FAIT Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

COMITÉ PERMANENT DES AFFAIRES ÉTRANGÈRES ET DU COMMERCE INTERNATIONAL

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, May 28, 1998

• 0906

[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Bill Graham (Toronto Centre—Rosedale, Lib.)): I'd like to call this meeting to order and welcome the minister to share his insights with us about the estimates.

Welcome, Minister.

I don't know if the other members of the committee caught this morning's news, but you may know that Pakistan has exploded a nuclear device. This of course, in my view, renders the importance of the work we're doing on the nuclear non-proliferation even more important than it was before. But I think it also at least confirms our decision not to try to rush into doing a report before we break for the summer, but reflect on what the consequences of this are, give it some serious thought, and come back in the fall able to write that report in the light of this very unfortunate set of developments.

Minister, we're here to deal with your own type of bombs that are no doubt skulking around somewhere in your ministry.

[Translation]

I'm told that the interpreters aren't here.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ): That's why I didn't understand you.

The Chairman: So, everything I said fell into some inexplicable void. Mr. Bachand, do...

[English]

Let's put it this way. If you want the minister to speak French he'll offer to, but you might—

Mr. André Bachand (Richmond—Arthabaska, PC): Okay.

Hon. Sergio Marchi (Minister for International Trade, Lib.): After Italy, though, I'm really fluent in Italian.

The Chairman: The minister's French may have a slight alto adagio accent.

Mr. Sergio Marchi: Yes. The tourist visit provided us a lot of time to brush up on Italian.

The Chairman: May we proceed?

[Translation]

Can we start without the interpreters or do you want to wait for them?

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: If the interpreters got here at 10:30, that wouldn't be very nice, but if they come in five minutes...

The Chairman: We'll check on them.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: You know, Mr. Chairman, that Canada is a great and beautiful bilingual country.

[English]

The Chairman: We should wait for the interpreters just for the purposes of the transcript of the hearing.

[Translation]

We have to have the two languages.

[English]

I apologize, Minister. We'll just take a short break.

• 0909

• 0921

The Chairman: This break gives new meaning to the phrase our friends from the Bloc quite often use: pause-interprète.

[Translation]

We had a little interpreter break this morning.

[English]

We are ready to go. I apologize for the delay, Minister. The minister has to leave at 10.55 a.m. because he has an important conference to give, so bear that in mind when we come to questions.

Minister, maybe you can make an opening statement and then we'll go straight to questions.

[Translation]

The hon. Sergio Marchi: Dear colleagues, Mister Chairman, like you, I deplore the nuclear test this morning in Pakistan.

[English]

We regret that very much. We were hopeful that Pakistan would perhaps withstand the great political pressure to do so, but they submitted to it this morning. It's something we regret tremendously. Our Prime Minister will obviously be making more comments in the fullness of the day. I think his plan is to put the relationship on hold and announce any appropriate measures in the balance of the day.

I know from your preliminary remarks you are looking for the committee to either discuss that or add to that, given your interest in the first blast that took place in India. You had a special session with my colleague, the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

We regret the turn of events this morning and hope that reasonable people will come to some reasonable conclusions awfully quickly.

I'm here on a Canadian success story really, which is how you can describe Canada's trade performance. It would be fair to say we're living through a period of renaissance in the sense that the Canadian exporting community is certainly a confident community, an outward-looking community, a community that certainly is taking on the world and winning its share of those trade battles.

Last year we had a 7.4% increase in exports. We broke the $ 300 billion mark for the first time, with $ 301 billion of exports in goods alone. We estimate that if you were to add services you would get a figure of at least $ 350 billion in goods and services. I think that's a tremendous testimony to the exporting community.

On the investment side, we increased by $ 13 billion the foreign direct investment in our country, bringing it to a new all-time high of $ 188 billion. It would also be wise and appropriate to say that Canadians again invested more in the world than the world invested in Canada. It happened for the first time last year. In fact, last year the total cumulative package of outside investment reached $ 194 billion.

• 0925

I think we have to be prepared to say that investment is a two-way street. We need to invest in other economies as other economies are investing in us. That also creates jobs, spin-offs and R and D, and is part of the global marketplace.

We have always been a trading nation, and now it's up to this era in the next few years to try to create a broad-based nation of traders. We want to expand the trade culture. The trade culture for a long time has been relatively few large companies doing the bulk of our trade. So our priorities are not only to keep these big players continuing to work for Canada internationally, but to add to them the network of small and medium-sized firms. We're stressing that very heavily.

On women entrepreneurs, because women have, lead or own 30% of Canadian business, we want them to become exporters or more export-oriented as well.

We're working with our aboriginal community, taking the aboriginal entrepreneurship. We've named, as you know, an aboriginal leader in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade who is also looking at how we work with this national community. How do we incorporate them in the Team Canada as we did in Latin America?

How do we incorporate more young people into the whole aspect of trade and internationalism? We can do it not only through internships, which we have done, but by bringing them on these missions and having them meet our Canadian business people; by having them help these Canadian businesses while we're on these missions so these youngsters can clearly see the world of opportunities that awaits them.

So we're trying to expand the trade culture and therefore expand the dynamism that trade will bring to Canada's economy. We estimate that of all the jobs that have been created by the private sector, close to 50% of them come from the trade and investment strategy, but basically by companies that obviously walk the talk in Canada and around the world.

To achieve this objective we obviously need to concentrate on the two wings of the trade file. One is the trade promotion aspect, in terms of recognizing that the world is getting smaller but it's getting much more competitive. Most countries are coming toward the open market system with trade liberalization, so more players are in the field. This makes it more competitive, which means we need to be more promotive, more market team oriented, as well as creative. So the trade promotion wing is a very important aspect of supporting and promoting the brand name called Canada.

The other wing, of course, is trade policy. It is sometimes seen as the soft wing of the two, but is a very important wing nonetheless, as all of you know, because obviously trade policy talks to trade access. It's one thing to promote, but if you can't get through the door you won't be promoting much. So those doors have to be opened by the kinds of policies the world, hopefully helped by Canada, will usher in. So trade access and guaranteed access for goods and products and bringing down those barriers obviously work hand in glove with good trade promotion.

As you know, a couple of months ago our department released a document called Opening Doors to the World, which talked about the trade policy aspect. It talked about our successes and the challenges where we still have hurdles, whether they're with the United States or in the emerging markets. It tried to be a balanced report that talked about the path we've travelled well and some of the bumpy roads we still have to asphalt over.

On trade promotion, I think our recent mission to Italy—we were just chatting moments before while we were waiting for the interpreters—is a classic illustration of some people saying “Well, why Italy?” There was a good reason for it. Italy is the fifth largest economy in the world. It has state control on telecom and aerospace, two of our key sectors. There was a recognition that the fifth largest economy in world, quite frankly, didn't understand the modern economy of Canada, and to a certain degree within Canadian society there's not the recognition that Italy is the fifth largest economy.

So I think we've gone to the emerging markets, but this was the first time we've tried to bring a Team Canada-type mission to a developed country, obviously a very progressive country, to begin to see if we can raise the $ 5 billion trade, which is one week's work of Canada-U.S. business. For the fifth- and seventh-largest economy, clearly that's too low.

• 0930

We talked about the Team Canada concepts. The North-South Institute, for instance, said certain things about the Team Canada. It's obvious that they've never been on a Team Canada mission. If they were to be on a Team Canada mission, they would see a few things.

First, the Team Canada mission proves that we work best when we work together. Second, it has a full-corps press that opens doors and allows our businesses to market their services and their wares. When we brought 522 business people to four Latin American countries, it made an incredible impression.

They would have seen that probably the Team Canada missions for ten days are the best ten days for federal-provincial relations. The premiers and the Prime Minister don't only talk trade on those missions; they talk about a lot of other issues facing our country, and as you know, in politics the whole ability of chemistry and relationships...is extremely crucial.

They would have seen that leaders or prime ministers, when they meet presidents and prime ministers, don't only talk trade. When the Prime Minister of Italy met our Prime Minister, for instance, they spent just as much time talking about Indonesia. They did a joint statement imploring the then leader Suharto to ease up on his troops circling the students around their parliament. They talked about Kosovo; they talked about Bosnia; they talked about India and Pakistan; they talked about the Euro; they talked about the United Nations.

That is to say, these missions allow leaders and prime ministers to get together and, beyond trade, to talk about the business that interests them, which also includes human rights, whether it's in China or whether it's in Cuba.

They would have seen also that 70% of these businesses were small businesses, not the big corporate players; 70% were SMEs. They would have noticed the interconnection between Canadian businesses on the same plane. Small businesses who couldn't get in to see the big CEOs all of a sudden were breaking bread with these same people. There was business accruing within Canadian businesses, not only with various businesses in the four countries.

They would have also seen that the last Team Canada was about more than economic dividend as well. The last Team Canada was also very much about the social dividend. I don't think this institute recognizes that we brought 60 Canadian educational representatives, including seven university presidents. Why? Because Latin America wanted to know what we do with education.

We brought health practitioners. Why? Because Latin America was interested in the Canadian health care system.

We brought groups that work with physically challenged Canadians, and they signed MOUs in each of the four countries.

I'm not preaching here, or saying that we're perfect, because we have miles to go before we sleep in all of these areas, but what we try to talk about is not just the blessed economic dividend and the contract signing, but also about the social dividend side of the equation. What you get on these Team Canada missions is truly a face of Canada. For someone to be simply and easily dismissive of this concept—I think those authors need to think twice.

Quite frankly, we can always improve the Team Canada missions. It's always been done. There have never been two the same. But let's not get too hard on ourselves, because no one in the world does it like Canada in terms of the Team Canada missions, and I think it's a source of strength and pride, rather than a concept that perhaps is easily dismissed.

Using the success of Team Canada internationally, we have to bring that concept home, and that's why we've created the Team Canada incorporated services here at home. We've instituted a new 1-800 line to provide a single point of service to Canadian businesses.

We've created a new education marketing unit, because we want to also see education marketed as an export commodity. That means selling our education abroad, and inviting foreign students in. As we sell our education abroad, we're also exporting Canadian values. As people get trained and schooled here, they become our ambassadors when they return, whether as captains of industry or as politicians.

