from the Russian Federation.
Canada is the fifth-largest producer of natural gas, but unfortunately we actually cannot help. Why can we not help? It is because we have a no-pipelines government, a government that refuses to take the steps necessary to get this resource to tidewater.
Up until now, that has just caused absolutely devastating economic losses across this country. In 2019, Canada spent $18.9 billion importing foreign oil, and of course this included oil from the Russian Federation. Imagine if that were Canadian oil that we did not have to import. In fact, we export far more oil than we import, but all of the imports are coming to the east coast of Canada. Again, why? It is because we have no way to get oil and oil products to the east coast.
Why can we not do that? It is because we have a government that has made a determined choice to make that impossible. There are consequences to these actions. Can members imagine what would be happening right now if Europe was getting its natural gas from Canada as opposed to Russia? The decisions we make here can actually have implications far beyond our borders.
I know there are conversations and discussions about renewables, and those being the way to go. Of course, everyone wants to move more toward a greener world and economy, but the facts are the facts. It is estimated that natural gas consumption will increase by over 20%. In fact, it is going to increase by close to 22% by 2040, so the need for Canadian natural gas is only going to increase. Yes, there are cleaner ways to deliver energy, such as solar and other things. We know this, but right now natural gas is replacing things such as coal-fired electricity plants. Natural gas is way greener than coal. Why the government continues to fight about this, I cannot understand. How can it not see the importance of energy security not just for Canada, but for stability around the world? Canada can play a critical role in that. Think of where we would be if the energy east pipeline had been built. We would be exporting liquefied natural gas to Europe. It would be a great source of stability and security.
When we talk about needing security, I want to briefly talk about our own security. Canada's CF-18s were scheduled to be out of service in 2020. That was the end. However, the government decided to reinvent a process that had already been done and now we may not get replacements for the CF-18s until 2025 at the earliest. That is five years well beyond their natural life expectancy.
When we look at a crisis such as what is going on in Ukraine, we need bold action. I want to thank the government for the actions it has taken, because it has, but we need it to do more, to do it faster and more urgently, especially when we are looking at having refugees come without visas. I have to go back to that and how critically important this is, because I can bet that if this is a special stream immigration program it will take forever. It is already going to be coming in a couple of weeks. The government could lift visa requirements now. That would help people now. It would not be a program that was going to be designed in a few weeks, then take who knows how long to implement, and then deal with the backlogs already at CIC.
I request that the members of the government vote with us on this motion. I know they condemn the invasion and are trying to stand with Ukraine, but they can do so much more. Let us vote for this motion. Let us get Canadian energy to be a safe and secure source of energy, not just in Canada but around the world. It will bring stability all across the globe.
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