Mr. Chair, thank you.

I applaud the work you're doing because I think this is really important as we prepare for North American leaders' summit this fall. Having the committee make recommendations that can help the leaders will certainly be invaluable.

By way of background I spent most of my professional life working on North American integration. I worked as a Canadian foreign service officer with the team that negotiated the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, and later the North American Free Trade Agreement. My foreign postings in New York and as consul general in Los Angeles, and then as head of the advocacy secretariat at our embassy in Washington gave me direct experience in advancing our interests in North American integration. I built on this experience through my work with McKenna Long and Aldridge, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, my research with the school of public policy, and the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute.

Last year, working with my colleagues at the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, Eric Miller and John Dillon, we drafted “Made in North America”. I recommend the paper to you. It's 44 specific policy recommendations to help achieve closer North American integration that cover supply chain and border management, trade-related infrastructure, manufacturing, energy and the environment, regulatory cooperation and alignment, trade rules and practices, skills and jobs, and North America in the world.

Based on this experience let me make some observations and recommendations. First, in terms of Canada's vital relationships, it is the United States and then the rest. We can't change geography, nor would we want to. The United States remains the preponderant power in preserving the international order that makes possible the globalization of trade and investment on which our prosperity depends. The United States is also the world's biggest market and we need to do all we can to preserve our preferred economic access.

Our relationship is asymmetrical. ln relative terms, the United States represents about 30% of our gross domestic product while Canada represents about 3% of the U.S. GDP. In trade terms the United States represents about 75% of our trade while Canada represents about 20% of U.S. trade.

Second, while 9/11 is now a decade away, security of the perimeter continues to preoccupy the United States. The Americans have to know that we have their back. The more our law enforcement agencies are able to share information about potential threats, the greater the mutual confidence that allows us to let legitimate movements of people and goods flow as fast as possible in both directions.

Our preferred economic access depends on doing our part to sustain the perimeter. ln practice this means careful scrutiny of the people and goods that enter our shared space. “Inspected once, twice cleared” is the principle behind Beyond the Border, that most important Canadian initiative now in its fourth year. When the U.S. asks us to inspect for counterfeit goods, respecting our shared commitment to the perimeter, we should accommodate them while reminding them that their secondary inspections of goods at the border does not conform with “inspected once, twice cleared”.

Otherwise, we give the foot-draggers, closet protectionists, and the security obsessed who stop our shipments at the U.S. borders another reason not to expedite the passage of people and goods across the border. This removes the advantages we have, especially for our west coast ports—Vancouver and Prince Rupert—because it is a faster route across the Pacific and then by truck or rail into the United States, quickly down to Chicago.

Third, it's still about the border and clearing away the barriers. Even though, as last week's report of the Beyond the Border implementation team illustrates, we have made good progress in easing many of the barriers to better border access for people and goods, we still have a long way to go. As parliamentarians, you can help by moving on the implementation legislation that will give effect to the recent landmark pre-clearance agreement. Congress will be introducing their legislation required for implementation next week. Let's not have U.S. carriers waiting for us to expand business and tourism opportunities into Canada.

Fourth, the regulatory cooperation council is another valuable initiative that needs to be made permanent.

Originally focusing on 29 initiatives the regulatory cooperation council should be given a more ambitious mandate. With its counterpart Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the White House, the two agencies should continue to converge standards on autos, agrifood, environment, and drug approval. The RCC should be made permanent, situated within the Privy Council Office, and work in tandem with the ongoing Beyond the Border initiative.

To further its work and give Canadian-made goods easier access to the United States we should emulate President Obama's executive order obliging U.S. regulators to work with free trade partners like Canada to reduce red tape and the tyranny of small differences that plague freer trade.

Fifth, we need a portrait of the North American transportation infrastructure, including our growing cybertrade in financial services, to identify our shortcomings and to help prioritize future investment. Our investment in our roads, rail, and ports both air and sea needs to be integrated into a commercial plan for competitiveness.

NASCO, the trilateral North American Strategy for Competitiveness organization, which is visiting Ottawa this week, focuses on supply chain, workforce, and energy. It has done excellent work with business and various levels of government in identifying the problems and practical solutions that now require attention and action by our leaders.