• 0935

A month ago, at York University, for the first time, we brought all the stakeholders together and we put jurisdictions aside. This is not a grab by the federal government in the world of education, but again, when you look at the United States, Australia and New Zealand, at what they are doing with their processing times, it needs to push us from a collective Canadian education system to being able to work together a little more closely as we try to market education around the world.

We're doing the same thing with Canadian culture. Last year, the government was able to export $ 3 billion worth of Canadian cultural goods. Again, culture and education perhaps are seen as non-traditional export commodities, but in this world we live in, we also need to see that export side of those two very important commodities and, obviously, institutions at home.

We've also made a commitment. I have to move 70% of our trade commissioners around the world. Right now, as you may know, we have 50% of our trade commissioners in posts around the world, and 50% here in Canada working with our business community. I think it's important to have more trade commissioners meet the increasing number of businesses that are travelling around the world.

That also means we have to work better and more closely with our provincial counterparts, because trade is trade is trade. So it means, for a better export-ready preparation, we also have to lean on the provinces so that we can work in Ontario, out west or out east with our provincial governments to get our companies, particularly the small ones, export ready. The last thing you want to do is send out into the world a company that may not have the readiness, the market intelligence or the contacts, only to return frustrated and demoralized.

Those are some of the issues and initiatives we're doing on the trade promotion side. For small and medium-sized businesses, we've had a goal for a number of years to double the number of active exporters by the year 2000. We started with some 5,000 of them in 1993, we're roughly at 7,700 now, and we still have some distance to go. We created a separate unit for small business, so we don't only talk about it in our speeches but we think and do it five days a week.

On the women's front, we have that Washington mission. We also have the Canada-U.S. women's entrepreneur summit at York University next year so that we can learn from that experience and understand the role that women entrepreneurs are playing, so that the world of trade should not be just a world for men. Next year's summit prepares us for the OECD summit on women entrepreneurs that will be taking place at the turn of the millennium.

So we're very cognizant of trade promotion. But if trade is part of our economic lifeblood, obviously trade policy is its arteries, and that's why those arteries have to be open for that lifeblood to flow. That's why Canada traditionally has always been active on the multilateral side.

In fact, Canada has probably exercised an influence on the policy side that far exceeds the economic might or what we should have in terms of policy role or influence. I think that is a proud tradition that we obviously should continue.

Canada was very much part of the WTO meeting that marked the 50th anniversary of the GATT. A number of you were part of the Canadian delegation and participated in the work. Part of the emphasis Canada placed is to hopefully make the WTO more transparent and bring the WTO a little closer to all of our constituencies. Regarding trade policy, WTO is obviously key in terms of international multilateral.

We have a great trading relationship with the United States. We're all fond of saying that 95% of the daily $ 1 billion flows well. The challenge now on the policy side is to make sure the last 5% begins to get whittled down, because it's always the same so-called irritants that go around and come around.

It's also a reflection that we have had a difference in how we have dealt with our resources, which is sometimes at the base of these irritants. Whether it's fish, wheat or lumber, we have had a different tradition from theirs in this country when it has come to resources, and I think we need to understand those differences in order to come up with those solutions.

• 0940

In Latin America, you know about the very ambitious and historic launch of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, which the Prime Minister participated in. Again, Canada has taken a very big leadership role in that. Not only are we the chairs for the first 18 months—and the first meeting is going to be in Buenos Aires, Argentina in a couple of weeks—but we also will be host to the next summit of the Free Trade Area of the Americas in either 2000 or 2001.

That's an extraordinary way of opening up the new millennium in a region where Canada is very well established, very well respected, has little baggage in terms of its history there, where our exports and our investment trends are going very positively, where our business community is very bullish, and where our business cultures are quite similar. So in terms of emerging markets, I think in five years, Canadians will discover that side of the Canadian personality in a very enthusiastic way.

We're trying also to keep the doors open with Europe. We have a $ 12 billion deficit with the European Community when you add it all up. It's a mature market, but it needs to be a more accessible market for Canadian products, so twice a year we have the Canada-EU summit. We just came back from one with Prime Minister Chrétien meeting Prime Minister Blair in London.

For that, we also have a difference of views with Sir Leon. We don't complain about our cross-Atlantic action plan, which is quite well advanced. Our difference, or my difference, with him is that Europe has three different paths, one with Canada, one with the United States, and one with Mexico. Canada believes that eventually there needs to be a convergence of those three paths, because we think we should do the cross-Atlantic right or not do it at all. What we need is one superhighway and not three different roads of different sizes, shapes, or qualities. As long as Europe keeps three different neighbourhoods in three different rooms, from a strategic North American perspective, that's an advantage to Europe. It should be community to community and not community to three different neighbourhoods.

Secondly, the business community wants an integrated approach. Right now our Canadian business people operate not only in the Canadian marketplace but in the North American marketplace. We are more integrated than any other place in the world, more so than Europe, perhaps even after their Euro. The free trade agreement and the NAFTA have meant that the six-way trade of our NAFTA partners reaches $ 500 billion every year. There's a tremendous integration, and it's been a positive experience, by and large, for Canada.

So we understand the European integration and the expansion of the Euro, but they need to understand our North American integration. I think Sir Leon has it wrong. Eventually there needs to be this convergence, because otherwise we're going to be played one off the other. One country will have one tariff rate and the other country will have another. If we can see fit to do community to community, the market for us will be much more accessible than it is currently.

We're also looking to negotiate with the EFTA countries. Their two-way trade, for instance, is quite substantial with us. It's almost $ 5 billion. So we're trying to say to Europe that it's not only our roots and our old glory days; we want Europe to be part of Canada's future trade. But we have to make sure the orientation is right.

On Asia Pacific, we're a member of the APEC club, as you know. We had a very positive meeting last year in Vancouver on trade liberalization. It moved faster and further than in any of the previous nine years. The challenge this year in Malaysia is to try to maintain that momentum and not to slip backwards. Yes, there's clearly still the Asian flu, but there was the currency issue at play in Vancouver, and despite that, ministers saw fit to continue on the agenda. It's not only a question of substance; it's also a question of the credibility of the organization. After a number of years, APEC has to demonstrate that it's prepared to enter the walking stage. It's still a young international institution, but it has to determine its future by making and continuing the progress on trade liberalization.

• 0945

In all of these policy efforts we do them in a way that also exports our Canadian values so that we don't sacrifice health care, social policy, education, our program for aboriginal peoples or our environmental and labour standards. We try, obviously, to attach the kinds of high standards that we try to work with at home, again not from a preaching, sanctimonious “we are perfect” perspective, but from a perspective where I think our people and peoples internationally expect a higher order of standards rather than a race to the basement.

Fourth, these are some of the priorities and issues. One of the areas of concern is obviously to have enough of the resources to do the things we need to do on both expanding our trade culture.... When you say, “Let's double the number of exporters”, it's not going to happen because a minister says it in a speech or repeats it three times. It's also going to happen if we do certain things. And doing certain things costs certain amounts of money.

So one concern, of course, is always this famous proverb of doing more with less. There comes a point when that perhaps begins to blur, so we're trying to come to grips with that in our department by also trying to rationalize, to move more of our headquarters staff out to the regions, and to pare down some of our larger embassies and give strength to some of the other ones.

But there comes a point.... I also hope in the long term that we don't see trade as simply a good cash cow for our economy that will continue to produce regardless of the resources you give to it, and I hope we don't have a view that says trade policy is the soft aspect. If you're negotiating FTAA, EFTA in Europe and the WTO and other things, clearly you're also talking resources for covering various fronts. And trade has produced for our economy. It's produced great dividends.

What it also means is that if we want it to continue to produce dividends, we also need to continue to invest in it from a resources perspective so that it's not a money grab, not “Hey, this department has more than I do”. Just to continue to invest in trade, which has been working very well for our country....

The last point, of course, is that whether we do trade promotion or trade policy, we need to do it in concert and in partnership with Canadians, and we obviously need to have it open and transparent. This has obviously been at play with the MAI. This is something we've pushed at the FTAA with our civil society process. This was part of the presentation at the WTO a few weeks ago, where we recognized that there are anxieties in Canada and around the world about globalization, about bank mergers, about insurance mergers—about bigness—and about technology moving huge amounts of money in seconds.

We know that the force of open market systems has been extremely positive. We know that the mood of Canadians has shifted since our great debate in 1988, in the sense of a recognition that we have to go beyond our frontiers to continue to satisfy ourselves economically. If you took a poll today, 70% would favour the FTA or NAFTA. In 1988 it was around 35%, down in the mid-thirties. It was very polarized.

But we need to continue to build that constituency and not take it for granted. We need to continue to have those standards. We need to address those legitimate anxieties in legitimate ways so that people think not that the world is running away from them but that they too are having a hand in shaping and influencing globalization, not being exclusively shaped by it.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Minister. I'm glad you picked up on many of the themes the committee's been wrestling with.

You may recall that a couple of years ago we did a report on small and medium-sized businesses and their export opportunities. We were trying to push the government to have more access. I think we're all pleased to see that there is more emphasis in the department on a lot of the issues we covered.

We were particularly interested in—members will recall—and we drew to the attention of the government the fact that we have a population base in this country of many people who have come from regions of the world and they can act as tremendous assets when we go back into those countries, particularly in regard to the small and medium-sized businesses, where culture and language are often a barrier to trade. They have the culture and language and can serve as a good opportunity.

• 0950

The committee has actually decided to do a study, starting in the fall, on geopolitical opportunities and trade-related opportunities into the region of the Caucasus and the whole area of Turkey, Armenia, Iran and Turkmenistan, where there is huge oil and gas.... There's interest from the west and there's interest in Quebec. There's interest in that region, and we hope that report may then help you determine what resources you might be focusing in that direction as well.

Thank you very much for those observations. I'll turn to questions.

As I said, members, the minister is going to have to leave here at 11 a.m., so we'll keep ourselves strictly within the time limit, because we have four opposition members. We'll keep ourselves strictly to ten minutes each.

Mr. Grewal.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal (Surrey Central, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. While I welcome the Minister of International Trade to the committee, I will also express the view that we are expecting very sharp answers from the minister.

