THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Wednesday, April 15, 2026
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade met this day at 4:15 p.m. [ET] to study Bill C-13, An Act to implement the Protocol of Accession of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Senator Peter M. Boehm (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: My name is Peter Boehm. I am a senator from Ontario and chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
I now invite the committee members participating in today’s meeting to introduce themselves.
[English]
Senator Adler: Good afternoon. Charles Adler, Manitoba.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Welcome. Amina Gerba from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Robinson: Good afternoon. Mary Robinson, representing Prince Edward Island.
Senator Woo: Yuen Pau Woo, British Columbia.
Senator M. Deacon: Welcome. Marty Deacon, Ontario.
Senator Coyle: Mary Coyle, Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
Senator Petten: Iris Petten, Newfoundland and Labrador, and I’m the sponsor of Bill C-13.
Senator Al Zaibak: Mohammad Al Zaibak, Ontario. Good to see you.
[Translation]
Senator Hébert: Martine Hébert from Quebec.
[English]
The Chair: Welcome, senators, and especially to Senator Petten and Senator Robinson, who are not regular members of the committee, I want to welcome everyone who may be watching us across the country on ParlVu, or indeed abroad, perhaps even in the United Kingdom.
Colleagues, we’re beginning to look at the examination of Bill C-13, An Act to implement the Protocol on the Accession of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. For our first panel, we are pleased to welcome from the British Canadian Chamber of Trade and Commerce, Martin Buckle, Vice-President, from the School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, Carlo Dade, Director, International Policy and New North America Initiative, and from the Canadian Agri‑Food Trade Alliance, no stranger to this committee, Michael Harvey, the Executive Director, welcome, and thank you all for being with us today.
Before we hear your opening statements and proceed to questions and answers, colleagues, please mute your devices so we’re not distracted, and I would ask everyone to observe the rules and guidelines on the cards in front of you with respect to the use of the microphone and the ear piece so we can ensure that there’s complete protection for our technical staff and our interpreters.
We’re now ready to hear your opening remarks, which will be followed by questions from senators. Mr. Buckle, you have the floor, and you’ll be followed by Mr. Dade and Mr. Harvey. Please go ahead.
Martin Buckle, Vice-President, The British Canadian Chamber of Trade and Commerce: I would like to thank the committee for the invitation to appear before you today.
The British Canadian Chamber of Trade and Commerce, or BCCTC, was founded on June 1, 1951, under our original name, the British Canadian Trade Association, or BCTA. This is, therefore, our 75th anniversary year. Coincidentally, it’s also my 25th anniversary since coming to Canada.
The Chamber exists to promote the transatlantic business interests of our members and stakeholders, and our mission includes four objectives: to promote the bilateral development of trade, commerce and investment between the U.K. and Canada; to help create better understanding between the Canadian and British business communities; to provide opportunities for members to meet for business and social networking; and to represent the opinion of the British business community in Canada on trade, commerce, finance, industry and investment and to represent the Canadian business community in the U.K. in these same respects.
It is this fourth pillar that brings me here today, to speak in favour of Bill C-13.
The total trade between our two countries varies from year to year, particularly as commodity prices change, but the U.K. remains Canada’s third-largest export market, and the two-way balance of trade in goods and services exceeded $50 billion in the 12 months to the end of June 2025. The U.K.’s financial trade with Canada exceeds that of Italy and Spain combined despite the proximity and size of those two economies.
Most of our trade is covered by the continuity agreement signed after Brexit. A new bilateral agreement is much needed but seemingly a long way off still. The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP, however, is an opportunity for our two countries to affirm our mutual commitment to fair trade that does more than simply remove tariffs: it’s a high standard, forward-looking framework. It includes strong commitments in digital trade, data flows, intellectual property, labour and environmental protections; these are rules that Canada supports and helped design.
The U.K.’s entry also strengthens the CPTPP itself. Britain brings economic weight, investment capacity, and strong alignment with Canada’s approach to labour and environmental standards. The inclusion of the U.K. makes the CPTPP an even more attractive partner for future members, reinforcing a rules‑based trading order that brings social, environmental and economic benefits.
COVID taught the world a lesson in supply chain resilience. The Russian invasion of Ukraine gave us another supply shock; extreme tariffs on trade with the USA added another, and who knows how and when the current Gulf war will end. The CPTPP gives U.K. and Canadian companies more flexibility — more places to source, to process, and to export. It spreads risk and strengthens our combined economic security.
After Brexit, there was a big uptick in U.K. companies reaching out to our Chamber to learn more about Canada and doing business here. After the introduction of tariffs on many goods heading from Canada into the USA, we started to see an uptick in Canadian companies looking to trade with the U.K. Changes in the global structure of trade-focused attention on the opportunities as well as the challenges these changes introduce. And the CPTPP is a great opportunity for us to do better together.
In March, the West Highland Chamber of Commerce completed another trade mission to Nova Scotia, and for the last few weeks I have been following up on that mission by connecting Scottish businesses with suppliers here in Canada. The end of April will see the Scotland-Canada Business Week further develop deep historic and business ties across the Atlantic.
Last year, Virgin Atlantic opened a new route between Toronto and London Heathrow. In partnership with WestJet, the carrier is now able to open up Canada to more travellers than ever before, whilst its onward connections from London to Europe, India, Africa, and the Middle East enable greater opportunities for Canadians looking to access global markets.
This year, starting in May, WestJet will connect four times weekly with Cardiff, the capital of Wales and gateway to the western parts of the U.K. I had hoped we could celebrate that new link with thousands of Welsh football fans heading to Toronto to watch their team in the World Cup, but sadly it was not to be.
The social, economic and cultural ties between our two countries are flourishing, and this Bill gives Parliament the opportunity to support our mutual values, our small and large businesses, and our shared vision for a flourishing future.
I thank you, again, for your time and generosity in asking us to come here today.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Mr. Dade.
[Translation]
Carlo Dade, Director, International Policy and New North America Initiative, School of Public Policy, University of Calgary: Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for inviting me to appear again.
[English]
It’s been a while since I’ve been here with the committee. It’s good to see so many familiar faces; it’s almost like coming home.
I’d like to make a few brief comments based on over three decades of deep research, convening, testimony, and public speaking on the importance of trade and agricultural trade and, in particular, over a decade focused solely on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, or TPP, now the CPTPP agreement. This work has included modelling the benefits of the agreement without the Americans, modelling ahead of foreign affairs to make the case for the importance to Canada, and to quantify the importance of the case for Canada.
Apologies, but since I’ve returned to academia from the Canada West Foundation, you’re going to get some numbers today, so let me beg for forgiveness in advance.
That offers a fairly unique perspective. I have two points to make about the importance of the CPTPP: fundamental to framing how you hear testimony and fundamental to framing how you think about this different type of agreement. First, I need to reintroduce myself.
This work was done partially during the 13 years I was at the Canada West Foundation. In the years since, I’ve joined Martha Hall Findlay at the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary, where I run the only Canadian-U.S. research and convening initiative on the continent. We have generous funding from the government of Alberta, which has stepped up to take the lead in producing research and convening on Canada‑U.S. We are the only broad, multiyear funded initiative looking beyond the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA, to rebuild a renewed future for our shared continent. I would welcome an opportunity to come back to the committee to talk about that work.
But for today, two points about the TPP, one large, and one that follows. The first point, fundamental to any consideration, any conceptualization or analysis, is getting the framework right. You have to think of the TPP as a game of chess, where we’ve been playing trade checkers for decades in Canada. A multiparty agreement with members spread around the Pacific is not an arithmetical or an additional step above a bilateral agreement. It is a geometric progression in terms of importance.
If you think about a bilateral agreement, you have one path to make sales, one path for businesses to make partnerships. If you have an 11-member agreement, you have over 50 bilateral partnerships to leverage within the agreement. You have close to 1,000 pathways for new supply chain variations with the members. If you grow the agreement and add the U.K., you’re now up to 70 — over 70 — potential bilateral pathways, and well over 1,300 supply chain pathways within the agreement.
This is not your typical checkers game of a bilateral agreement where issues by one sector with the other party have added weight. This is a multiparty agreement, geometrically more important for Canada, and the complaints of one sector, with one party, have to be weighed against the benefits of an agreement that is, again, much more important, geometrically more important. So the shift in thinking, in framing, has to go from the bilateral to the multilateral.
