Bill C-4 (Historical)

Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement Implementation Act

An Act to implement the Agreement between Canada, the United States of America and the United Mexican States

This enactment implements the Agreement between Canada, the United States of America and the United Mexican States, done at Buenos Aires on November 30, 2018, as amended by the Protocol of Amendment to that Agreement, done at Mexico City on December 10, 2019.
The general provisions of the enactment set out rules of interpretation and specify that no recourse is to be taken on the basis of sections 9 to 20 or any order made under those sections, or on the basis of the provisions of the Agreement, without the consent of the Attorney General of Canada.
Part 1 approves the Agreement, provides for the payment by Canada of its share of the expenditures associated with the operation of the institutional and administrative aspects of the Agreement and gives the Governor in Council the power to make orders in accordance with the Agreement.
Part 2 amends certain Acts to bring them into conformity with Canada’s obligations under the Agreement.
Part 3 contains the coming into force provisions.

Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation Act

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, today we are debating the new NAFTA, the Canada-United States-Mexico agreement, known as CUSMA in this country.

The original NAFTA was signed in 1994 by the Liberals. It was negotiated by the Conservatives. It promised more jobs and secure access to the largest markets in the world. Supporters of that agreement will point out that Canada's GDP and cross-border trade have grown since that agreement was signed, but those benefits have bypassed many Canadian workers.

In that time, Canada lost 400,000 manufacturing jobs. Its textile industry was devastated, because that agreement allowed those jobs to migrate to areas such as Mexico and the southern U.S. where there were lower labour costs. Canada just lost out.

Wealth inequality in Canada grew because the GDP benefits the trade agreement engendered went largely to shareholders and corporations instead of to workers. If we look at any graph comparing GDP with the real wages of Canadians, the wages flatline while the GDP goes up.

The NDP has always supported fair trade, but in many of our free trade agreements there are provisions and clauses that are anything but fair. One of them in the original NAFTA was the proportionality clause, which gave the United States the right to demand a constant proportion of our oil and gas shipments.

If we produced oil and gas and the Americans were getting 60% of it, we had to make sure they got 60%. Whether we doubled our output or it came down by half, the United States could keep that proportion, even if we felt it was in Canada's interests to keep it to ourselves.

Another flaw in many of our trade agreements, not just NAFTA but also the trans-Pacific partnership and with China, is the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, or ISDS, which in NAFTA was chapter 11. As many people know, that allowed corporations to sue the government in Canada if they felt it had made changes to regulations that affected their profitability. Even if Canada was doing that as a way of protecting our environment and the health of Canadians, American corporations could sue the Canadian government to reverse those changes.

One of the most egregious examples of this was mentioned by the members for Saanich—Gulf Islands and Elmwood—Transcona in their speeches. I would like to say it again.

In 1997, shortly after NAFTA was signed, the American company Ethyl Corporation was making a gasoline additive called MMT. Canada was concerned because MMT was a suspected neurotoxin, and Canada worried about the effects it had on people. Car manufacturers did not like MMT because it gummed up the on-board diagnostics in cars, so Canada banned it.

Ethyl Corporation sued Canada and won, in one of the secret NAFTA tribunals associated with chapter 11 disputes. Canada was forced not only to pay Ethyl Corporation $19.5 million in damages but also to reverse those regulatory changes and allow the use of MMT in Canada. We then had to get on our knees and apologize to Ethyl Corporation for doing that. Here we were, trying to assert our sovereignty with respect to the health of our people and our environment.

Canada has been faced with many of these challenges through NAFTA, far more than the United States or Mexico. When countries go into these so-called free trade agreements, they often give up their sovereignty.

This new agreement is better in two ways. One is that chapter 11 is gone, thank goodness. The NDP is very happy about that. We wish we could have gotten rid of it in the agreements that we have in the CPTPP and our agreements with China. It is a little better in CETA, thanks to the actions of Germany, which softened those provisions, but the NDP is very happy that chapter 11 is gone and that the proportionality clause is gone.

