I'll beat my time. I'll be shorter than five minutes, I hope.

I want to thank the committee very much for the invitation. I must tell you that over the last few years there have been plenty of times when we wondered if we would ever have a chance to be here on this legislation, so we're very delighted about it. The chamber has been a long-standing and strong supporter of this initiative.

I don't want to repeat all the things that my friend Brian Kingston very effectively summarized about the economic impact of the agreement, but I do want to add to his comment about the politicians involved.

History is not often very friendly to politicians, but I think we need to salute the visionaries who originally initiated this. I would include Mr. Charest, when he was premier, and then Ed Fast and his prime minister, through their term, who fashioned the agreement, and, of course, a big salute goes to Minister Freeland and Prime Minister Trudeau, who played that game of high-intensity chess in the last few weeks to try to close this agreement.

We've been very well served by our public servants as well. Brian mentioned Steve Verheul and his team at Global Affairs. That's an exceptionally talented group of people. All through the piece, we were well briefed, well informed, and consulted constantly on it, so at every level, I think, Canada has been well served here.

We'll have an interesting question period, I hope, if we can come back. I did want to say that not only is CETA an important economic agreement, but in the political world in which we currently live, it's an extremely significant gesture, taking us away from a rising tide of protectionism, hostility, and suspicion. Modern trade agreements—Angella made this point—are less agreements about trade than about national relationships. We're getting more and more complex and moving into things that were never countenanced as part of the trade dialogue in the past, but that we recognize as very significant issues, such as intellectual property and all the regulatory agreements. These make the agreements more complex, but they also lay the groundwork for better relationships between the states when they are signed and ratified.

The way to confront this rising tide of suspicion and conflict is to prove it wrong. We can make as many speeches as we want to about the virtues of free trade, but what really works, I think—and we'll see this in our dialogue with some of our major trading partners in the next couple of years—is to demonstrate that parties on both sides, citizens of every nation, have benefited, that they've seen real prosperity and, we hope, no significant diminution in any of the things they hold dear, such as health and safety standards.

We consider trade agreements to be starters' pistols. They lay the groundwork for success in trade, but as we've been saying and publishing reports on, Canada needs a vigorous trade strategy, especially to get smaller businesses to take advantage of this. The chamber is very much looking forward to that part of the dialogue, and we'll be partners to anybody who will be partners with us in terms of trying to capitalize on the opportunities.

The final thing I would say is that the Chamber of Commerce certainly agrees that adjustment support is an appropriate tool when you are trying to move trade agreements into the economy. It's no shame to acknowledge that some people are challenged by the developments in a trade agreement, just as it's not necessarily a proof of manhood that some people are going to win significant benefits under an agreement.

The way to maintain public support for these things, as well as to ensure that the economic impact is as controlled as possible, is to be there at every level to respond to those changing circumstances. Some of the things I'm proud of, in my own experiences with this, are adjustment investments that Canada made after the signing of the Canada free trade agreement, which allowed industries to recover and become extremely competitive. That's a logical part of our dialogue, and we need to keep it in the window as we go forward.

Why don't I stop now? If we get a chance to come back for questions, I'm looking forward to it.

Transcript

Discussions (0)