The second point with this is that this was important nine years ago in Da Nang when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the Japanese single-handedly pulled the TPP out of the attempts by the Trump administration to kill it. It was a path for middle powers to come together and rally around rules-based trade to protect the international trade order. Canada almost single-handedly killed that agreement nine years ago in Da Nang. Since then, we’ve been building our reputation in Asia as serious, no longer frivolous. The world changed in Da Nang. It’s gotten worse since then. This agreement is also a test of whether or not Canada has become serious if we’ve evolved since Da Nang to realize how much the world has changed and follow the path laid down by Japanese Prime Minister Abe in creating a third path for middle powers.
Being the last country to vote on the U.K.’s accession is not helping us dig out of the hole we dug for ourselves nine years ago, so this is a test for the government; it’s a test for Canadians, but it’s also a test that folks in Asia are watching as we claim to follow Abe’s path and take leadership for creating a rules-based third power, a third way. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Mr. Harvey, but before I would just like to acknowledge that Senator Duncan Wilson of British Columbia has joined the meeting.
[Translation]
Michael Harvey, Executive Director, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance: Thank you for inviting me today. The Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, or CAFTA, is a coalition of national organizations advocating for a freer and fairer international trade environment for the agriculture and agri-food sector.
[English]
Committee members are aware that the international trade policy environment is changing rapidly. In this context, the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, or CAFTA, promotes putting agri-food trade at the heart of Canada’s international agenda. Canadian agriculture is vital to Canada’s economic growth and global influence; however, it remains underleveraged in Canadian international diplomacy and trade policy.
The World Trade Organization’s, or WTO’s, recent ministerial conference showed that the negotiation and dispute-settlement functions of the organization are largely inoperative. The WTO remains essential to manage the nuts and bolts of global trade, but it is hard to see it breaking its current logjam without building on regional trade agreements such as the CPTPP.
The Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance welcomes efforts to leverage the CPTPP, which is truly the gold standard for trade agreements because it goes far beyond traditional tariff reduction, establishing high-standard, comprehensive rules for 21st-century commerce.
We’re broadly supportive of the incipient dialogue between the CPTPP and the EU given the importance of both trading blocks. We lack details at this stage but believe Canada could use this dialogue to address long-standing concerns in the context of greater potential cooperation.
Bringing my remarks back to U.K. accession, CAFTA expressed concern that the government agreed to U.K. accession to the CPTPP without addressing non-tariff barriers that limit Canada’s market access from important Canadian agri-food exports to the U.K., such as beef and pork. I know the Canadian Pork Council will be addressing you in a few minutes, and the Canadian Cattle Association is making a written submission so you can address specific questions on those barriers to them. The broad point I wish to make is the government needs to ensure, in this period of working more closely with other middle powers, that the legitimate interests of agri-food exporters are taken into consideration.
The U.K. has not recognized the science-based decision-making processes of Canadian regulators, and this is the case with the EU. We need to find ways to solve these issues if we are to align with these countries in the international trade arena.
[Translation]
I look forward to your questions.
The Chair: Thank you. I would like to remind members that they have a maximum of three minutes each for the first round, including questions and answers.
I therefore ask senators and witnesses to be concise. We can always have a second round if time permits.
Senator Gerba: Thank you for your comments. My question is for Mr. Buckle. According to Global Affairs Canada, trade is relatively low for small- and medium-sized enterprises, while large companies, including those with more than 500 employees, account for about 57% of the value of Canadian exports.
In this context, to what extent could Canadian small- and medium-sized businesses benefit from the United Kingdom’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP, and what concrete measures would increase their ability to benefit more from this agreement?
[English]
Mr. Buckle: The biggest part of the trade between our two countries is already covered by the Canada-United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement, and this certainly helps. A lot of times, when companies are looking to do international trade, you have to find the right treaty under which to do that trade, and I think that’s one of the reasons why small companies find it so hard. Even with these agreements in place, it’s still relatively difficult to do, and that is why we exist as a chamber.
We mostly work for small businesses. We get a lot of support from big companies, like Diageo, but it’s really the small companies we work with where they can talk to us and, hopefully, get a speedier connection to people who can help. We have a sister organization in the U.K., called the Canada-United Kingdom Chamber of Commerce, based out of the high commission in London, and they do similar work to make sure small- and medium-sized enterprises get the help they need.
Oftentimes, it’s not as hard as people think it might be, but it looks daunting when, for example, when you’re looking at Canada and you see there are different GST, HST and QST environments, as you go from province to province and that you have to go through different liquor boards going from province to province. Going to the U.K., one of my brothers was born in Wales, and there are issues around the Welsh language, which, sometimes, can seem intimidating to a Canadian company.
Senator Gerba: Is there a specific recommendation for this agreement or for SMEs?
Mr. Buckle: I think this agreement helps shine a spotlight on the fact that this is available for small companies. Sometimes, we think it’s only big companies that are involved in international trade, and I’m not casting any shade on any politicians, but they’re always there for the opening of a big factory. They rarely turn up for the opening of a one-person or a two-person store, and that’s where the chambers come in and help. We guide people through the different agreements, so they get the benefit from the right one, either a lower tariff or a reduced tariff, depending on what they’re trying to sell.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you for being here. We’re working through this legislation, and I’m seeing if there are any unintended consequences. Welcome back Mr. Dade. I want to ask you a question if you don’t mind.
In the op-ed you shared with the committee, I was intrigued by the often-overlooked fact that keeping the supply chain in house, within a free trade agreement, is beneficial, not simply bilateral free trade buying and selling, but also the comparative advantage that allows for input from other countries as we get a finished product. Is this something that Canada has been taking advantage of, so far, within the CPTPP in our trading with other member countries?
Mr. Dade: Thank you, senator, for the question. This also gets to the previous question as well.
The short answer is no. Our trade regime in terms of export support services, outreach to small- and medium-sized enterprises, or SMEs, and the trade commissioners at the provincial and federal levels has all been built for bilateral trade. We’re built to help Canadians go to a market to sell to that market. They have not been built to help Canadian firms find partners to sell to other markets. It’s bilateral, not multilateral.
Canada West Foundation put out a publication with fictional case studies on how businesses could take advantage of these trilateral and multilateral opportunities. A First Nations fishing company in British Columbia that wants to sell product to Japan but can’t meet demand because of seasonal differences and supply could partner with a Māori company in New Zealand to take advantage of the First Nations brand and the movement of people and provisions, as well as common rules of origin, et cetera. We have these possibilities, but our entire trade infrastructure, including KPIs and the way we’ve trained people, has been built for bilateral agreements.
If you’re an SMEs in Canada who speaks English, and you want to go to Southeast Asia, a partner in a large British company that has a presence there, the U.K.’s His Majesty’s Trade Commissioners service, which is larger than Canada’s in the region, would be a great ally. But no, we haven’t built the infrastructure, and we’re still wedded to the past in our relationship with the U.S. and in thinking about the new world of trade that lies ahead.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you very much. The other part I want to check in on is the U.K., which, of course, has not been a Pacific country for very long. I wonder if adding another Atlantic country to the CPTPP adds something new to the mix in terms of the supply chain advantages that I just referenced that could benefit Canada?
Mr. Dade: It certainly can. Britain has a long history in the region, commercially certainly. Whether that’s for better or worse is debatable, depending upon whom you’re speaking with in the region, but it certainly has a presence that’s actually greater than ours in terms of commerce.
We’re going to see other members come in. Costa Rica is up next, I believe, so we’ll continue to see opportunities that mesh with existing agreements that Canada has, but having another English-language country of that size and of that many enterprises. The Manitoba example with New Flyer is just one example of how, if we shift our thinking and our frameworks in Canada, we can start taking advantage.
Senator Coyle: Thank you to our witnesses. Mr. Dade, I’d like to follow up with you. I’m getting the image that you want us to pick up on: the old model versus the force multiplier model that this is enabling. It’s a whole different ball game.
You said that Asia is watching Canada and how we handle this particular arrangement. Is there something concerning you that we will not move forward expeditiously in a way that demonstrates to our Asian partners that they have something to be concerned about? I’m just curious what’s on your mind there.
Mr. Dade: Yes, but it’s important to quantify how worried I am. Worried could be enormously worried, or it could be small. It’s down to this end of the spectrum.