Minister, earlier you mentioned the escalation of the situation between India and Pakistan. I join you and share your view in that we are also equally concerned about the situation there, but I would like to express the view that Canada's role has been very questionable in this situation.

But we are here to talk about international trade, so let me ask you a question about international trade. Minister, you mentioned earlier that Team Canada members have been talking about many things when they go abroad. You mentioned social dividends, and you mentioned that the team is talking about things beyond the area of trade.

And yes, surely, I agree that the team is talking about anything but trade abroad, because the figures don't indicate a very favourable situation there.

In 1996, Team Canada cost us a full one-third of our trade with India, Malaysia and Pakistan. In 1995, the Team Canada mission to Latin America resulted in a drop of 69% in Canadian trade with Trinidad, Tobago, Uruguay, Argentina and Chile. In 1994, the Team Canada mission to China resulted in a drop of 38% in Canadian exports to China and Hong Kong.

I would like to know the reasons for this. Why, when Team Canada goes abroad, has there been, up to now, an average 17% drop in the Canadian export figures? How would you justify Team Canada missions and a drop in trade figures?

Mr. Sergio Marchi: First, I don't know what you mean when you say Canada's response to India and Pakistan has been questionable. We've had an initial package of responses to India. At the G-8 meeting, our Prime Minister said publicly that he was very disappointed that we couldn't have a concerted action plan. He has said, based on the Indian response, that we will review the first package to see if further actions are warranted. We have tried as best we could to leverage a Canadian response and leverage that into a more unified response. It wasn't possible at the G-8 meeting.

With respect to Team Canada, again, I'd like to see the figures you're quoting from. I think you have to be careful, though. I think the Team Canada concept has worked well on the number of fronts that I spoke to. The Team Canada experience has also focused Canadian attention on what trade means to our economy, which I think needed to be done. And Team Canada has been a very positive marketing tool and marketing force for Canadian products, in addition to opening doors and hopefully pushing the pipeline for our goods and services.

To begin now to say, “You went to Team Canada in 1994 here and here's a drop in the numbers over there”, and that kind of specific correlation.... I'm not sure it's quite the science that you're making it out to be. And no one pretended it was the science that you're suggesting it ought to be.

Obviously we have talked about trade promotion and trade policy. Team Canada is but one aspect of trade promotion, but it's a very significant aspect, because no other country can put all their senior political leaders in one plane with a main group of business leaders and then have them joined with municipal people, educators and health care people. And I think the proof in the pudding is that other countries are beginning to copy the Team Canada experiment. So if Team Canada is so wrong, why do all the other countries now send their team countries into Canada?

• 0955

So it's marketing, promoting. It's also a discussion among leaders. It's something that has worked. But to begin to link it in the ups and the ebbs and flows year in and year out is the wrong way of viewing Team Canada, because—

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: That's not true.

Mr. Sergio Marchi: We won't be there in two months or in three years with a press release to announce the opportunities that will come, let's say, from the trip in Italy last week. Part of Team Canada or trade missions is not only to open those doors for those opportunities but to plant seeds for the future, and you can't put a value on that, because it's not the science that you're willing to make it.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: You mentioned marketing tools, and the marketing tools will be used to enhance Canadian export or Canadian trade. But there are many countries, and I have a big list of them, and I can go by percentages how much trade has dropped after visiting those countries.

So there is something wrong, and I would urge you to investigate why there is a long list of countries where, after a mission, the trade has dropped. There is a problem, and I want you to recognize that there is a problem and you need to find out the reason for it.

You asked my response, why I mentioned that Canada's role has been questionable in the India and Pakistan situation, Mr. Minister.

We sold them technology, CANDU reactors based on heavy-water technology, and India's nuclear experiment is based on the same technology. First we sell them technology, and then we tell them not to diversify the utilization of that technology. So that's why I say the role is questionable.

Coming back to the trade mission, Mr. Minister, we often have calls from our constituents who want to find out how much these Team Canada missions cost Canadian taxpayers. When we try to find out from your department or elsewhere, it's very difficult for us to get the figures.

Can you kindly submit to this committee a list of the costs or ballpark costs of the Team Canada missions up to now, so that we can review and we can find out and give answers to constituents as to how much these Team Canada missions have been costing, and compare it to the benefits in the future?

Going back to another area, Mr. Minister, I noticed from your letters and speeches that you are now calling for negotiations on the MAI to continue at the OECD. Will negotiations start up again in October? Will you please confirm that? Do you believe, indeed, negotiations at OECD will be successful? Why is there a change in your mind now that these negotiations should be conducted, if that's the case?

Mr. Sergio Marchi: I think you're getting a little confused—

The Chairman: I wonder, Minister, before you answer....

Mr. Grewal, would you be willing to leave with the committee the statistics on trade variation that you're referring to? Looking around the room, I think people are not really understanding—

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Sure, no problem. I don't have any hesitation in leaving you a copy for the benefit of other members so that they can make some use of those figures.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, I appreciate that. Sorry to interrupt.

Mr. Sergio Marchi: First, on the technologies to India, you recognize that those sales happened many years ago, and there has been a revolution in technology since then.

Secondly, when you say the trade figures here have dropped, you also have to be prepared to recognize that, globally speaking, our trade exports have gone up. Forty percent of our GDP is now tied to trade. It's the highest relationship to GDP that any country has. One out of three jobs is tied to the performance of exports. Team Canada has played into that. We can take a look at the micro-management side of it, but you also have to recognize that if you're prepared to nickel and dime it on micro, you have to also be able to answer the macro picture of the Canadian exporting community and how Team Canada and our other trade missions globally have played into it, because Team Canada has resulted in deals and contracts worth $ 23 billion to date. That is nothing to snicker at.

Some have been in the pipeline; others have been open; some have been pushed. It takes a village, as Hillary would say. So that exercise is done for business.

• 1000

If you don't believe me, then talk to the business people who have been on those Team Canada missions, who clearly, by and large, see it as an asset, otherwise they wouldn't pay the $ 11,000 to go on them. So they see it as an aid, not the be-all and end-all, for them in doing business around the country.

We can look at the micro side, but you have to recognize the macro side if you're prepared to engage on the micro side.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Why don't you provide us with the cost-benefit analysis of those who have been on the trade mission?

Mr. Sergio Marchi: I was going to come to that, if you'd allow me.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: That would be very helpful to me and to other Canadians as well.

Mr. Sergio Marchi: I've allowed you to ask the questions. If you'd allow me to answer your questions—

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Sure. I was just referring, since you mentioned that point, Mr. Minister....

Mr. Sergio Marchi: The third point is the whole question of costs, on which my deputy may want to comment, because I don't have the figures on the Team Canada cost-benefit analysis.

The last is the MAI. I think you're getting confused. I think you're trying to say that I've always been in favour that ultimately the OECD negotiations on the agreement on investment need to take place at the WTO. I think that's what you were getting at when you were reading the notes.

The WTO is where the rules for trade are housed. I believe trade and investment complement each other, and therefore, in order to be functional rather than dysfunctional, eventually it needs to grow out of the OECD into the WTO.

Also, the WTO is where 132 countries are. The OECD is some 29 countries. It's tabbed sometimes as “the rich nuclear family of the world”, whereas the WTO is the extended family. Ultimately, we should be at the WTO.

I have every expectations that in October those negotiations will resume at the OECD.

At the last meeting in Paris, the ministers decided to reflect on the road we've travelled, outreach much better in the future than the OECD as well as individual countries did in the past, and come back in October prepared to address the outstanding issues that we still have to deal with.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: The cost part?

Mr. Sergio Marchi: On the Team Canada cost function, cost-benefit....

Mr. Robert G. Wright (Deputy Minister for International Trade, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade): I'd be happy to give a few figures. The $ 23 billion that the minister referred to in contracts that have been signed will be delivered or have been delivered to date.

On the cost side, of course, the first principle we apply on all these trips is that the cost of bringing business people with us on these trips is covered fully by the business community. So that isn't a government expense; that's something that the business community pays for itself.

We don't have the specifics of the exact dollar figure of what it cost the federal government. What we do know is it's certainly less than 0.1% of the benefits we've accrued from the contracts we've signed.

So it's a very minor proportion of what we've actually succeeded in achieving in terms of the contracts delivered. But if the member wishes, I'd be happy to go back and look again at the figures, and if you'd like, I could give you, at a later date, a little more detail on at least the cost to our department.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: I would appreciate it if you would submit that list to the committee. That would be helpful.

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

[Translation]

Mr. Sauvageau.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Mr. Marchi, It's a pleasure to have you here this morning, as well as Ms. Edwards and Mr. Wright. To start, I'd like to make a little comparison that is perhaps not scientific, as you pointed out earlier, but which nevertheless explains certain things. It's a comparison between the mission to China I went on with you, Mr. Minister, and the one in Italy.

I have made some little rules of three of a very elementary sort. There were three members representing Canada in China, but none of Chinese origin, representing 80 companies. I can't see any rhyme or reason in that. If there were 17 Liberal members in Italy, how many companies were there? Proportionally, there should have been 480. Secondly, why were members of Chinese origin not considered for the China visit?

The figures and statistics my Reform colleague gave you were not scientific, according to you. According to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade study you handed out to us this morning, Canadian exports to Japan have dropped by 20 percent. Exports to the European Union and other countries are also down. The only place where there has been an increase, in spite of all the Team Canada trips and all the hoopla about export diversification, is the United States.

• 1005

Now, on page 5 of the material you gave us, it says that before the crisis in Japan, imports dropped by 40%. There was a drop in the European Union and other countries. The only place where imports went up was the United States. Perhaps I missed out on one of your lovely trips, but I don't think there was any Team Canada in the United States. These figures were put out by your department.

My second question concerns timber. Timber surpassed last year's forecasts by about 100 million dollars. So, there's a 100 million dollars that should be coming to four provinces - Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta. My question is very simple. When? What hopes or plans does the government and your department have for reopening the agreement in 2001?