Sixth, we should build on North America's diverse base of energy resources and make it a true comparative and competitive advantage. I applaud the work of the energy ministers who met in December and who in fact just put out a report yesterday, having met in Mexico, to map our energy needs and establish best practices on North American fracking standards, and now on methane. Greater collaboration on energy technology and standards, strengthening energy infrastructure, and realizing the potential of lower-carbon energy resources will help us move towards North American energy self-sufficiency and provide our citizens and businesses with reliable, cost-competitive, and environmentally sustainable energy.

Seventh, to protect our trade and investment from protectionist forces, we should have a Canadian representative in every U.S. state and keep an ongoing inventory of Canadian business and investment in each congressional district and of the jobs it supports. In recent years, austerity measures reduced our diplomatic presence in the United States. Reversing this trend doesn't mean following the traditional model of sending Canada-based diplomats. Rather, let's use the honorary consul route to recruit resident Canadians—there are well over a million living and working in the United States—and mandate our consuls to stimulate state-focused Canadian-American business councils, the work that CABC does nationally, to drive business-to-business trade and investment. To assist them, the Export Development Corporation should deploy a more strategic vision of assisting Canadian SMEs to integrate into U.S.-led supply chains.

We could model the consuls after our honorary consul in Arizona, Glenn Williamson, and the Canada Arizona Business Council. As an early objective, they set out to increase direct weekly flights from Canada from 10 to 100, recognizing trade and investment as a contact sport. Within a decade, it had achieved its goal, and trade and investment between Canada and Arizona has dramatically increased.

Eighth, we need to devote more time and attention to Mexico. It's not just a growth investment market for mining, banking, and manufacturing, and our third biggest trading partner, but an increasingly integral part of continental supply chains, especially in the production of cars and planes. We need to ensure convergence with work done in the parallel border and regulatory commissions between the U.S. and Mexico. Some issues are specific to one of the borders, but for others there's common work and we should be looking to common standards.

Security continues to be a preoccupation. Our ships and submarines help rid Mexico's Caribbean and Pacific waters of drug traffickers, whose product eventually winds up on our own streets. Our seasonal workers program with Mexico has served Canadian agricultural needs for more than 40 years.

We should be marketing Canadian universities and schools to Mexico's youth, because the ties generated through education serve us long into the future. But if we want Mexicans to visit Canada, we have to make it easier for them to get here. The visa imposition in 2009 was badly handled. It's a lesson in how not to deal with a friend and important partner. The inclusion of Mexico among countries eligible for the new electronic travel authorization starts the process anew. It should include all Mexicans, and we need a North American frequent travellers program.

Ninth, provinces and states are incubators and innovators, and we should encourage regional cooperation. Innovation at the provincial level, starting with Saskatchewan, was how we got our health care system. We are moving towards a national energy policy, addressing climate change and carbon pricing through cap-and-trade in Ontario and Quebec, through pricing in Alberta, or through tax in British Columbia.

The best-developed regional cooperation on issues including transportation, labour mobility, and invasive species is in the Pacific northwest economic region. Regional associations, especially those involving premiers and governors, solve problems, such as ensuring that Americans could visit our 2010 Olympics when then-premier Gordon Campbell and Washington's Governor Christine Gregoire came up with the smart driver's licence, which has since been rolled out on both sides of the 49th parallel.

In October, Canadian premiers and governors from the United States and Mexico will meet in Colorado Springs for the first-ever summit promoting economic development and trade through improvements and innovations in infrastructure, supply chain management, education, and energy technology.

Tenth—finally—parliamentarians must get to know members of the U.S. Congress in both the House and the Senate. Nothing is better than peer-to-peer relationships. I spent part of my diplomatic career working Capitol Hill, the source of protectionism and other legislation that, even if it's not aimed at Canada, often sideswipes us in application. Many of the issues that have the most significant impact on us come directly from Congress, because they are U.S. domestic issues and are driven by Congress, not the administration.

You can help prevent this by reaching out to your American counterparts early and often. These relationships need to be sustained and reinforced by regular contact, both directly and through forums such as the Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary Group.

Like our national sport, Canada-US relations is about contact, being nimble and quick, taking the initiative, and knowing how to put the puck in the net.

Thank you, Chair.

Transcript

Discussions (0)