Those are two good things that New Democrats like about this new agreement.

I will move on to the things that maybe are not so good. For one thing, it extends drug patent protection in Canada from eight years to 10 years. That adds two years on to the time that Canadians have to pay drug companies full price for the drugs they develop.

Canadian drug companies were doing fine with the eight years, and we were benefiting. After eight years, we could use generic substitutes for those drugs, and it brought our drug prices down quite a bit. We are still paying some of the highest drug prices in the world, but now we are going to have to pay those very high prices for another two years. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said it will cost Canadians $169 million for every year that Canada has to pay drug companies because of that provision.

This agreement also gives away more of our dairy market to foreign suppliers, and that is exacerbated by the fact that we have already done that in our agreements with the European Union and the trans-Pacific partnership countries. We have now opened up our dairy market by 10%. This agreement is for 3.6%.

Regarding the dairy products we are getting from the U.S., I hear concerns from my constituents that those dairy producers are allowed to use bovine growth hormone, something that boosts milk production in cows, but has unknown effects on humans and some serious effects on the health of the cows themselves. Therefore, people are very concerned that we are degrading the products that we are now forced to use.

I recently talked with a dairy producer in British Columbia. His company produces milk protein products, and this is another example of giving away our sovereignty. The United States now has the ability not only to control how much of our products such as those go to the United States, but also to control how much we export anywhere in the world. The United States has a say over that.

I want to cover a couple of points on trade that are very concerning in my riding but are not covered in this deal. One is the softwood lumber dispute, which is not covered at all. I am very happy to hear that the U.S. commerce department has decided to lower the illegal tariffs that we have been suffering through recently. We are anxiously awaiting the end to that almost unending dispute.

Another is with the wine producers in my riding, in the Okanagan Valley, which produces the finest wine in Canada. Other countries, the United States and Australia, are concerned because our wine producers do not have to pay an excise tax to the federal government if they produce wine from Canadian grapes.

That has really driven the growth in our wine industry. It has been a huge benefit. Now we are being battled on the international trade market, especially because of the automatic escalator in that excise tax. The finance minister tells me they are not really willing to negotiate.

The NDP looks forward to debating this in committee. We want to see if this agreement is a better deal than the old NAFTA. That is the big question.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to discuss one part of the deal.

The member wanted to know if this was a better deal than the old NAFTA. I want to talk about the automotive sector and what the U.S. first initiated in the deal.

It wanted 50% U.S. content on any vehicles. It also wanted a 25% tariff on vehicles that were exported to the United States. Under no circumstances did our government and the negotiating team cave in to this. We wanted to ensure that these tariffs were not imposed on the automotive sector, and I have a Toyota motor manufacturing company in my riding, as it is one of our biggest sectors. It employs 500,000 people. Therefore, we wanted to ensure we had a good deal for them. There also was a wage increase to $16.

Does the member think this is a good deal for the automotive sector?

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it comes to the question of whether this is a better deal than the one we had.

The Canadian auto sector has really suffered lately. I am not an expert in the auto sector, but we need fair trade agreements that really protect Canadian jobs. The member mentioned the wage increase. That may well be another example of where this agreement is better than the old agreement, if those wage provisions slow down the movement of Canadian jobs to Mexico and the United States. We want to see the details.

The NDP really would like to see a new transparent process of debating trade agreements before we go into negotiations. We want the government to say that this is what it wants, that these are its priorities, that it wants to do this for the auto sector, etc.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have asked few members this question. One of my friends in the Green Party has sent me a link about it and has suggested I read it, and I will. My views having not yet changed, I want to ask my colleague about investor-state provisions.

It seems to me to be a matter of common sense. If a Canadian company is operating in a jurisdiction like Mexico and we have an agreement that should give that company certain rights, then that company should be able to go to some kind of independent arbitration mechanism, not just the courts of that country, to ensure that its rights, which are supposed to be guaranteed under the agreement, are respected. This means the same could happen in Canada. A company from a partner country can seek a remedy if it feels its rights under the agreement have not been respected. Surely that is reasonable. Surely that is the kind of framework we would expect in any rule-of-law country.