Senator Coyle: What is it?
Mr. Dade: It’s that we don’t proceed with alacrity or we allow smaller sectoral issues to emerge, and we haven’t grasped the full weight and importance of an agreement that is this big and that grows geometrically every time we add to it. We need to signal that we understand this.
Second, we’re still digging out of the Da Nang hole, as I mentioned, and any delays or the appearance that these types of agreements could once again be impeded send the wrong signal to Asian markets and countries that are wondering if we will take leadership.
We claimed we want to take leadership on the Abe Doctrine, the third path. This is an early indication of how committed we are to that. Is it 110%? Is it 100%? Is it 95%? Are we really all in on this new path forward?
We’re already out there. We’ve already exposed ourselves and said we are, so we really have to start making some of the hard decisions and show we’re able to do it in the face of domestic opposition.
Senator Coyle: Did you want to speak a little bit more about that opposition?
Mr. Dade: I would like to be able to get off the plane in Calgary and go home.
Senator Coyle: We’ll hear about it from somebody else is what you’re saying?
Mr. Dade: Yes, ma’am. I like being invited to Calgary Stampede barbecues and not having to pay for my meal.
[Translation]
Senator Hébert: I will continue on the topic of the potential for these kinds of opportunities for SMEs.
I think Canada’s export goals outside the United States are very ambitious. If we want to move the needle, we obviously have to focus heavily on high-potential players. I think that’s a fact.
That said, I’d like to hear your thoughts on something, Mr. Buckle. I want to follow up on what Mr. Dade said earlier, when he talked about partnering SMEs with major players in the regions. There is another strategy that has been adopted in Quebec — I know this from my past experience — which is to say that there are often companies from the United Kingdom, for example, that are established in Canada. Rather, the idea is to partner Canadian SMEs with these companies that are already established here to introduce them into the supply chain of these companies in the country and help them grow from there. It’s ambitious to say that an SME will start exporting its products tomorrow morning to Europe or elsewhere in the world; it’s often very difficult.
Is that a strategy you’ve adopted at the chamber of commerce in line with this vision?
[English]
Mr. Buckle: We don’t necessarily partner smaller companies with bigger companies quite as directly as that. We work very closely with local chambers of commerce in the U.K. If I know a Canadian business wants to go to Manchester or Birmingham or Scotland, as I mentioned, we work very closely with those chambers to make sure there is a handover, so when somebody is looking to do business in that area, they meet a friendly person who understands the local market and can do the introductions for them.
It’s a great idea to have the big companies do it, and obviously Quebec is one of the biggest investors in the U.K. through Investissement Québec and organizations like that. It might be a good idea for organizations like Investissement Québec and the Québec Pension Plan to make it a point in their policy to introduce Canadian businesses.
Senator Hébert: Thank you. Mr. Harvey, you said there are still non-tariff barriers in place, and it’s true. It’s the question of the chicken or the egg.
[Translation]
That’s a pun, of course.
[English]
So what do we do?
[Translation]
Some stakeholders who testified in the other place expressed concern that Canada might grant market access without obtaining concessions, given the non-tariff barriers that persist in the agri-food sector. What is your vision on that, Mr. Harvey and Mr. Dade?
Mr. Harvey: It’s more like the pig and the cow, and the Canadian Pork Council will talk about that later.
We see this accession of the U.K. to the CPTPP as an opportunity to continue to talk about the issues that have not been resolved.
The Chair: Thank you.
[English]
Senator Woo: To pick up on Carlo Dade’s point about the geometric benefits of CPTPP. Many of the original members of TPP wanted the TPP because they were deeply involved in production. There was a flow of intermediate imports and exports that went into final products that went to third markets. What you’re talking about applied very much to those original countries.
My sense of Canada’s involvement in CPTPP is that we’re more point-to-point, more final product sales, agricultural sales and wheat and so on. We don’t really participate so much in supply chains and production networks of the sort that Southeast Asia does.
Does Britain’s entry change that? This is a bit technical, but do we have a trading relationship with Britain that involves types of intermediate exports that allow them to be further transformed to access new markets in Asia that we would not otherwise have been able to access? Either Mr. Buckle or Mr. Dade.
Mr. Buckle: Certainly, there is a deep connection between organizations like Rolls-Royce and the aerospace industry, both in Quebec and Ontario. Anything that makes it easier for the integration of different products into a final product to be sold onto someone else definitely makes that easier. Yes, many organizations are doing that that are perhaps that are not as well known. Those are household names, but other companies are doing very similar things that we don’t see. This is a great opportunity for removing some of those barriers that come from country-of-origin restrictions.
Mr. Dade: You know our trade with the U.K. is gold, and that swamps everything else, more to a greater degree than oil does with Canada. However, that’s less important here because of the force multiplier effect. Even if it’s only a few companies, like New Flyer, that have plants in Scotland, or Rolls-Royce, you still have that smaller benefit spread across so many potential markets. Even though it’s mostly gold, when you do find an opportunity, it’s not the one-off bilateral; it’s the potential to leverage it in every place that a country has a supply chain, a value chain and a production chain in Asia.
The British foreign service and commercial services are another benefit. If we’re able to come up with agreements where we piggyback off of services, just as we share high commissions at embassies in some countries with the Brits, if we could move to incorporate our trade services into a win-win, that would be another force multiplier. Look at the end, not the numerator.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Al Zaibak: Mr. Dade, from a broader economic standpoint, which Canadian centres are best positioned, in your view, to benefit from this extension? Can you name sectors that may suffer the consequences and face competitive pressure?
Mr. Dade: I did the initial research on New Flyer when I was at Canada West and had the ability to look at Western companies. I can speak from a Western perspective. There are certain companies and sectors that would benefit. Agri-tech would be one. I don’t know the service sector, but I would suspect, given the nature of trade and the importance of trade in services and moving people, that we would find opportunities there. But this is the type of research that we would need to know. We know the potential is there with the presence of U.K. companies, but then figuring out the supply chain, which Canadian companies could tap into supply chains. Sorry, there’s only one of me, and only so many days in the week, that sort of information, even with AI, would take a bit of work to produce. But we know through the anecdotes and the test examples that the potential is clearly there.
Senator Al Zaibak: I have another question. Referring back to moving from a bilateral way of thinking mentality to a multilateral approach is easier said than done. So I’m wondering what kinds of changes in our international trade and foreign affairs service infrastructure are required?
Mr. Dade: I’ve had these conversations with foreign affairs and with officials at all levels. I’ve also had them with the Aussies, with the Kiwis, and recently with the U.K., too. There is an understanding of this, but you’re right to point out how difficult this will be. This is generations of training. This is a massive investment, not just in the federal and provincial systems, but Calgary Economic Development and their trade accelerator program. This goes down to the municipal level.
You’re talking about a massive investment in change. I think it can be done, though, because it’s an additional element. It’s not a complete creation of a new trade commissioner’s service. It’s simply building capacity into the existing service, but that’s political. You need political will, and you need clear orders and a runway that will go from one government to the next to the next. This sort of change is a huge investment, and I think the rightful reaction to the bureaucracy would be, “Are we just going to be undoing this in four or five years?” So this is part of our shift to the changing trade environment and how serious we are as a trading nation.
Senator Al Zaibak: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, very much.
Senator Adler: Mr. Dade, the question is general, but feel no need to avoid the specifics. When you talk about serious and unserious and the De Nang hole about a decade and all of that. Does that relate to the elephant in the room all of us talk about every day, whether in this chamber or not, that is the relationship with the United States? Is that why you feel we have been somewhat unserious because we’ve got this material and psychological dependency over the years with our friends to the south?
Mr. Dade: That’s certainly a large part of the equation. The luxury of complacency, having access to the fattest, richest, easiest market on the planet at low to no cost has been a benefit. Why should you work five days a week to take three times more risk to go to Honduras if you’re making money in Houston? Every market is a market that’s more complicated, more distant and more difficult. It’s not a ding on Canadians to say that we followed basic human nature and business logic, but that has certainly changed.
We know going forward that access to the U.S. will neither be easy nor cheap. Our analysis is we’re facing a baseline tariff going forward and higher costs just to hold on to the market share we have in the U.S. Every dollar we spend on diversification, we have to spend a dollar to hold on to what we have in the U.S.
