Thank you, Madam Chair.
Madam Chair, sometimes I have policy disagreements with our colleague Mr. Cannings, but I should state that I agree with the sentiments Mr. Cannings expressed during the first round of questioning.
In the bigger picture, the world order is changing, which started before COVID. That has since been accelerated. Globalization, as we know, is dead. So is free trade, almost. The free trade that benefited both developing countries and developed countries is on its way out. Protectionism is in.
We are focusing on onshoring, nearshoring and friendshoring, and obviously we all want to protect our domestic industries. Where that will lead and what impacts it will have will be known after quite some time, but the immediate impact—whatever policies we use to protect our industries—will also have an immediate effect on our other sectors within Canada that are export-dependent. The Canadian agricultural sector—Canadian agri-foods and agricultural produce—is the fifth-largest in the world. I think that sector is going to be impacted first by the decisions we have made. Probably the canola growers will be the first group of farmers who are going to be affected.
However, this is a reality. The United States is our biggest trading partner. Our economic prosperity is linked with and dependent on our trade with the United States. Once the United States took the decision to impose tariffs on EVs from China, it was inevitable that we would follow suit. As a Globe and Mail editorial recently stated, matching American tariffs would be the right decision, even though such tariffs are usually bad.
As I said, this is a new paradigm. We don't know where it will lead. It affects not only Canada but all the countries in the world, especially developed countries that have been the champions of free trade.
Mr. Lawrence Herman, I have a question for you. I read your article in the Globe and Mail on this issue and I also listened to your comments today. I don't know if you are 100% confident that the route we took using section 53 of the Customs Tariff act is the right one. Obviously, taking this route means that we are losing the WTO cover we could have used to reaffirm our commitment to the multilateral rules-based order.
In that article, you proposed that we could provide two arguments. I think one of those arguments would have necessitated what you just proposed today—that we amend section 53 of the Customs Tariff act by including reference to national security. Obviously, the decision that we have taken may not go to the court to face the challenges, so the intricacies of what route we took, why we didn't go through the WTO route or the route we took may not be challenged, but I want to ask you again: Are you confident that the route we have taken using section 53 is the right one?