It is interesting to hear my NDP colleagues, particularly, objecting to this kind of remedy, when I think they would accept, in principle, that we should have domestic courts that companies can take governments to if they feel the law or their rights have not been respected.

I am curious to hear the member's thoughts on what the difference is.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, if that is the fair way, then why are Canadian companies not allowed to take the government to court when environmental or health laws are passed which affect them? They do not have that avenue available to them. There might be egregious examples in other countries, but I do not think Canada would treat another corporation completely unfairly.

These are not the situations where we have been taken to court under chapter 11. It is companies that feel they have an avenue open to them, where they can get some money out of the Canadian government because it has changed the rules which may affect their profitability.

The point is that Canadian companies do not have those avenues available within Canada, so why should we give those avenues to foreign countries?

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Before we resume debate, I want to say something briefly about the question and comment period. Members must understand that this period is limited to five minutes and that there are four recognized parties in the House. Therefore, for each five-minute period, we will try to fit in at least three interventions. For that reason, every member who speaks during questions and comments must keep their remarks short, so that all members who wish to participate get enough time. I thank hon. members for their co-operation.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons is rising on a point of order.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties and if you seek it, I think you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:

That, notwithstanding any standing order or usual practice of the House, when no member rises to speak on the motion for the 2nd reading stage of Bill C-4, An Act to implement the Agreement between Canada, the United States of America and the United Mexican States, or at 1:59 p.m., whichever comes first, every question necessary to dispose of the said stage of the said bill shall be deemed put, and a recorded division deemed requested and deferred until immediately after Oral Questions this day.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Does the hon. parliamentary secretary have the unanimous consent of the House to move this motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize for interrupting, but for unanimous consent, typically it is important to ask every member in advance. Given that it would only be my objection, I just want it on the record that I will go along with this, but I would have preferred to have been consulted in advance.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The House gives its unanimous consent for the motion to be moved.

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

(Motion agreed to)

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the motion moved by my colleague from Winnipeg North means that time is running out on this debate, but I want to point out how important free trade is to the Conservatives.

We are the free trade party. We want Canada to succeed on the world stage through free trade. We want to have a successful trade relationship with the United States and Mexico, but we want that to be a winning situation for Canadians.

We have some major concerns about this agreement, which some people have rightly described as HALFTA or the new NAFTA. Unfortunately, it is not a NAFTA that everyone is satisfied with. We have some very serious questions about it.

As I just mentioned, we want to have successful trade relationships with other countries, particularly the United States. That is why, during the previous Parliament, our political leaders, the Hon. Rona Ambrose and the hon. leader of the official opposition and member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, went to Washington to plead the case of trade between Canada and the United States.

Some of our members shared that responsibility. The members for Durham, Oshawa and Brantford—Brant also went to Washington to argue the case for trade between our two countries. We want that relationship to succeed, but we have some concerns. One of them is softwood lumber. There is nothing in the agreement to resolve the softwood lumber issue.

How is it that this agreement includes absolutely nothing about the Buy American Act? We can see why the Americans would want to protect their Buy American Act, which favours American companies to meet the needs of American consumers. However, we also know that in a free trade agreement negotiation, that legislation has to at least be on the table. We have to recognize that this was not the case.

We also have concerns about what happened with aluminum, and I will have the opportunity to come back to that a little later in my speech.

We are the free trade party of Canada, and we are very proud of that. This situation got its roots in 1983, during the leadership campaign of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.

Let me remind members that in 1983, the late Hon. John Crosbie, a guy from Newfoundland, as everybody knows so well, was a very strong when he talked about some things. He was the first politician in the House of Commons to raise the issue of a free trade agreement with America during the leadership race. It was in the interests of our country. However, he was alone at that time. Who was the first opponent of the free trade agreement with America? It was the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney. However, Mr. Mulroney was elected as the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party in 1983, elected as prime minister in 1984 and was re-elected in 1988 because of the free trade agreement we had with the Americans.