My third question concerns the MIA and the interpretations being made in various quarters about the OECD and the WTO. Yesterday, Mr. Johnston and Mr. Valaskakis went to a supper. Mr. Johnston said that negotiations should continue under the auspices of the OECD. Mr. Valaskakis said that that was also the position of the Canadian government. In April, you went to Paris saying that the OECD had shown its incompetence in the matter and that it should be negotiated under the WTO. So that everything will be very clear, could you tell us what the Canadian government's position is regarding MIA negotiations. Should they take place under the auspices of the OECD or the WTO? Do you and your ambassador say the same thing at the OECD?

[English]

Mr. Sergio Marchi: The first question related to, I suppose, the last trip to Italy in terms of the Team Canada trip to China. Would we have brought Chinese-Canadian members of Parliament? The first thing is that I think you need to distinguish between the Team Canada model and a federally led trade mission/state visit by the Prime Minister. On the Team Canada trips, the model for membership is drawn up between the Prime Minister and the premiers and it's basically very tightly scripted in terms of the participation.

On missions that are led by the Prime Minister, he has made it a regular habit to bring members of Parliament who have had their origins from the place he is visiting. So when he went to Hungary, he invited Andrew Telegdi. When he's gone to India, he's brought Gurbax Malhi. And when the Prime Minister leaves for someplace on a federally led mission, and if we have members of Parliament who are capable of helping to break the cultural and language barrier that your chairman talked about, yes, it would be my expectation that he continues to do that. We shouldn't be ashamed of being who we are and of helping the promotion of our businesses by utilizing those capacities, because I think it's terribly impressive.

When we went to Italy, for instance, there is no other country that can go to Italy to visit Prime Minister Prodi the way our country did, with the wife of a prime minister who spoke in Italian, two ministers—without blowing my own horn—of Italian origin who are in the cabinet, some 13 members who happened to be able to come who are Italian-Canadian. It presents a dynamic face. Why should we apologize for trying to utilize, appropriately, a competitive edge and trying to promote the fact that Canada not only invites immigrants, integrates—

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: How many companies?

Mr. Sergio Marchi: —them and then sends them out as ministers and members of Parliament? In a world that is getting smaller—

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: How many companies?

Mr. Sergio Marchi: —I envision a Canada that can get bigger, and I think and hope that the Prime Minister will continue to use that model rather than run for cover simply because a few Canadian journalists don't get it.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: How many companies?

• 1010

Mr. Sergio Marchi: In terms of U.S.-Asia, it's true our exports to the United States have gone up by a quicker pace and rate than have exports to Asia. I think in part it's obviously the Asian crisis, even though nationally our exports are only 6%.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: No.

Mr. Sergio Marchi: I think British Columbia, which has 30% in the Asian market, obviously feels a bigger squeeze or pinch. It's also natural in terms of the American marketplace, which is the biggest in the world and which has had an economy that has been performing for the last eight years almost at record levels, that in the integration we see 80% of our eggs in that basket. I think it's partly a natural phenomenon.

In terms of the export fees, we turn those fees over to the provinces as soon as we possibly can. The only small sums we keep back are a very small percentage in case the Canadian government has to litigate with the United States. And so we use those moneys to obviously offset the cost of litigation. I'm informed by my deputy minister that we had $ 87 million to return in the last fiscal year and we've returned it to the provinces already.

Lastly, Don Johnston-Sergio Marchi. Don Johnston is the head of the OECD.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: And Valaskakis.

Mr. Sergio Marchi: And Valaskakis as well. Don Johnston is the director general of the OECD and Kimon is our ambassador.

I understand perfectly well their pride invested at the OECD, and I think the OECD has done by and large good work on this MAI. It has not outreached far enough, it has not been transparent enough. Whether they like it or not, I think that's a valid statement. It wasn't only the belief of Sergio Marchi, it was the belief of most ministers around that table. That's a constructive criticism from a member of the OECD. I've tried to be as open as I possibly could since assuming the trade portfolio.

Second, I also believe there's life beyond the OECD. So perhaps Don Johnston and Kimon think it should be just at the OECD; I, however, differ. I think we should perhaps make a deal at the OECD, and even if we can't, send it over to the WTO unsigned. We've done that for other agreements. It's done some wonderful advance work, but ultimately the final train station has to be the WTO because we don't have many problems from a substantive element on investment between the OECD.

So I see this work as being much more important for the WTO rather than simply being for the benefit of OECD. So if they think the final train station is the OECD, then, yes, I have a different viewpoint, and the policy of the government is the policy of, in the end, going to the WTO, despite having a very good Canadian in charge of the OECD.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Do I still have two minutes?

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier (Brampton West—Mississauga, Lib.): Colleen Beaumier): One minute.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Mr. Marchi, first of all, I'm sure you didn't do it on purpose, but you misled us. Those statistics are for 1992 and 1997 and the Asian crisis took place in 1997. Moreover, there wasn't any economic crisis in the European Union and the other countries. That's my first point.

Secondly, can you be sure that Mr. Valaskakis is saying the same thing as you, because that's not what the Canadian government is saying at the OECD? It says that the matter should be negotiated at the OECD, but in committee, in front of witnesses, you say that the Canadian government believes it should be negotiated with the WTO. That is also the position of the Bloc Québécois, with which I agree.

[English]

Mr. Sergio Marchi: I know you're trying to draw a wedge between the two. I can tell you that when I went to the OECD meetings in Paris along with our ambassador, the Canadian position was clearly articulated by him. He was very keen on trying to have the OECD come to a finality on the package. They would very much want a negotiated agreement, and on this they've been very vocal, as they ought to, because they obviously work at the OECD and what they start they would like to finish.

I'd concur with that if we could, but if somehow we can't, then let's not lose sight of the bigger picture. Let's also not lose sight of the fact that we just celebrated the 50th anniversary of GATT. If we have trade rules, they've been developed over the long haul, they haven't come overnight. I think when people want to do the deal at the OECD I see why they would want to do it, but they also have to take stock of how much time it's taken for us to develop trade rules. So it's going to take some time to do it right on the investment.

That's why I don't think our positions differ on that. Our position on the OECD is the one we articulated in the statement I read at the meeting in Paris, and our ambassador was sitting next to me.

• 1015

Our view of the WTO is the Government of Canada...I suppose Don Johnston doesn't speak for the WTO or Kimon Valaskakis isn't our ambassador to the WTO. That's why when we went to the WTO last month, if you read our statement, we said that the Government of Canada believes that one of the possible issues to be negotiated in the next little while at the WTO is an agreement on investment as a reflection that ultimately what works and happens at the OECD needs to be transferred to the WTO if we truly want an international code of conduct for how foreign investment is received and treated.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Mr. Blaikie.

Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg—Transcona, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair.

The minister said an awful lot of things today and said them well, even when I didn't agree with him. I hope we have some further time at some point to develop the argument, so to speak.

With respect to the MAI, the minister says that ultimately he feels that investment discipline should be global and it should be developed at the WTO. I don't think that's any great revelation in the sense that there was initially an attempt to have an MAI at the WTO. Certainly many people saw the work at the OECD to be a way of developing a prototype that could ultimately be, some might say, imposed—others might say put forward—at the WTO.

In effect, your position is not inconsistent with what I think the strategy has been all along. It's just a different way of putting it. There is already a working group at the WTO on investment discipline, so it's not as if this idea of having this dealt with at the WTO is some kind of new thing that comes out of the failure to develop an MAI at the OECD.

I take it from what you said that you are still committed to having an MAI at the OECD if it is possible. In that sense, I'd like to ask you a question about process, because you're sounding better on process than you did at the beginning of this. The difference between you and Mr. Johnston is that Mr. Johnston sounds like you did six months ago and you've learned something in the meantime, although you still have a tendency to stereotype your critics as the flat-earth types. I hope someday you can get over this and realize that what we're talking about is—

Mr. Sergio Marchi: You've got to help me with that.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: —not whether or not we're going to have globalization, but what kind of globalization we're going to have, what the priorities are going to be, whose interests are going to be at the top of the heap, etc. It's not a question of isolationism versus globalization. It's really a debate about two different models of globalization or what model of globalization it's going to be, because there are probably more than one or two models of globalization out there.

In terms of process, you see a further step, because I would be concerned.... There was something said on a couple of occasions that led me to believe that perhaps you saw the work of the subcommittee on the MAI as the end of the process, as something that Canada's done and we want other countries to do.

I think that would be a mistake. I think there's more process in terms of public consultation and public input, etc., needed. Certainly people out there are expecting, from some of the things you said, that if you are going to proceed with an MAI at the OECD, and certainly over the longer term at the WTO, that there needs to be more opportunity for Canadians to contribute to this debate about globalization.

So what do you have in mind with respect to that and also with respect to the FTAA? Some of the things you said at the FTAA meetings not so long ago, when you talked about the need for public input, etc.... But you haven't put any flesh on the bones of that. What do you have in mind? How is that going to come about?

• 1020

Mr. Sergio Marchi: I'm still committed, and the government is, to the right deal at the OECD. If you believe we need an international agreement on essentially having a code of conduct for countries in dealing with foreign investment rather than a charter for corporations—which I don't think this is; it's a code of conduct for countries in dealing with investment—then I believe, if there is the right deal that speaks to the right requests we have made, that we're prepared to sign. If the right deal doesn't come along at the OECD, quite frankly I don't care who's running the OECD or who our ambassador is, we won't sign.

That's why I think the WTO is not meant to be a revelation, but an ultimate evolution of where the OECD is. For me, the OECD is the start of the journey, and the WTO is the completion of the journey. I think it was partly through Canadian efforts at the meeting in Singapore, which my predecessor Art Eggleton led, that that committee actually got started; and that the WTO actually wanted the OECD to continue its work, because the committee wasn't up to speed. I'm hoping by the time the committee comes up to speed, the work at the OECD will be mature enough that there could be a lateral handing off of the work on an international agreement on investment.

You're right also in saying about globalization and the whole question of its.... It's not a question of being isolationist or not. My dilemma, Bill, was in hearing people argue—and I'm not saying you; I'm just saying some players and actors—“We don't believe in bilateralism, so we were against the free trade agreement”—and many people were—and “You've got to go multilateral”. Then when they are presented with the multilateral OECD MAI negotiation, they say, “That's not going to work. You shouldn't be at the table. Walk away from the table”.