I think this is a test. Hard times require hard people, but we’ve had good times, and we’ve had the types of folks that come out of good times in terms of leadership and making difficult decisions.
Senator Adler: A quick follow-up, do you feel this trend is irreversible?
Mr. Dade: Irreversible is a very particular word. I don’t know that I would go that far. We’ve certainly come very close to irreversible, but I don’t know something so unequivocal as irreversible — but, yes, the sentiment you express when you present a perception or a feeling that this may be irreversible, I would say, is close to the target. But as soon as I say “irreversible,” Donald Trump is going to do something tomorrow that’s going to make me look silly. That’s the other reason I don’t want to say, “irreversible.”
Senator Adler: Thank you.
Senator Wilson: My question is for Mr. Dade. It’s very good to see you again. Both of us in new and different roles from our previous movies.
As you know from my past, I’m very concerned about Canada’s reputation with respect to reliability and trade, and your remarks in that regard in terms of us being a laggard in ratifying the accession of the U.K. to the CPTPP deal is an example of that.
In the other place at the House of Commons, in their parallel standing committee, they only made one amendment to the bill, and that was to do a review after three years. A parliamentary committee would do a review and report out. What kind of signal does that send? Is that common for countries to take that kind of approach? I mean, I’m quite confident that Global Affairs Canada officials are going to be all over this stuff regularly paying attention to what is working and not working and reporting up. What sort of a signal does that send?
Mr. Dade: That sort of review is common in the Robert Lighthizer school of trade diplomacy, and it’s where we are now with the CUSMA review. It doesn’t send a signal of confidence. It’s not what the region wants to see, and it doesn’t set a precedent for us, as we seek to take leadership in the third pathway. If we’re going to be implementing reviews, it sends a signal to the other middle powers with whom we’re trying to lead that this will be part of our leadership. This has a sort of a Canadian endorsement. Again, it is an idea I would associate with Robert Lighthizer, not the proud tradition of Canadian trade diplomacy.
The Chair: Thank you. We’re coming to the end of round one, and that’s usually when I ask a question, and I will. I stumbled a bit on the word “irreversible” and how it was used in the discussion between Mr. Dade and Senator Adler.
There are two big actors who, of course, are watching the CPTPP very closely. One is China, which wishes to accede, and the other is the U.S., and we don’t know — as you have suggested, Mr. Dade — what the U.S. might want to do. I’d like to ask you whether you have any prognosis as to what this might look like five years down the road, for example.
Mr. Dade: Certainly. China’s accession was the subject of a recent visit of mine to China, where I asked the government to arrange meetings specifically with actors that were working to test the CPTPP accession protocols and whether or not China could meet them. China can, but they don’t want to join the CPTPP. They want to demonstrate to their partners in Asia that they meet the standards. I have around a 50% level of confidence, based on the limited data that I have, but it strikes me that China wants to demonstrate it can join. It is setting up agreements with Singapore on block chain for supply chain work. It is demonstrating that it can be a partner in using the CPTPP accession to prove it can. Whether or not they join, they’ve made the case to nations and markets in Asia that they could meet the standards. That’s a win for them.
The Americans, I don’t see them coming back, even under a shift in administration. The horseshoe theory of the States, there are differences between right and left, but our work at the New North America Initiative is focusing on the bottom of the horseshoe. Bernie Sanders, Oren Cass, new right, new left; they’re not far apart on tariffs. So I think the Americans coming back is something that won’t happen.
We have to pursue Canadian interests here. Our interest is in having this agreement. It’s a sunk cost with the Americans. The fact that we’re there is not an issue with them any longer. It may come up, but with Donald Trump anything may come up at any time; that’s not a reason not to act.
That’s clearly a test of our advancing Canadian interests. And yet, I don’t think the Americans are coming back even if we have a change in government, because God help us with the new left, as much trouble as we’ve had with the new right in the U.S.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: I wanted to hear from our three witnesses on the real benefit for small- and medium-sized businesses. I want to come back to small- and medium-sized businesses because we want to diversify our markets. Given that our small and medium‑sized businesses are the ones that export the most to the United States and that they need to benefit from this agreement, in the case of the CPTPP, would there be any direct concrete benefits to exporting to Asian markets, for example? I’ll start with you, Mr. Dade.
Mr. Dade: Okay.
[English]
There aren’t many advantages for SMEs, so we need to start speaking truth about this. These agreements are designed for larger exporters that are already in the markets, the commodity industries and others. It’s very difficult for smaller exporters to get to markets other than the United States. We spend an inordinate amount of money taking firms that aren’t ready to export, sending them to boot camp with the trade accelerator program, to try to get them to the point where they can go off and try to survive in the market themselves.
We have to build supply chains to take small firms abroad, and that is the approach that Asians use: the Japanese and the chaebols in Korea. The Americans are heading toward industrial policy. Unless we build our own supply chains to take firms abroad, the old path where they went as part of an American supply chain, that’s not working too well for us right now.
We first have to speak truth about SMEs. There are no bullets. Trade is difficult for larger firms, and we spend way too much money trying to get smaller firms to take risks that they really shouldn’t by going to foreign markets.
I know I’ll have the beef producers waiting with a rope over one tree and the SME training folks with a rope over another tree for me when I get back to Alberta, but we need to have these frank conversations about trade going forward, especially as it gets more difficult and we face $2.5 billion in cuts at Global Affairs Canada. Our ability to help firms will become more constrained.
In Alberta, we’re really looking at what Quebec is doing as a province in terms of your engagement abroad. Your matching firms are something that we need to move to adapt as well. We should, but you also have the only domestic Trade Commissioner Service, so you’re the only province that is able to take advantage of liberalized internal trade. You have foreign trade reps or outside Quebec trade reps in Calgary in Toronto.
The Chair: Thank you very much. That is the perfect segue to Senator Hébert, who has done all of that.
Senator Hébert: I was a delegate general in New York for three years for Quebec and before that in Chicago. You’re right, Mr. Dade, that I’m happy to hear you say that, because it’s true that when we look at the resources that we have in our trade missions around the world and the ambitious goals that we have, we have to be careful. One way is to integrate, as I said in my first question, SMEs into the supply chain of foreign businesses that are here in Canada and giving them an opportunity.
I want to go back on the question of the amendment that was brought about by the revision. Are you aware that other countries’ part of the agreement has such a requirement, or are we the only one? Also, do we have something in the CPTPP about the revision or something like that?
Mr. Dade: I don’t know. I’ve been so involved in the U.S. and setting up the initiative for the past few years that my mind has been out of the TPP. I’m drawing on research I did years ago, so I’m going to have to beg off on that question. But I think it would be highly unlikely. I can’t see Chile doing that. I’m going through the countries. I don’t think Mexico would do that. Vietnam, I don’t know. Mr. Harvey, you’re in the trade field, too. Can you think of any other country that would do this?
Mr. Harvey: I didn’t understand the question. I’m sorry.
Senator Hébert: Is Canada the only country asking for a review mechanism within three years, as it is with the amendment that is proposed, or are we the only country part of the CPTPP asking for that?
Mr. Harvey: I don’t know that. I didn’t understand the amendment.
Senator Hébert: You said, Mr. Dade, in terms of perception, you don’t think it’s going to hurt Canada’s image and reputation.
Mr. Dade: I don’t think it will help. I don’t know how widely this will be known. How quickly we move on this, whether or not we raise objections or drag our feet, will get out. But the particulars of the review, I don’t know if that’s going to factor beyond the desk officer in the ministry responsible for this. If it does, we have problems.
Senator Hébert: Thank you.
Senator Al Zaibak: Outside this accession, I know the CPTPP is designed for trans-Pacific countries and targeting 500 million consumers. What about other economic blocs that have not been tapped into, having the same kind of size, let’s say? I’m specifically talking about the Arab ones, an economic bloc of almost more than 500 million people, consumers and partners. Does the current agreement framework cover the possibility of having such a bloc join, or would it require another way of thinking? The question is to Mr. Dade and all of our participants.
Mr. Dade: [Another language spoken].
Extending this to the Arab world would be a bridge too far. It was designed as a build out of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC.
In terms of supply chains, it must have the integrated — it’s best there. Again, I think Costa Rica is coming in next, and we will continue to build out among those countries.