I want to recall this history because sometimes we have to move forward. Even if we oppose something, things move on. When we realize that it is good, we have to walk on the paint, as we used to say in French. Former prime minister Brian Mulroney did that for the future and wealth of the country, with such success.

Five million jobs have been created in Canada since we concluded the free trade agreement with the Americans in 1988. In fact, Canadians showed their support for that agreement in the 1988 election. That election was practically a referendum. We will recall that other parties, like the current governing party, were fiercely opposed, but fortunately they too have come around. They now agree with free trade. That initial agreement was then extended to Mexico, our European partners and our Asian partners.

Let me pay all my respect to the hon. member for Abbotsford, who was my seatmate when I arrived in the House four years ago. I had the privilege of chatting with him many times. Yes, I listened to every speaker at the time, but I learned so much from my chats with my colleague from Abbotsford. More than that, the member for Abbotsford was the longest-serving international trade minister in Canadian history, and he achieved so much: agreements with European and Pacific partners.

Today, Canada is the country of free trade.

Canada has trade agreements with nearly 50 countries. We are the country of free trade, and we should be proud of that. That is why we still have concerns about NAFTA 0.5, which we are now debating.

When the negotiations began, the current government wanted to be the good guys, as they say, and purer than pure. It said that it was going to table a progressive agenda and put forward some concerns. I remember quite well that the hon. member for Durham asked the government to look after Canadians' jobs before talking about its progressive agenda. Those holier-than-thou people were not shy about calling us names and saying that we were against women, first nations, the LGBT community and many others, when all we wanted to do was talk about jobs.

What happened to that famous progressive agenda when they got to the table? The Liberals set it aside to talk about jobs. It was about time. When it came time to negotiate with real partners, these self-righteous people realized that we Conservatives were right.

Unfortunately, we have concerns about the forestry industry, among others. There has been no progress on this issue. It has literally been set aside.

We also have concerns about the fact that the Buy American Act is still in effect. The chair of the ways and means committee of the U.S. House of Representatives said that the current Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister had conceded to just about every point for one reason: enforceability. Our American partner said that. The U.S. is very happy for Canada to have capitulated, which does not bode well for the future.

It is important to acknowledge that the big loser in these negotiations is the aluminum industry. Even though the people in the aluminum industry and the unions are saying that the agreement must be signed and that we agree on that, we must recognize that the people most affected by this agreement are aluminum workers.

I am very proud of the work accomplished by my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord. Since day one, he has been defending the workers and citizens of his riding tooth and nail. We are here to represent the people in our ridings. I am very proud to represent the people of Louis—Saint-Laurent. They are not directly and negatively affected by the agreement. The hon. member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord's riding accounts for 60% of Canada's aluminum production. When his riding is the one most affected by the agreement, he steps up and works for his constituents. I am very proud of that.

According to today's issue of Le Quotidien, the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord is satisfied with the discussions he initiated on the free trade file. He said that he discussed matters with the government and took advantage of pre-budget consultations to question various witnesses about aluminum. He detected enthusiasm for our party's proposals, which was good and showed that our approach is working.

Our approach, the brainchild of the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, is to distinguish Canada's aluminum, which is clean, from aluminum produced abroad and shipped to Mexico before arriving here as auto parts, for example. We are very proud of our colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord for his hard work and for proudly and passionately standing up for the people of his riding.

Conservatives are in favour of free trade. We want a positive trade partnership for Canadian industries. Overall, Canada did well here, but we would have liked to see more progress with respect to the Buy American Act, softwood lumber and aluminum.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, over the last couple of years we have seen labour groups, businesses, non-profits, members of Parliament and political participants of all political parties come together and participate in a very great debate in order to ensure that all the different industries were represented in this final product, the bill we have before us today. The amount of support we have received is virtually endless.

Would my friend not agree that Canadians as a whole have been very much informed over the last couple of years as to how important this agreement, or an agreement, is between Canada, the United States and Mexico?