My question to them, Bill, is what would you expect us to do in a global marketplace where part of our onus should also be to protect our investments abroad? If you don't buy into the bilateral and you don't want us to do multilateral, what is your vision of Canada in the global community? That's where I think those individuals haven't come forward with their view. From that perspective, intellectually there's a gap, and I think Canadians need to have the full story.

Secondly, on that issue, you're right—I think the participation or the engagement and transparency is an evolving thing. That's why in response to the subcommittee's report on the MAI, one recommendation that we were prepared to come back to this committee and consult further.... Certainly I've mentioned that to our officials, to do that. Perhaps in the fall we will have information, just before the start of October. The question of timing is something I certainly would be willing to work on with the subcommittee, and to give the latest view of the MAI OECD land.

You're right also on the Free Trade Area of the Americas. We talked about a process at the FTA process, and I've also talked about a process in Canada. This is a journey that's going to go on at least until 2005, but we want to make sure we start the journey right.

I'm hopeful that by the fall we will be able to enunciate what we mean by the public process. It may mean involving your committee or a subcommittee in being engaged on the FTA. I would welcome that. It may mean that the Canada-America society may want to be involved as well. We have Canada-Latin American chambers of commerce across the country. How is their role to be part of this national exercise?

I think this is a very historic and ambitious launch that would require partnership with Canadians. I've spoken about a possible role of this committee. In fact, I spoke with some of the members of the subcommittee about whether they would be interested in taking on that aspect, and they responded to me in the affirmative. I've asked our officials to make that a possible part of the public process that we want to design, so that Canada can negotiate in the FTA with Canadians supporting and partnering along the way.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Madam Chair, I think there's a tendency on the part of the minister and governments in general—I'm not singling out the minister—to say that people should come forward with alternatives, but when people do come forward with alternatives, they don't seem to get heard or recognized. Certainly people have been arguing that it's not a question of not being at the table, it's a question of the positions that the government takes at the table and the kind of table that the government seeks to be around.

• 1025

In other words, for instance, we have argued that the government should be arguing for the kinds of enforceability that we see recommended by agreements like the MAI when it comes to investor rights. We would like to see that kind of enforceability when it comes to questions like the environment and labour.

Now, that's an alternative. That's not nothing. It's an argument that any kind of morally legitimate globalization is ultimately going to have to include enforcement mechanisms for human rights and labour standards in the same way that, it is now being argued, they are urgent for the rights of investors and corporations. That is an alternative stance that one can take either at the current table or prior to the table by saying we want a table in which these kinds of things are on the table. It's not a question of walking away in the sense of isolationism, but of wanting our government to make an argument about what should be on the table if we're going to talk about what I would say were morally legitimate forms of globalization.

You know you talk about expanding the trade culture. A lot of Canadians see trade culture not necessarily as immoral but as an amoral culture. I think that's the problem. There is an amoral dimension to the trade culture. People, I think for good reasons, regard Canada and the Canadian tradition as a tradition that is a moral tradition. They don't like to see us drifting off into a kind of amoral way of looking at the world. I make the distinction between amoral and immoral here, okay?

I think this is something the government needs to pick up on, partly because it's right. I'm not giving unsolicited political advice here.

You talk about anxieties. These are not just anxieties in the therapeutic sense that you need to have a strategy to deal with—

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Mr. Blaikie.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: —these are well-grounded fears about the kind of world we're moving into.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Mr. Blaikie, can you wind it up?

Mr. Bill Blaikie: I am, it just doesn't sound like I'm winding up, Madam Chair.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): I'm afraid we don't have time. You're going to have to pose the question in the next round.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: I'm getting wound up.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): You're going to have to pose the question in the next round, because you have gone seriously over—

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Well, the minister can perhaps respond to what I've said.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Well—

Mr. Sergio Marchi: He was winding me up.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Okay.

Mr. Sergio Marchi:

[Editor's Note: Inaudible] same comment that he made to me, then I disagree with him. He sounds awfully good.

I'd like to think, Bill, that we've tried to be inclusive on the so-called different alternatives. If you look at the subcommittee report to our government, we agreed with every recommendation. On the big side of things, it was a government prepared to entertain recommendations, it wasn't a government prepared to run away or hide the committee's report or work its Liberal members to do A, B, or C. We agreed with every recommendation because we thought they were damn good recommendations. They made sense, and they made our position stronger.

Second, we like to think we have moved exceptions on the table that come from engaging Canadians. As for our negotiators, I think it's easy to beat up on negotiators, faceless bureaucrats, or politicians for that matter. But we have made a real effort in engaging a lot of Canadians. It's not well known. During an opposition day motion, I tried to table a 20-page document of all the individual outreaches that our negotiators have made. They've doubled those in an attempt to try to understand what the issues are.

We kept the provinces absolutely informed every inch of the way. It was part of our federal-provincial meeting. By the way, the provinces also have to tell the government where they stand on labour and environment. On labour, 90% is provincial. Only two provinces have told us where they stand. On environment, it's a shared jurisdiction. They need to know and tell us where they stand. Only two provinces have told us where they stand. So at some point, they need to also let us know.

But as for those exceptions that we have tabled, whether these were on culture, social affairs, or aboriginal affairs, they weren't picked out of the blue. These were picked because Canadians said that these were the values most important to them to be promoted and protected. So our negotiators are going there with those views in mind, and obviously those positions are reflected.

When we fought for the civil society process in Costa Rica, initially we were the only one of the 34 who said that. In fact, as for the opposition to it, they gave him, the minister, a round of applause. I've never seen it in any international forum. So I'm saying, boy, this is going to be fun.

• 1030

In the end, the Americans supported us and we got a process. Someone might say that's chicken feed, but it's standing up for what we believe in. We said if it's historic, we won't be able to sell it unless you involve the people for whom this is supposed to be historic.

So I'd like to think, Bill, that we are looking at alternatives.

The question on labour and environment obviously is a complex one. We are engaged on the MAI. There is a difference of opinion, even within the two labour and environmental constituencies, in terms of binding versus non-binding. I'd like to think we are inclusive, or more inclusive as we go, because we recognize the business of trade and investment.

When we say change the trade culture, it's also the way we operate. For instance, 50 companies in this country have done 50% of the trade. What that has meant over the last 20 or 30 years is it's been very easy for the trade department to deal with those companies in terms of providing policy and fraternity and so on and so forth.

Now it's a different world. You have more SMEs, you have women entrepreneurs, you have aboriginal entrepreneurs, you have young people who want to push the file, and you have governments that have become smaller. So no longer can we expect the policy apparatus of the department to deal with 50 companies. Governments getting smaller abroad means we have to push more public and private partnerships between the private sector and with NGOs.

As you say, Canada can do better, admittedly so, but when you also compare where Canada comes from in those international bodies, Canada traditionally is always pushing the file for greater transparency and greater engagement. We are always among the leaders in that charge, as opposed to being dragged by other countries. I value that, and I think that speaks to a certain Canadian value that we should continue to export.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Minister.

Now, Mr. Bachand, it's your turn to either wind up the minister or get wound up yourself.

[Translation]

Mr. André Bachand: It's a great honour to see the Minister this morning. It's good to have a minister who speaks so freely about the virtues of free trade. I'm very happy to hear that and you will understand me.

Earlier, the Minister talked about the 1988 debate. We recognized that Canada should open itself up to the world and we are happy to see that the government in power has changed its mind over the past seven years and has taken action aimed at having Canada open itself up to the world, with great success. So, you would probably make a good Conservative minister, Mr. Minister. The riding in Sherbrooke is open at the moment.

Our party believes that we should open up to the world. The export market is important. You said earlier that 50% of jobs created in the private sector were attributable to exports. There is even more to it than that. If Canada hadn't prepared for export, we would have an economic recession, except in the last quarter of last year, because we are in a domestic recession. It is exports that are keeping the country afloat.

We have been talking a lot about numbers, about percentages. With my Reform Party colleague, I must say that those numbers... I don't want to defend you, Mr. Minister, because you're quite capable of doing that yourself, but we were given a sheet of paper with decreasing percentages. Those figures are out of date. I hope that the people in the department will be able to give them to me because, in the document we were given this morning, we see that, in relation to Chile, we were going up in 1997. I would ask also that care be taken with certain statements. Here again, I am not defending the Minister or the government. What I am defending is the opening up of Canada to the world. That is important.

Moreover, the numbers we were given this morning relating to 1992 and 1997 are not numbers but percentages. If we convert them into numbers, we can see that the slice of the pie was smaller in terms of exports to Japan, but that these exports might have increased in numbers. I would like for the government to provide us with numbers in this regard so that we can have a real debate on the numbers and the advantages of exports.

If you will allow me, Mr. Chairman, I would like to take advantage of the Minister's presence to ask him about a matter that is very close to my heart.

• 1035

As you know - and if you don't know, I'll tell you - for 11 years I was mayor of a town called Asbestos. In Quebec, the asbestos issue is a difficult one. It represents several thousand jobs. Thank God, in the town of Asbestos, there is a three quarter of a billion dollar investment going on with Noranda and in Le Soleil this morning it says that the government is finally going to lodge a formal complaint with the WTO concerning asbestos and the France case. Can the Minister confirm that? I would also like to know if he could give us more material on the WTO complaint process.

I will also take the opportunity, probably because the weather is nice and the party is participating in a golf tournament today, to point out the efforts made by the government, even though I think the complaint comes a bit late. I would have liked it to have been made earlier, but I would like to remind you that there were many diplomatic efforts made. The departments involved were Foreign Affairs and International Trade and Natural Resources. There have been diplomatic, scientific, media and now legal efforts made. I would like to point out, among others, the efforts of Ms. Louise Laliberte who has cooperated very well with the people of the region.

I would like for the Minister to tell me if there will be a formal complaint. What will be the procedure? Can we get a copy of the document? Will there eventually be a complaint lodged against Belgium regarding the asbestos issue? That's very important.