Our priority should be getting Korea in; lean on the Koreans to get them as part of this trade bloc. There are other countries that are important to Canada that we should be pushing for. Costa Rica is easy. No one dislikes Costa Rica, so let’s take the easy, low-hanging fruit and then move on, but, again, geometric expansion.
Senator Al Zaibak: So for an economic bloc like the Arab world, for example, that would require a different kind of arrangement, or you don’t see the possibility of replicating and — let me say — customizing the framework of CPTPP to that bloc? Do you have any thoughts on that?
Mr. Dade: It would have to come from the Arab world. It would have to come from Europe, potentially, but that doesn’t come from Canada. We’re just not that deeply integrated into the region. Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates would be leadership. If that happens, then we could join, but they have to do the groundwork.
Our next priority should really be — and the folks at Global Affairs Canada will crawl under desks — the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, or RCEP, the block that includes China and Asia. Australia and New Zealand are members, so why not make that a priority? You’ll get an earful from Foreign Affairs about why that’s a stupid idea, but I’ll let them take the other side of the argument.
The Chair: Thank you. They’ll be here tomorrow.
Senator Coyle: I have two quick questions, one for Mr. Buckle. Tell me more about Nova Scotia. I’m from Nova Scotia, so I want to know the possible benefits of this for Nova Scotia. Mr. Dade, can you give examples of other countries who have better architecture that we could learn from as we try to upgrade our own?
Mr. Buckle: I have a close connection in that I worked with the former mayor, Mike Savage, to twin Portsmouth in the south coast of England with Halifax a few years ago. We started that just before COVID hit, so it was the first twinning done virtually, and subsequently, a lot of work has been done between those two.
There is a huge interest in Canada. I don’t think there’s any country that has a better reputation than Canada in the U.K. for numerous reasons that would take an entire session to go through. In Scotland, the chamber is obviously very keen on Nova Scotia.
Anything like this that brings attention to those opportunities and the fact that we still have those links, there are great opportunities through the space port in the U.K., and Canada can work together on aeronautics. There are a lot of opportunities there and in shipbuilding.
Mr. Dade: I don’t think there’s any country that has this figured out yet. I could be wrong about that. I wrote papers on this, but that was about a decade ago. I wrote a paper on reforming Canadian trade architecture. I just shared it with Minister Anand, who was in Calgary. I gave her a copy. She asked, so there may be hope. But this could be a joint project with Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the U.K. — like‑minded countries that are trying to build this third way for trade. This would be a starting point. It’s something that Canada could do; it’s within our grasp. I don’t think anyone has it, but this is an area where we could lead.
Regarding Nova Scotia, I was married on Cape North, so there you go.
The Chair: On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank Carlo Dade, Michael Harvey and Martin Buckle for joining us today for this study of Bill C-13. We’ve taken your comments on board. It’s very helpful for us as we continue the study, so please accept our gratitude for your presence here today.
Colleagues, for our second panel, we’re pleased to welcome from the Canadian Meat Council, Jorge Correa, Vice-President, Market Access and Technical Affairs; from the Canadian Alliance of British Pensioners, Edwina Melville-Gray, Chair, Board of Directors; and from the Canadian Pork Council, Stephen Heckbert, Chief Executive Officer, and René Roy, Chair.
Thank you all for being with us today. We’re ready to hear your opening remarks, which will be followed by questions from senators.
I would ask you to be very precise in your opening remarks, because you are a panel of four, and I just want to see how we can maximize our time for both questions and answers.
So we’ll work through your presentations. Mr. Correa, you will have the floor to be followed by Ms. Melville-Gray and Mr. Roy.
Jorge Correa, Vice-President, Market Access and Technical Affairs, Canadian Meat Council: Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the opportunity to appear today.
As Mr. Chair said, my name is Jorge Correa. I am Vice‑President of Market Access and Technical Affairs at the Canadian Meat Council, or CMC. We are the voice of Canada’s federally licensed meat industry.
The CMC is the largest component of the food-processing sector, with over $32 billion in annual sales and nearly 300,000 jobs across the country. Our members process more than 90% of Canada’s meat, supplying Canadian families and over 90 export markets with safe, high-quality protein.
Our sector depends on trade for carcass utilization and value, with over half of Canadian meat production destined for export to markets such as the United States, Japan, Mexico, China and South Korea.
From the Canadian Meat Council’s perspective, U.K. accession is a disappointment and a loss of negotiating leverage for Canada, but it will not significantly change the day-to-day reality for our beef and pork exporters. The U.K. continues to apply many of the same non-tariff barriers and sanitary and phytosanitary, or SPS, measures as the European Union, so our core market access challenges remain largely unchanged.
For beef, there is a clear interest in high-quality Canadian products, but the U.K. market requires a consistent supply of hormone-free cattle, which remains the key constraint limiting opportunities for the companies otherwise ready and capable of supplying the market. Until we address that structural supply issue, the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, the U.K. free trade agreement, or CPTPP accession alone will not unlock the full potential of the U.K. or EU as premium markets for Canadian beef.
For pork, the priority is the removal of burdensome testing requirements, notably for Trichinella, which acts as red tape and limits trade flows despite strong demand for fresh Canadian pork. Securing science-based recognition of Canada’s controlled housing and on-farm food safety programs, and eliminating unnecessary, costly testing, could deliver a tangible improvement in pork exports to both the U.K. and the EU in the near term.
In large Canadian pork and beef plants, using organic acids as antimicrobial treatments have helped significantly lower microbial loads, extended shelf life and reduced food waste. However, securing approval for this practice in the U.K. and EU involves a lengthy and complex scientific review process.
Our message today is that Canadian red meat remains committed to the U.K. market, where genuine opportunities exist, but the focus now must be on practical and technical fixes rather than the symbolism of another agreement. We encourage the government to use every available mechanism — CETA, CPTPP, the Canada-UK Trade Continuity Agreement and our SPS dialogues — to resolve SPS and regulatory barriers, rather than stepping away from existing agreements and further weakening Canada’s leverage.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Ms. Melville-Gray, please.
Edwina Melville-Gray, Chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Alliance of British Pensioners: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and honourable senators. We appreciate this opportunity to speak with you today.
How would you feel if your income had not increased for 25 years, while the cost of living rose by 65%?
That is the living reality for Anne Puckridge, who is 101 years old. She served in the Second World War. She worked and paid into her U.K. state pension. She retired and moved to Canada to be near family. She has not received a single penny of a cost‑of‑living increase on her U.K. state pension since 2001 when she came here.
Twenty-five years. No increase. Anne Puckridge is the face of a systemic injustice affecting over 100,000 British pensioners across Canada.
This is not an isolated hardship. It is a deliberate U.K. policy that steadily impoverishes people simply because they chose to live here. We have been abandoned by the United Kingdom, and we need Canada’s help.
Today, we are asking you, the Senate, to act. Do not support the U.K.’s accession to CPTPP and Bill C-13 until the U.K. ends the discriminatory practice of freezing the cost-of-living increases for those U.K. state pensioners living in Canada. Let me explain why.
The economic impact on Canada is significant. Over the past 25 years, the United States, with a similar number of U.K. pensioners, has received C$13.6 billion more in pension income than Canada, solely because it benefits from full uprating.
In addition to the economic loss, Canada spends an additional $200 million a year on Guaranteed Income Supplement, or GIS, payments, as well as other supplemental supports to U.K. pensioners.
This is not just inequity. It is a failure of reciprocity, it is a failure of diplomacy, and it is a failure among so-called good friends and allies.
And it is inconsistent. The U.K. provides an uprating for over 600,000 overseas pensioners, including those in the EU and the U.S., while denying the same treatment to the 375,000 pensioners who live in each and every one of the CPTPP countries.
The U.K. is the only OECD country that chooses to discriminate in favour of some pensioners but not others.
The question is not whether the U.K. can act but why Canada accepts that the U.K. will not.
We were the original sponsors of the U.K. to join CPTPP and open this trading bloc worth billions to them. Why did we not ask the U.K. to resolve this issue then?
Now, Canada is one of the final countries to ratify the U.K.’s accession. That gives the Senate a moment of leverage.
We are told that pensions do not belong in trade agreements. But Brexit proves otherwise. The 2021 EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which includes a protocol on social security coordination, has 27 new agreements signed to protect pension uprating as part of the post-Brexit trade deals.