I have another question on the Multilateral Investment Agreement. The Minister talked about the committee's involvement in consultations and information. This morning, could the Minister officially ask the committee to take responsibility for informing the Canadian people about Multilateral Investment Agreement negotiations? Could the Minister assure everybody that there will be public consultations and that the committee will listen to the opinions of Canadians from coast to coast on the Multilateral Investment Agreement or any other future investment-related agreement? I think that's important since Canadians and Quebeckers have questions to ask and want to be informed. Again, can the Minister officially make that request this morning and can it be officially accepted this morning?

[English]

Mr. Sergio Marchi: On the first point, you talked about the government of the day back in the mid-1980s. I don't know if you're referring to Mr. Mulroney's government concerning the leadership. We were very concerned when he took on John Crosbie and Mr. Mulroney pledged that never, ever would he entertain a free trade agreement with the United States. So when you look at history, the Liberal Party has clearly been consistent over history about liberalizing trade, and the Tories have regrettably built up barriers. So there was a bit of an inversion, not so much anti-free trade but for the right trade agreement.

I know you want me to jump, but that's the way you started, so I'd like to set the historical context right.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

An hon. member: Oh, thank you, sir. I appreciate it.

Mr. Sergio Marchi: On the issue of the figures, I haven't had a chance to really digest them, but the Reform Party comes at trade in a rather silly way. We have to be either serious or silly about trade. They've opted for the silly route. And that's their prerogative.

When you look at trade, you need to look at the micro, as they have, but rather than simply nickeling and diming this discipline, you also have to look at the macro—not only the macro, but you have to have a long-term view. When they put these arrows going up or down over one year, that's not how you measure trade. And that's a reflection of the discipline they are attaching to trade.

You need to look at trends. You need to look at market niches. You need to measure over the course of time and, within that, make policy. You don't make trade policy based on an arrow going up or down in one year. Otherwise this country would be in serious shape.

• 1040

When they say maybe Team Canada should skip the field trips and stay home, does that mean the member for Red Deer should not have gone to China or Haiti? Does that mean the member for Nanaimo—Alberni should not have gone to Japan? Does that mean the member of Parliament who's my critic should not have gone to London, Zurich, Geneva and Chile? Should the member of Calgary Northeast not have gone to Belgium? Should Edmonton East not have gone to France?

It's one thing to be holier than thou, but being a hypocrite is another thing. They have to choose whether they are members of Parliament prepared to play in the big leagues in which Canada plays, or to be silly and distribute these arrows up and down.

I'm prepared to look at the micro side as well. I'm not prepared, though, to have these conclusions drawn, because when you say Team Canada you're also denigrating the business people who go on these missions with a serious application, and not an application of trivializing their participation and their efforts.

The third issue is asbestos. The member has been very helpful. As a former mayor of Asbestos, he's had a chance to speak with me on this issue. I've appreciated his advice as well as the constructive approach he has taken on this issue. I don't mind telling this committee that later this morning we will be meeting with a number of mayors from the affected region. We will be announcing that Canada has today asked Geneva for formal consultations at the WTO on the matter of asbestos in the decision of France on asbestos taken in January of last year.

We have given public diplomacy a full chance. We have engaged our Prime Minister as late as his meeting with Prime Minister Blair in London, and I recently met with my counterpart in Paris in April. We have had our officials and other ministers employed. The French have sent their secretary of health and will send a professor who is about to do a report. We want to try to settle the differences in a diplomatic way, as two countries who are friends and allies should always try to do, but we have never seen public diplomacy as an open-ended process with no finality.

We expected a report from the French by Professor Got in April, then they said May, then they said June, then it's the summer and then we come to the fall. So we may get a report in June. We are saying today that we have called for consultations. That doesn't mean diplomacy has failed. If the French report based on science is positive, we'll guide those consultations accordingly. If their subsequent report is negative, of course those consultations will be a little different.

But we have taken the decision to finally ask for consultations, and hopefully those consultations will be positive. It will mean the two will have to talk, and talking is obviously healthy, but at the end of the day that's what the WTO is there for. If you can't settle your disputes through bilateral discussions, you put them in the hands of independent arbiters who settle the issue for those countries.

We will be happy to provide some background material, through the chair of this committee, in terms of the steps we have taken over the last year outlining the critical path and all the different meetings—all parties have been engaged in this in the House of Commons—as well as the process at the WTO. What happens now with consultations? What happens with the panel that may or may not be struck? What about the appeal procedure? We will lay that out perhaps in chart form for the committee as well.

In terms of Belgium and others, that hasn't been decided just yet. We have made a decision today on taking consultations on the French decisions.

Lastly on MAI—I'll just go back because I don't want to run out the clock. These are important questions that were asked. We responded favourably to the committee recommendation. We'd like to again take the advice of the committee, and perhaps the fall would be an appropriate time, given the resumption of the negotiations in October.

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We have never stopped consulting the public. My negotiator and our officials and I are up to continuing to meet groups. I'm surprised that some of those groups haven't returned the calls of our negotiator for those meetings.

We have never seen this as a one-time affair. We continue to negotiate. We continue to work with our provinces and our various constituency groups in tuning up our final positions. I think we'll be in a better position in October to actually see what the outstanding issues are and where the gaps are, and how we can therefore best consult those particular constituencies.

The Chairman: To clarify on the consultation issue at the WTO, it's our understanding that's a formal first step to letting people know you could actually bring a case in the WTO.

Mr. Sergio Marchi: Yes, the first step is consultations, and there is a minimum of 60 days that they can take. Now the country, in this case Canada, can extend the 60-day period if we think there is potential, or if France has not had enough time to put its package together. We can extend that. But there is a minimum of 60 days, after which point a panel can be struck.

That panel can take upwards to about a year, more or less?

Mr. Robert Wright: Six months to a year.

Mr. Sergio Marchi: Six months to twelve months at the outside.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Ms. Augustine.

Ms. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke—Lakeshore, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to you, Minister.

I went through the estimate here, and I think the document is so well written, and everything is said very nicely. But I have three questions that I try to answer each time as I talk to constituents and to people who are very concerned about a whole series of issues to do with foreign affairs and trade, and I'll ask you those three questions very briefly.

First, there is a sense that when we sign on to agreements we lose a little bit of our sovereignty, and those institutions like the WTO are not comfortable, and that we should be working in some arena to make those multilateral organizations more comfortable. How is Canada working in that regard?

The second question has to do with the face of Canada in the trade promotion wing. You talked a little while ago about “brand-name Canada”. I'm asking about your trade commissioners. Who are they, and what faces do they represent? I notice that you have a plan here in the strategy to increase the number of trade commissioners abroad by 30% over the next five years, so that 70% of them will be based abroad by 2006. In that plan, how do you look at diversity—faces like mine being represented in those trade offices overseas?

My third question has to do with the whole issue of selling and marketing education abroad, as you mentioned earlier. In doing that selling and marketing, what kind of collaboration, cooperation or connection is there between yourself, the department, and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration? It seems that problems develop, as on the one hand you do this, and on the other hand the immigration department says there's a different story, or says no to some issues.

Lastly, Africa is a continent with great potential. What are the plans to include Africa in a Team Canada effort?

Thanks.

Mr. Sergio Marchi: Thank you, Jean.

On WTO or multilateral institutions, I think you're right. As the world becomes more integrated, I think these institutions that have evolved—and the WTO from an international perspective has worked very well—have to strive to be more accountable. There's no question about that.

There are obviously challenges to this global world of ours, but I far prefer this integrated world than the world we used to live in during the Cold War, where we didn't even know people, we didn't even talk to people, we just aimed missiles at them. Now we're aiming trade missions at them. Now those countries want to be in our clubs.

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So it's a far better world, despite all of our challenges. This morning there is another one: Pakistan had two nuclear tests. It's not as if one was enough; they did two. That's a challenge.

Compared to the world you and I left a few years ago, we're now in a more integrated world. We're building bridges much more than blowing them up. Our institutions need to be accountable. When we went to Geneva on the WTO, we said we needed to have the WTO a little closer to Canada and to Canadians. That's why we don't believe regional trade agreements run contrary to the WTO; we think they're complementary. We think Canadians understand what NAFTA means to them, the potential of FTAA, and why we're trying to open up the European market. If we do that under multilateral rules, they get a sense of why the WTO is important.

So it helps define the WTO regionalism rather than competing with it. That's why we said decisions, for instance, should be shared more quickly. Right now, when a decision is made at the WTO, it's not released for months, because they have to translate it into umpteen languages, which is fine, but in the interim you get leaks, different versions, and uneducated responses. So anything from how we release reports to how we engage the public in the process is as important for the FTAA or the OECD doing the MAI as it is for the WTO.

Secondly, on trade commissioners, it's true we're moving more of them out in the world. I'll ask our deputy to speak to the specific face of these trade commissioners. It's important that the Government of Canada, generally speaking, reflect as best it can the face of the Canada of 1998.

Each year of an election, our Parliament is coming closer to doing that, but we're not there yet. If a person comes to watch Question Period and looks at the Parliament of Canada, they don't really see the true face of Canada; they begin to see the evolving face of Canada. Governments should strive, as we have institutions of equal opportunity in government, to reflect that, particularly in a department such as Foreign Affairs and International Trade. It makes such logical sense.

We talked about language and culture and how we, Canada, are citizens of the world and how we should reap the advantages of that. Also, how we built this country is an example to other countries.

A person commented to the Prime Minister that in Italy there are a lot of differences between north and south. There are separatist forces in the north, because they want to separate from Rome up. Her comment is, “Look at Canada. They have one million Canadians of Italian origin, and there isn't any division on north and south. That is to say, for the kids of northerners or southerners, it's the same difference. They've done well in Canadian society, period.”

So she was using the Canadian example as a reflection of how they should overcome this north-south bias. Given space and opportunity, someone from Calabria or someone from Friuli will make it in this country just as well as they ought to make it back home. That's the kind of experiment Canada is, and that's why we make no apologies to those who want us to apologize for that strength. I'll ask the deputy to come back to that.

Thirdly, on education marketing, Immigration plays a key role, because—and as former Minister of Immigration, I know this—they give the student visas. Processing is important, because we want to process right, for Canadian security and health reasons and so on, but we also have to do it in a timely fashion. There's nothing more disturbing than a youngster in Asia or in Europe who says they want to study at a Canadian college or university, and then they are forced to pick their second or third choice because those countries have given them a clear determination before we have.

We have to strive to do better—not to abandon our criteria, but to recognize that our processing needs to also be in pace with our competitors, because we want foreign students to experience education in Canada. It's as good as it gets. It's a buy compared to the American. And you get the quality of life that is second to none. The immigration processing has to also recognize that side, as opposed to simply being a processing function. We've been working on that, and we made strides at the last meeting at York University.

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Lastly, on the potential for Africa, I met with all our heads of missions from Africa about two months ago, and they certainly implored us to look at Africa in a slightly different way, because there is a different Africa, and we can't get into the mindset where, when we think Africa, we think foreign aid.

When we think Africa now, there are things happening on both trade and investment, where increasingly Canadian companies are there. That's one of the reasons David Kilgour, the Secretary of State for Africa, with your participation, just came back from a mission, and the reports were very glowing. In fact, I'm meeting him this afternoon to go over that so as to also inform our Prime Minister, who visits South Africa next year as part of the Commonwealth. Perhaps we can use his visit to stimulate greater interest and awareness in the new Africa that is clearly emerging.

My deputy may want to make a comment on the face or composition of our trade commissions.

Mr. Robert Wright: First, on the immigration question, we are working now with Immigration Canada to accelerate the process of issuance of visas for our universities, and we hope that will be something we can move forward on very quickly for the reasons the minister mentioned. The universities are anxious to work with us on that.

In terms of the number of posts we have overseas, we have 159 offices; 100 of those are embassies.

In terms of program personnel from our department, we have about 1,700 personnel overseas. Those who are locally engaged, people who are employed on the spot, are about two-thirds of that; Canadians make up the other third.

In terms of the share between trade and non-trade officials, it's about 50-50. A little more than half of those officers and support people are dedicated exclusively to the trade file, and I would, if I may, turn to Lucie to ask her to go into a little more detail on the balance between the equity in the employment in our posts overseas.

Mr. Sergio Marchi: We're passing the face here.

Ms. Lucie Edwards (Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade ): We are indeed.

We have made a number of commitments in terms of what is called “government employment equity”. We have particular populations where we know we're under-represented, where we want to do better.

In our department's case, we begin with women, visible minorities, the disabled and aboriginal people, and we have targeted, in terms of our recruitment plans, to improve our statistics in all those areas. I'm pleased to say, in the last three years of recruitment—and we are one of the larger departments for recruiting—we've been averaging about 50% a year for the last three years. We've been recruiting over 50% from those target groups, in fact, 50% women for each of the three years.

In terms of visible minorities, we have been recruiting, on average, 15% a year who are visible minorities.

Our statistics in terms of the overall population, which of course includes people who have been working for a much longer time, are not as good. We average slightly less than the public service in general in each of those categories. At the moment, 43% of the department's population are women, compared to 48% for the public service.

In terms of visible minorities, it is about the same as the public service in general, 4%, and our specific commitment there is to increase our numbers to the same level as workforce availability in Canada, which is 9%. In other words, we want to double our numbers for that particular category.

One area where we have a challenge is persons with disabilities, and I should say that in general we have constraints, because we ask people to go into societies where the sensitivity to the needs of the disabled and medical facilities and other kinds of facilities that are required are not to the same standard. But we do whatever we can, and we're very committed in terms of our own building program to ensure a full accessibility for the disabled, not only our employees but any Canadian coming to our buildings, and indeed, any visitors.

Mr. Sergio Marchi: I should apologize. I forgot to introduce my two officials. Rob Wright, whom you've met before, is the deputy minister. Lucie Edwards is the ADM for corporate services.

The Chairman: Ms. Edwards has already given us helpful information on this question, which is very good.

I wonder, Minister, if I could add to your response to Ms. Augustine on the WTO and the democratic deficit. You will recall that you took four parliamentarians with you—me, Mr. Blaikie, Mr. Speller and Mr. Penson—all from this committee, to the WTO meetings. We went to a meeting organized by an NGO at those meetings, which was to examine the view should there be a parliamentary assembly associated with the WTO for precisely the reasons Ms. Augustine raised.

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Curiously enough, there were a bunch of NGOs there. We were the only parliamentarians. Now, this may be because the whole town was rioting and there was barbed wire all around, as you'll recall, but it was an interesting experience.

I think this is an idea we'll probably see. I will circulate to the members of the committee the paper that I got when I was there, because I'm going to send that. I'll send it also to Mrs. Finestone, because the IPU is specifically mentioned as a model. That is the type of thing that is being discussed, although the European parliamentarians who were there didn't know about it and neither did the member of Congress. The member of Congress was less interested.

Mr. Assadourian.

Have you got a minute, Minister, to go over your press release?

Could you do it in two minutes, Mr. Assadourian?

I want to remind the members that Ms. Folco would like to put in a resolution respecting the nuclear tests in Pakistan. We want to leave time to do that. I think it might be appropriate for us to pass a resolution this morning.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: And after that, Mr. Chairman, I will have a small point of order.

The Chairman: We'll release the minister and then—

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian (Brampton Centre, Lib.): Mr. Minister, on the second page of your statement—it's the first line of the last paragraph—it says that Canada's geography, history, and multicultural make-up positions it advantageously. I want to focus on multicultural make-up.

Many multicultural groups now have what they call business associations, such as the Italian, Armenian and Greek business councils. What policy do you have—if you have any—to promote those organizations in order to promote trade between the two nations? That's my first question.

Second, in the last couple of days Russia has been going through a difficult time. We have about $ 500 million in investments there. Do you see anything in your crystal ball? Are we going to be benefiting from this in the next few years? Are we going to be losing money? When Russia goes down like Indonesia and Southeast Asia, then we'll lose some money there too.

My third question is this. Last week, you and the U.S. came to an agreement about Cuba and the Helms-Burton Act. Can you update that situation? How far have we come? What are we going to do? What's our position, please?

Mr. Sergio Marchi: On your first question, the multicultural aspect, that's something we are very supportive of. That's not only because of the natural competitive edges that a multicultural, multilingual society gives us in terms of the global village, but also, as we seek private and public partnerships, I think they will play an increasing role.

That's why I've asked the director of our small and medium-sized business unit to incorporate under her mandate the outreach with third-language business associations, trade associations, and chambers. I have given instructions that I'd like to develop a closer private-public partnership that incorporates the multiplicity of organizations like those across the country.

I think we haven't utilized them enough in the past. That's not a criticism as much as simply the reality of an evolving situation.

Now as governments get smaller, even abroad, we have to recognize.... For instance, we've got 15 Canadian offices in China. Everybody wants to go to China, such as federal, provincial, municipal governments from around the world. We also have to build models like the Canada-China Business Council. They have been around for 20 years helping Canadian business. They help to open doors not only as a function here, where we have a speaker and can change business cards, but over in China.

My ultimate objective is to see how we could build these models around the world. How do we take the Canadian Italian Business and Professional Association or the Canada-Armenian Chamber of Commerce from Canada and transpose them to help them help our businesses do business in those parts of the world? That's a challenge because of the number of them, but it's also an objective, because it makes sense.

On Russia, obviously we're hopeful that Russia economically will be a big player. We take the long view in Russia, as we do in other parts of the world. As you know, we have a Canada-Russia economic commission that meets yearly, which continues to make progress. Our businesses have done well, some have done very well, in Russia. Others because of a number of different reasons, have perhaps been lukewarm. We are obviously trying to get a level playing field in terms of rules and regulations, foreign investment protection agreements, and so on, so that we can send the signals that clearly it's good also for business in Russia.

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I know that the Russian President tells us from time to time that he'd like to see more of Canada there. Our Prime Minister has visited a number of times and we're serious about our commission, but it also is a function of how your businesses see a marketplace, and I think the potential is there for a Russia-Canada partnership to evolve probably stronger than the one that clearly has been in force for the last number of years.

Thirdly, on Helms-Burton, the one positive area in their deal with the European Union is that at least it speaks to some flexibility. Up to now, the American position has been very inflexible, largely because of the Jesse Helmses of the American system. At least there is some openness. There was some movement. Europeans have to pay a certain price for that. Our department is currently looking through the working documents in evaluating exactly what they've done as opposed to just the spinning of the press releases.

What I'd like to say, though, is that generally speaking it looks as though the Europeans were far more interested for their companies in Iran, so they were looking at the ILSA part more than the Helms-Burton Cuba part. The Europeans were rather dismissive of Cuba, I found; Mr. Castro lectured them on that in Geneva. But we have many investments and interests in Cuba.

So clearly not one size fits all, and so we would be interested in sitting down with the Americans, but we would only be interested in sitting down with the Americans as long as our interests are pursued. We have a very different view of Helms-Burton. It's bred developments in Iran and Libya. It's breeding developments at the state level in the United States. I think it's bad news for a long-term investment trading regime, and we hope that President Clinton will speak for America rather than Jesse Helms.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Minister. I know you have to go and make your press release about asbestos. Perhaps if your officials would like to leave, then we have two more matters of business.

We have a motion by Ms. Folco and a point of order by Mr. Grewal. Should we do the motion first?

Ms. Raymonde Folco (Laval West, Lib.): Can we do this right away, if you don't mind? I have another meeting at the other end of the campus and—

The Chairman: Would you like to present your motion, then?

[Translation]

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

Mr. Sergio Marchi: Mr. Chairman?

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr. Sergio Marchi: I think we're going to try to find another copy of the Prime Minister's press release, which has just been issued, for your information.

The Chairman: Yes. I have a copy.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Regarding the nuclear destinations?

Mr. Sergio Marchi: Yes.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Okay.

[Translation]

If fact, the proposal has two elements, the first being a condemnation of the nuclear tests that were held recently by the government of Pakistan and the second being to encourage—I haven't read the Prime Minister's statement—the Canadian government to send a clear and forceful message to the Pakistani government.

A proposal has been written, and I would ask the Francophone members of the committee to be patient since it is in English only for the moment. It will be translated very rapidly into French.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: There's no problem, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Mr. Schmitz has drafted a resolution. I'm going to read it for the interpretation. That way, we'll have it in English and French. Is that OK? OK.