But Canada continues to be ignored by the United Kingdom. Minister Sidhu has stated that Canada already has 99%‑tariff‑free trade with the U.K. If so, there is no urgency to approve Bill C-13 without conditions.
We are not asking for retroactive compensation, only a practical solution to ensure annual uprating going forward. We do not want to rely on the goodwill and money from Canadian taxpayers. We have made Canada our home.
We contributed to the U.K. pension scheme. We played by the rules. We are asking only for equal treatment by the U.K. government. We have had 70 years of a bad U.K. policy, 70 years of discrimination and 70 years of indignity. The EU and the U.S. would not accept this treatment, and neither should Canada.
I go back to Anne Puckridge. At 101, she does not have the luxury of waiting — waiting for another negotiation, waiting for another agreement or waiting for another decade of unanswered letters. Neither do the more than 100,000 people standing behind her.
Let’s bring back fairness; let’s bring back reciprocity and let everyone have their dignity back.
The Senate is the government group we rely on to do the right thing for Canadians, especially for minority groups like ours.
Therefore, we ask you, respectfully but urgently: Do not approve Bill C-13 until the U.K. commits to ending this discrimination and treating U.K. pensioners in Canada equally.
Seventy years of waiting is long enough.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
[Translation]
René Roy, Chair, Canadian Pork Council: Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is René Roy, and I am the chair of the Canadian Pork Council. Joining me is our CEO, Stephen Heckbert.
The Canadian Pork Council is the voice for Canada’s almost 8,000 pork farmers. Our industry is responsible for almost $5 billion in annual exports to more than 75 markets around the world.
Indeed, pork exports represent almost 1% of Canada’s total exports. In short, we’re free traders, and free trade is good for our business.
[English]
So why are we here? We continue to have concerns about the U.K.’s accession to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but we recognize we live in a different world today than we did in 2023. We are here today to remind senators that producers of Canada’s agricultural products need our government to defend rules-based trade, including efforts to eliminate non-tariff trade barriers.
The Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the European Union, for example, continues to prevent our pork products from accessing the European market, although European countries can export meat freely into Canada. The EU will say their animal welfare provisions are better or that their rules around certain processes improve food safety, but in short, they are better at non-tariff trade barriers than Canada.
When we grant access to our market and get no access in return, it is unfair to our producers, to their families and to communities across rural Canada.
What would we like to see? We’d like to see a world where Canada hopes for the best but plans for the worst, where there are consequences built into these agreements so that trading partners who don’t live up to their commitments have some consequences.
We appreciate international agreements are difficult to negotiate and that industries may not be winners under any individual deal, but, for example, the U.K. media has played fast and loose with coverage of our animal welfare standards, and we expect our federal government to push back, since these standards are Canada’s standards.
Being a farmer is hard work. Being a farm family who can’t ship their products to a market that can ship to yours makes free trade feel like a punishment, not an advantage.
Now, our dealings with the minister’s office have been good. We have appreciated their communication, but — and here’s the core of our point — non-tariff trade barriers are not supposed to be intentional. Yet, no one is surprised that the U.K. has established non-tariff trade barriers, even after they left the EU. Why is that?
What are we asking the federal government for? Simply put, we’d like our trading partners to know we will defend Canadian industries against arbitrary non-tariff barriers that limit access with actual consequences within these trade agreements. We would also like to have International trade and investment or Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada keep a running tally of countries who have trade agreements with us but, surprisingly, buy few Canadian agricultural products.
Canada’s farmers are, for the most part, free traders. But we need trade deals to be fair and equitable. Otherwise, we’re being punished for wanting to sell our products around the world.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you. We will move to questions and answers.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you to all of you and your teams for being here today. I appreciate it. I’m going to ask Ms. Melville-Gray the first question, if you don’t mind, for our British pensioners.
I’m wondering if Australia tried to leverage its own CPTPP U.K. ratification process to get a reciprocal agreement to benefit U.K. pensioners who reside there.
Ms. Melville-Gray: My understanding is that our sister organization British Pensions in Australia put in a request for them to do that, but their Senate equivalent did not proceed with that.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you. If we look now at the Canadian situation where Canadian taxpayers would pick up the support for the U.K. pensioners who qualify for social assistance in Canada, I understand that if their pensions got indexed — I’m trying to understand this — one problem might cause another, and many might not qualify for income supplement programs. Is that true? Can you elaborate on that for me?
Ms. Melville-Gray: Let’s go back to Anne Puckridge. She receives £76, which is $120 or $140 a week. She would be getting £176 a week had she been indexed over the five years. That’s what her current pay would be. She has lost $100,000, probably, over the 25 years that she’s been here, which makes a big difference to a pensioner.
Senator M. Deacon: That I understand. Does that mean, if we were to do this, that they would no longer have the opportunity to have an income supplement and that they become disqualified?
Ms. Melville-Gray: They might do but would get more income from the U.K. and thereby get less from Canada. It’s hard to be specific because Canada doesn’t track the pensioners’ income that way, so we can’t have a very precise number, unfortunately.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you very much. I’m trying to come back to the sanitizing issue around our sanitary-wash practices. Does the investor-state dispute mechanism or anything in the CPTPP offer any avenue to try to address this once we have ratified? Is there anything that we can do?
Mr. Correa: The short answer is no. Under CPTPP, it is not covered. This has to be in technical discussions between the competent authority and competent authority. We don’t have data at this moment. I would like to call it antimicrobial interventions, which extend shelf life. I know all the plants, especially large plants, use this type of intervention on the pork and on the beef side, but we still have the opportunity to export under SMEs.
Senator MacDonald: I’ll address my first question to Ms. Melville-Gray. I’ve heard a lot over the last six or seven years about the pension issue. I’m very empathetic. I would like some background on it, though. I’ve never understood: Why was it not an issue in the EU and the U.S., and how did it become an issue in Canada? Why did it diverge that way?
Ms. Melville-Gray: Well, thank you. The issue started back in the 1970s when the U.K. was offering reciprocal social security agreements with countries. They came to Canada and the U.S. pretty much at the same time in the late 1960s. Canada was doing CPP legislation at the time and trying to work out our own legislative needs. We went back and said, “We’re ready. We would like to do our reciprocal agreement,” and they said, “Oh, we’re not doing those anymore. Changing government. That’s not happening.”
Since that point, we’ve never been able to go back. Even though the Canadian government made the request and attempted to get this to the table, they have never agreed. The U.S. secured an agreement. Because the U.K. was part of the EU, that broad agreement meant that the whole of the EU had to be pension uprated, and when they left, they were concerned that all the Brits would show back up in the U.K. and take over health needs and other support, so they quickly agreed to continue to uprate across Europe.
Senator MacDonald: I find it almost hard to believe Brits in Canada would be treated —
Ms. Melville-Gray: Differently.
Senator MacDonald: — more poorly than Brits in New York in the U.S.
Ms. Melville-Gray: The sad part is 50 out of 56 Commonwealth countries are frozen. There are only six Commonwealth countries, including the U.K., which get full uprating. It is very strange because Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the list goes on — there are very few countries. Barbados and Jamaica are two of the countries in the Commonwealth which are uprated, but there are very few.
Senator MacDonald: I find the presentation made by Mr. Roy from the Canadian Pork Council intriguing because I’m a big supporter of the CPTPP. I was in Australia in 2020 when there was a big meeting on it. I was flying back just when coronavirus was on the news, so I remember very well.
I have some sympathy for your argument. What would the ramifications be if we supported your position? What would the short-term and long-term ramifications be?
Mr. Roy: Let’s start with, if we support it, we open the door for more non-tariff trade barriers in the CPTPP agreement. As a country, we are benefiting as an industry from the CPTPP with other participating countries. The inclusion of the U.K. in these circumstances is risky because it opens the door for additional non-tariff trade barriers that, so far, have been isolated from this kind of problem, plague, especially that we also have in the CETA agreement.
Senator MacDonald: Isolated trade barriers are very subjective.
Mr. Roy: Isolated from non-tariff trade barriers into this agreement. That’s what I meant.
The Chair: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Mr. Roy, you said in your introduction that your producers need help from the government to eliminate non‑tariff barriers imposed by the United Kingdom.
Could you give us some examples of these non-tariff barriers? How, in the specific case of the CPTPP, could the government address this?
Mr. Roy: Recently, we have often heard in the media that the animal welfare standards in Great Britain are not equivalent to those in Canada, that they are higher than in Canada — which is false. This disinformation enables the industry to avoid receiving our product based on claims that are inaccurate but carry significant political weight; this prevents us from accessing the market.
There have been problems with trichinella, a parasite that can be found in meat. It exists in Great Britain because their animals are raised outdoors. We have protective measures against trichinella, which means that, for a number of years now, we have not had any cases of this parasite in our commercial production.
Therefore, it’s false to claim that we use the same levels of trichinella testing as they do.
Senator Gerba: Thank you. How could we ensure that these barriers are removed under this agreement?
Mr. Roy: There must be tools available to challenge harmful measures that are put in place, particularly when it comes to non‑tariff barriers.
Right now, there are no tools enabling us to say, “You’re using a non-tariff barrier that is preventing us from accessing your market.”
Our government lacks the tools to identify that there is a problem. There are discussions, but they are not binding.
Senator Hébert: Some have said that passing this bill would take away our bargaining power.
Conversely, others argue that it offers us an opportunity, a lever to be able to negotiate and eliminate certain remaining irritants.
How do you see the situation? Where do discussions stand on these irritants as we speak?
Mr. Roy: To our knowledge, no progress has been made on the issues related to non-tariff barriers in the case of pork. The discussions have not yielded any constructive results.
The concern is that this could create a Trojan horse within the agreement, given that it is widely used by the pork industry in its dealings with our Asian partners. This Trojan horse could be very dangerous and create new non-tariff barriers; it could inspire other countries to introduce similar barriers that would reduce not only our market access but also collaboration within the CPTPP.
Senator Hébert: You say that this could set a bad example and inspire other countries, but it could also be an opportunity for Canada to say that we have to resolve this issue now; don’t you think?
I don’t understand why the discussions haven’t led to a resolution; is there a reason?
Mr. Roy: I’ll start by saying that it would be nice, but nothing constructive has been done so far.
Stephen Heckbert, Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Pork Council: One of our challenges was that there was no reason for the British negotiators to enter into such discussions, given that the other countries were committing to the agreement. They could simply let time pass; there was no real need to sit down with the partners, as they could just say, “We’re talking, we’re talking, we’re talking.” That way, there was no pressure on them.
The challenge is that one of the European Union’s main successes lies in the export of non-tariff barriers. In fact, one of their biggest exports is regulation.
Our challenge as a Canadian industry is that, if this model is a result of the success Europe has had with the U.K., it is precisely why they want to join this free trade agreement. It is ironic to note that the only thing they have retained from the European Union is this excessive regulation that makes trade more difficult.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
[English]
Senator Petten: We heard recently Prime Ministers Carney and Starmer established the Canada-U.K. Economic and Trade Working Group. I believe that was established in June 2025 to deepen our existing trading relationships. The purpose was to address market access and specifically non-tariff barriers. Are you familiar with the group? Can you see it playing more of a positive role with the issues that you’re looking at?
Mr. Roy: Yes, we are familiar with the group and know that it has been raised, but beyond raising the concern, there must be some ways to solve it right now, and we are conscious that we are in a different world. We are conscious of that, and it may take time to adjust it, but ultimately there must be some enforcement measures that we must be able to put in place.
Mr. Heckbert: I would only say we look forward to an invitation from the group to have this conversation, and as soon as we’re invited to sit at the table and bring forward some of the concerns. Look, part of this is we live in a world where food affordability is becoming an ever-increasing problem around the world. So the more we limit access to Canadian pork to some of these markets, the more expensive the product is.
You may have seen news from the U.K. at this moment: it’s food affordability. One of the reasons why their food is more expensive is because they’re limiting access to foreign suppliers, who could reduce the cost of their food.
From our perspective, we look forward to having this conversation with the group. We would love for them to extend us an invitation, and we can come talk about why we think Canadian pork is a key part of improving their national and food security.
Senator Petten: Thank you.
Senator Robinson: I have one question. Why do you think the U.K. is putting up this non-tariff trade barrier? What are they benefiting from?
Mr. Roy: They would have access to more markets without having to open theirs.
Senator Robinson: So they’re protecting their production?
Mr. Roy: Yes.
Senator Robinson: But they are food insufficient and not secure.
Mr. Roy: Yes, but if they restrain the supply of their product — it’s a supply-demand situation. It will just increase the value on their own territory and increase the value that they can shift theirs.
Senator Robinson: You need a marketing campaign in the U.K.
Mr. Correa.
Mr. Correa: The U.K. is the biggest exporter of pork into the European Union. Even if they’re separated now, they depend on EU rules. So this is one of the reasons why they don’t want to change. These non-tariff trade barriers we are talking about here are something that historically has been there. We’ve been involved, for example, with a carcass intervention or antimicrobial interventions in carcasses. We were able to introduce, for example, the use of lactic acid in the past. Now we have evolved. We need the use of other antimicrobials in meat production. This is something that is impossible for them, but, at the same time, the U.K. is the second-largest importer of pork. So they have a dual — they need pork from some other places. This condition depends on exports to the EU; it doesn’t make them able to remove those rules.
Senator Robinson: My second question. Atlantic Beef Products, local to Prince Edward Island in my backyard, was recently in Mexico. Mexico is also a member of CPTPP. What opportunities are there for market growth in Mexico through CUSMA and CPTPP?
Mr. Correa: We are already part of the CUSMA/USMCA, so this is the best deal we can have over any other. CPTPP is not giving more to Atlantic Beef in North America, Mexico and the United States.
Senator Robinson: Outside of signing free trade agreements, what regulatory changes can the government implement to support meat processors in processing more for both domestic and international markets?
Mr. Roy: Several of our producers are looking for additional options at the processing level, and one reason why we are able to export to 75 countries is because we are processing a significant part of our production in Canada, which allows us to have this option to ship our product overseas. The inclusion or the addition of more processing capacity would be one of several measures that could be put in place.
Mr. Heckbert: Part of the challenge is that, unfortunately, not everyone likes the same cut of pork around the world or the same cut of beef. Part of the challenge is, for example, consumption of ribs in Europe is very low, whereas the consumption of ham is very high. That’s why you will see in Great Britain, for example, they’re both an exporter and an importer just simply because of the kinds of cuts they’re consuming.
When we look at what can we do to increase our processing capacity, we’re doing many of those things, but by focusing on our Indo-Pacific Strategy with the Government of Canada, by focusing on opening new markets in Korea — and one of the new agreements we have with Indonesia to export products into that market.
We can continually look at expanding the availability of those kinds of markets, and the number one goal there is to ensure that we don’t also export non-tariff trade barriers through the accession of the U.K. might lead — because we want to make sure that we can continue to demonstrate the high quality of Canadian products without necessarily being measured against some arbitrary standard that doesn’t necessarily improve the quality of food.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Coyle: Thank you to all of our witnesses. A couple of my questions have been asked, so I’m going to go back to Ms. Melville-Gray.
Like I’m sure all of us at the table, we are very sympathetic to the plight. The injustice must be just rankling you all the time; it makes no sense.
Now, here we are looking at this particular bill, and you’re asking us to hold it up and not pass it. That’s a tough thing for us to be asked to do, given all the interests that we have to take into account in terms of other Canadians and Canadian businesses. I think you understand that.
I’m curious — and I don’t blame you for asking for this, absolutely, that’s within your right to ask us to consider that — but I’m interested, though, in other things that you’re doing that are giving you some leverage or that have possible leverage. Are there talks with Global Affairs Canada and asking them to take this up, not necessarily as part of this discussion but just a straightforward conversation? Could you tell us more about what other sorts of things you’re doing and how we might be able to support in other ways?
Ms. Melville-Gray: Absolutely. Thank you. And we appreciate everybody’s sympathy, and we’ve had lots of sympathy. Our organization has been going since 1991, and that’s the sad part is that, no matter how we seem to bring this to the table, it’s difficult to actually get it resolved because the U.K. rejects and rebuffs whatever Canada asks. We haven’t had that leverage point, which is what we need.