[English]

It reads:

That whereas the Government of Pakistan has taken the deeply regrettable step of exploding nuclear devices, notwithstanding the strong representations made by Canada and other countries for Pakistan to exercise restraint;

Whereas this unfortunate action introduces an extremely dangerous new dynamic that threatens to destroy progress on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament and puts at risk global peace and security,

The Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade strongly condemns the action of the Government of Pakistan in conducting nuclear explosions, as well as the earlier nuclear tests by India, and urges the Government of Canada to respond rapidly in the firmest possible terms in order to arrest this dangerous escalation and preserve Canada's strongly held objectives on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.

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[Translation]

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Can I ask Madame Folco a question?

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: I fully support the intent of this motion, but I think it's too much on one side. That's my concern, and if you can address that concern I would really appreciate it.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Of one side of...?

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Pakistan, not India.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: It's been mentioned. India has been mentioned in the text that the chairman has just read. Would you read that part perhaps again, Mr. Graham?

The Chairman: We specifically were clear that we wanted to make sure.... We said that the committee “strongly condemns the action of the Government of Pakistan in conducting nuclear explosions, as well as earlier nuclear tests by India”. Okay? Is that all right, then?

[Translation]

Everybody agrees?

Ms. Raymonde Folco: yes.

The Chairman: OK. Thank you very much.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chairman: Is it all right? You're on side?

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: I wanted to know what action the motion is proposing. Does she mean that we should recall the ambassador, or what's she proposing here?

The Chairman: We're not going to lay down—

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: What do you mean by “the strongest action”?

The Chairman: We're not going to lay down exactly what.... I can't speak to this, but I've been getting up-to-date information as we've been sitting.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: But I'm not clear what “strongest action” means.

The Chairman: My understanding is that it would be at least what we did with respect to India. My understanding is that our high commissioner is being recalled as we sit; that there will be an announcement respecting bilateral aid, which will be put on hold; and that all commercial and other relations will be put on hold exactly the same as in respect of India.

But the Prime Minister's statement announced “that Canada's relations with Pakistan would now be placed on hold and that further measures would be announced in light of the developments in both India and Pakistan”. hat's the Prime Minister's press release.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Has this motion been passed?

The Chairman: Is it all right, then, as it stands?

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Actually, if I can just take half a minute, there are two components to the motion. I have no hesitation in agreeing to the one part, which is the previous part, but I have a little concern about the second part. I don't know if there should be two motions separately so that we can vote for the first and against the second.

The Chairman: The second part deals with the government's action.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: So far it's not clear.

Second, I don't wholeheartedly support the second part.

The Chairman: Maybe you'll just have to vote against against the motion, then. The motion is there. Because everybody is leaving, we'll have to move on it.

(Motion agreed to)

The Chairman: Mr. Grewal, you had a point of order.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I'm sorry I have to put forward this point of order. I hate to do it.

Let me start with a positive note, that I always appreciate it when you are in the chair and that you have conducted the meetings very efficiently in the past. I think most of the members around the table have been quite happy about that.

But today I notice that I was cut off at 9 minutes and 45 seconds, which is approximately 15 seconds or close to that.... I don't want to be very picky on the timing part, but when there is a huge variation there is a necessity that I should bring this to your attention so that we can be a little careful in the future. The Bloc spoke for about 10 minutes, which is about right, the NDP spoke about 18 minutes, the PC 14 minutes, and the Liberals 16 minutes plus 6 minutes.

So I didn't have enough time to address my concerns around this table today. I think there was an unfair distribution of the time today.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Mr. Grewal, I had to ask to speak—

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: I know, I agree with you.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: —and I didn't get a chance to speak.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Yes, I realize that more members wanted to speak on this, so if there was better allocation of this time probably it would have been easier for more of the members to participate in the debate.

The Chairman: May I just draw to your attention that perhaps your facts are different from mine. We're quite careful on the time. We had a problem this morning partly because you realize that we started 20 minutes late because the translators weren't there. And the minister obviously was quite willing to engage....

So there are a couple of points I would like to make, because I agree we have to be careful to make sure everybody feels they're getting fair—

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: But Mr. Chairman, more members—

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The Chairman: Let me finish my point. The clerk's timing shows you had 12 minutes, Mr. Sauvageau had 12 minutes, Mr. Blaikie had 17 minutes and the Liberal Party members between them had 13 minutes. That means 41 minutes for the opposition and 13 minutes for the government side. If there's anybody who has a right to complain about the balance when ministers come, it seems to me it's the government side.

We will have to revisit. If you want to revisit the timing and how we handle it, my own proposition would be to go back and forth between you and the government. If you'd like, we can do that. But if we're going to do four opposition parties and then the government, it's not fair to suggest the opposition didn't get a fair crack. You always get the fair crack. You got 12 minutes.

If you want to complain about Mr. Blaikie.... I try to run it so if members want to make long statements when they introduce their questions, they use up their time. But if the minister's giving a responsive answer, I don't like to interrupt, because I watch all the members around the room and if they're interested in the exchange I let it go. You have to leave me the latitude to do that. I don't want to be your chair if I'm just a timekeeper. It's crazy.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: I already said I hate to do that and I don't want to waste time on this discussion. But your facts and my figures vary. We can probably leave the matter hanging, but I can surely say that if the time allocation was 18 minutes or 17 minutes, there's not much difference. But the Liberals had 16 minutes plus 6 minutes, actually. If you revisit your record, I was quite careful in noting down the minutes, and you will agree I measured it right.

The idea is not to calculate seconds and minutes, but if we are a little more considerate, more members at the table will participate. It will be a fair distribution. That was the concern I had.

But I don't want to prolong this debate. It's not a complaint, it's simply a concern I had. I wanted to make some comments.

Very quickly, the second point—

The Chairman: I just want to quickly say you're right. I confused the Liberals with Mr. Bachand. He had 13 minutes and in fact the Liberals had 20 minutes.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: That's according to mine. But anyhow, I don't want to get into counting the shorter time. That all depends, then.

I wanted to comment. I didn't get time to comment because the minister's selection of words was very poor. He criticized the Reform Party's figures, which you asked me to submit to the committee, in a very derogatory way with wrongly selected words. I had a very strong comment, because the minister tried to trivialize the official opposition's record on these figures.

These figures are Statistics Canada figures and they are not trivializing anyone. The idea is that these figures were quoted simply to show that Team Canada missions' output, which can be measured in effectiveness after the mission...but how do we compare the figures? That was my concern. I didn't get the opportunity to comment to the minister.

The Chairman: Is that your point?

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Thank you.

The Chairman: Now we have Ms. Augustine and then it's the parliamentary secretary.

Ms. Jean Augustine: Since Mr. Grewal brought this up, I want to object to the fact that something is circulated to us with very subjective language: “sunshine boys, team”...I don't have it in front of me, but I was really disgusted by that. This was a very serious discussion we were having here this morning. If we have some documents that have been well researched or researched in some way and sent around to us, I can deal with it. But to put something in front of us that trivialized the discussion, gave us name tags that are considered to be not the language we use in this committee, I object to that, in response to the fact that Mr. Grewal, again, put that on the table.

I would have taken it up personally had he not made the statement publicly that he objected to the minister's treatment of the document. But I objected to his circulating something with the kind of heading it had.

The Chairman: It had a sort of pejorative nature. Okay.

Parliamentary secretary, very quickly, and then we'll have to break.

Mr. Julian Reed (Halton, Lib.): My understanding of time allocation is that each individual member gets the time allocation the chairman or committee decides, whether it's ten minutes, five minutes or whatever, depending on the number of people here. So if the official opposition only has one member here and has chosen not to have their full complement, they can only expect to have that amount of allocation of time.

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I should also point out that in the case of the government side and the amount of time they had, there was one Liberal member who didn't have a chance to speak at all.

The Chairman: When? Today?

Mr. Julian Reed: Yes.

The Chairman: Well, there were two.

Mr. Julian Reed: Two who didn't have a chance to speak.

The Chairman: Yes. No, this is a problem we have.

Mr. Julian Reed: Fair is fair.

The Chairman: Yes. This is a problem we have. We'll try to work on making sure—

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Can I respond, very quickly?

The Chairman: Yes, very quickly, because we all have a lot of work. It's the end of the season, and we have a lot to do.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Sure. First of all, these figures that are circulated—this is a press release. These figures are not meant to be here to be circulated at this committee. But since the request was made that my talking points be circulated, I was generous to consider that these points be distributed at this meeting.

The Chairman: I asked you to supply them.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Yes. This is a press release, and it's not meant for this committee. There should be no hard feelings as to why these words are there. These words are appropriately mentioned for the purpose...not for the committee.

The second thing, Mr. Chairman, is that we respect the time allocation, whatever time allocation is given, whether it is 5 minutes or 10 minutes or whatever. But once we allocate them.... The point I raised was simply that it was not.... In my view, whether there's one member or two members.... If I'm one member from Reform and have 10 minutes, I expect other members from other parties to have the same. If one member is speaking for the NDP, he should have approximately the same time. The Liberal members, if they spoke, should not have doubled their time. That was the only concern.

I don't have any intention to pursue this matter further. This was simply for future reference.

The Chairman: Just so that everybody knows at least how I run the meetings, I try to keep.... The tradition is that for ministers, and particularly for estimates, it's 10 minutes at the first round and then it's 5 after that. The trouble is that we rarely get to the second round, because it takes so long. That's a problem.

The other thing I try to do is watch it, and if members keep their questions shorter, it's helpful. If the minister is giving a response that is of interest to the committee, I don't like to say, “Hey, that time's up”, and then cut them off from their response. I'll have to be more cautious of that. If people ask 10 questions seriatim, then of course it ends up that the minister comes back.

So we'll watch it, and—

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Mr. Chairman, the problem might have arisen because there was a change in the chair today. Maybe that was one of the contributing reasons. I have earlier said that you have been quite fair in the past, and I respect that and congratulate you on that. Since there was a change in the chairman on the seat, that was probably the reason.

The Chairman: We were all getting wound up, as I recall, when I came back in the room.

Thank you very much. We're adjourned until Tuesday at 9 a.m. Have a good weekend.