We are currently building a list of senators and MPs to take a letter to Prime Minister Carney to discuss it with the Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in the hopes that we might be able to get some progress. But like everything, we need the weight of people behind us and the Government of Canada behind us because our individual requests and our protests — Anne Puckridge went over last year. We took her over for her one‑hundredth birthday to the U.K. into the Houses of Parliament, and she was not even greeted by the Prime Minister of the U.K. as a World War II veteran. And we know how few of those are left these days.
Being British, I’m embarrassed. I’m ashamed to be British. I am glad I am Canadian, and many of us are Canadian and British because we’ve come here. We have made this our home. I have been here since the 1980s, and it’s something that confounds me day to day. When I speak to these people who tell me about how little they can afford, how they’re cutting back on their medicines, how they’re having to use food banks, et cetera, they don’t want to be in this situation. They are happy and glad that the Canadian government does provide income support to them and thankful for that. Many of them, actually, in their worst moments move back to the U.K. because they immediately get full uprating.
The sad part is when I go for a trip for one week, I call the Department for Work & Pensions and they pay me for the one week I’m there my full pension, or if I go for a month, they’ll pay me. There is a whole administrative piece that goes on that if we travel to certain countries, we are allowed to get uprated. We can’t go to the U.S. and get uprated, interestingly, because they made sure they blocked the snowbirds from doing that.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We’re at the end of round one. I have a question for Mr. Correa. About 12 years ago, I was Prime Minister Harper’s personal representative for the G7, and antimicrobial resistance came up as an issue. We discussed it at some length. That’s not an area that I was very familiar with at the time, and I have forgotten a lot of what I had learned, but it was seen as an issue that countries had to be prepared for, since it was only going to get worse. I wonder if you have a comment on that.
Mr. Correa: It is unrelated to the use of antimicrobial interventions in carcasses. Of course, antimicrobial resistance in our sector has been the use of antibiotics in farm animals. However, this is a topic that my colleagues René Roy or Stephen Heckbert can talk about. We’re very prudent about the use of antibiotics in Canada. We have regulations in some provinces, but we have best practices that, in this case, are being used with our farm animals to avoid antimicrobial resistance. Is that the point you’re looking for?
The Chair: Yes, thank you, and perhaps we can get a comment from Mr. Roy and Mr. Heckbert.
Mr. Heckbert: We are specifically talking about using organic acid as part of a carcass wash, so it’s part of a natural product we’re using. The European Union or the U.K. would consider it an antimicrobial product, but it’s, in fact, an organic acid, so from our perspective, mislabelling it as an antimicrobial product is part of our challenge.
The Chair: Thank you very much. That’s helpful to me.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: My question is for Mr. Correa.
You said that, for your organization, access to the United Kingdom is a disappointment and a loss of negotiating leverage for Canada.
As you know, an amendment was proposed in the House of Commons to review the agreement every three years. Could this amendment change your point of view? If so, more broadly, are there specific indicators that should be considered when reassessing the impact of the U.K.’s accession to the CPTPP?
Mr. Correa: Adopting an amendment like this would actually be a very interesting option to see what the results of accession to such an agreement have been. I don’t think it affects us, and it gives us time to see if there’s a way to work around the existing non-tariff barriers. We are currently in talks with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. We’re trying to find ways to achieve something more tangible in terms of exports to the United Kingdom. We would support such a decision.
Senator Gerba: Are there any specific indicators that should be reviewed at the end of the three-year period?
Mr. Correa: Absolutely. If we negotiate some flexibility, the United Kingdom is capable of recognizing our on-farm food safety system and our way of producing pork here in Canada — as my colleagues have said, our way of raising animals and our animal welfare standards. Science can help us a lot, but geographical differences can provide other types of justifications. So, absolutely, that would be a good indicator. If these negotiations take place, we can continue to export to that country, including small meat processors who, at that point, would be able to take advantage of that market.
[English]
Senator MacDonald: There are so many questions that could be asked, but I’ll ask a couple here. This applies to both the pork and beef industries.
The Harper government, between 2006 and 2015, signed 51 free trade agreements, and then we had the CPTPP. How much impact has that had on the industries in terms of exports on both of those agreements?
Mr. Correa: I can respond to that. I was looking at the stats just before coming here and realized that, every year, exports have been increasing in the CPTPP countries, so it has been increasingly gone in those countries. We can say that Japan is a big player in those CPTPP countries, and we have a new addition in Peru in terms of beef, and Malaysia in terms of pork and Vietnam as well. Those countries have been very helpful in increasing their exports of pork and beef as well.
Senator MacDonald: So they’ve been useful?
Mr. Correa: Yes.
Mr. Heckbert: The pork industry is an economic power house in rural Canada. If we had had this conversation 30 years ago, we were looking at minuscule pork exports around the world. All of these free trade agreements have allowed us to access markets around the world that have a need for the product and a desire for the product. We wouldn’t be where we are today as an industry if it hadn’t been for all those free trade agreements. With each new free trade agreement that is negotiated and signed, we find a way to serve and access that market.
We are the ultimate free traders, and our challenge with this agreement is that we’d love to free trade. The previous senator asked a question about what the marker would be. As soon as we start shipping pork into the U.K., we’ll know we’ve achieved success, and the real challenge is that, until that happens and we eliminate some of these non-tariff trade barriers, we will continue to be stymied by what we think are unfair trade practices.
One of the things I want to highlight is this: When Mr. Dade was here, he was talking a little bit about whether we see things changing in the United States. As someone who has spent a lot of time in the United States over the past year, dealing with congressional leaders from both parties, protectionism is here to stay in the United States, no matter the government. A move away from depending upon the United States is something that we’ve already done in pork.
We are, in fact, the poster child for diversifying our trade. We’re the number one export into Japan, and our trade continues to grow in Mexico. We’ve already begun to diversify from the United States. We think we have a very attractive product everywhere we go in the world, and we don’t understand why these regions which eat a lot of pork haven’t found a way of buying Canadian pork.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Robinson: I have a couple of questions. There was an exchange with you, Mr. Roy, and you spoke about the Trojan Horse. There was a discussion about really holding our ground with the U.K. with regard to ensuring that the non-tariff barrier issues are resolved. I want to give you a platform to speak about the issue of trust. It sounds like there’s a repetition of behaviour here on non-tariff trade barriers, which I see as a stressful situation for our pork producers, because there isn’t predictability. I wanted you to speak a little bit about predictability. Also, as for the other barriers pork producers face in our domestic supply chain, labour and infrastructure, what can we do in Canada to do a better job of supporting you? You’ve given us these numbers: 8,000 pork producers, $5 billion of exports, and 1% of our exports; those are impressive numbers. How can we support you better? I assume we’ve just kind of scratched the surface of your potential.
Mr. Roy: I would start by saying every time we open a fair free trade agreement, this helps pork producers. We strive for is to be competitive, and that wherever we go in the world, that our industry has a good reputation, particularly regarding food safety. The CFIA is helping us in this role.
There is a matter of making sure that there is not too much red tape so that we’re able to trade and that we also have access to various business-risk management tools so that as we develop our business, we are able to face potential storms. We know when we are open to free trade, there are price fluctuations, so it’s important that, as we are risk takers, as business men and women, it is important that we have the tools to back our risks.
Mr. Heckbert: What we would really appreciate is if the Senate and other bodies understood that there are two requirements from an immigration perspective in Canada: one for urban Canada and one for rural Canada. If we could look at a rural immigration Canadian strategy that recognizes the pressures rural Canadians are facing — and rural Canadian businesses are facing are different from those in other areas — that would be incredibly beneficial to us. There are labour challenges on our farms and in our processing plants, and because they’re based so frequently in rural Canada, we’d really appreciate it if the Senate could look at that and make recommendations to the government to make sure that we’re looking at the two parts of Canada, not with one view that everything has a one-size-fits-all solution, but sort of a response to the individual needs of the areas where, frankly, we are struggling to sometimes recruit people.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I note with this panel, we received a lot of recommendations, and that’s good because they’re on the record, and of course, others can react as well.
On behalf of the committee, I’d like to thank Jorge Correa, Edwina Melville-Gray, René Roy and Stephen Heckbert for being with us. Your testimony was very important in our continued study of this bill, so thank you. Colleagues, we will reconvene tomorrow morning at 10:30 in this room to continue our consideration of Bill C-13 with the Minister of International Trade, the Honourable Maninder Sidhu.
(The committee adjourned.)