Garneau seeks cash to help boost trade abroad, in Canada
Transport minister making pitch before release of fiscal update
OTTAWA— It’s not sexy stuff. But more money to improve ports, roads and bridges would immediately help diversify international trade and boost interprovincial commerce, says Transport Minister Marc Garneau. And so Garneau has made an economic pitch to his cabinet colleague, Finance Minister Bill Morneau, who is set to unveil the federal government’s fall fiscal update Wednesday.
“We’re a trading nation” and the world’s second-largest geographically, Garneau said in an interview.
“We need to move our goods as efficiently as possible. If we don’t do it, our customers will look elsewhere, and I’m talking about our international customers and our American customers. So, how efficiently we move goods will have an effect on growing our customer base and growing the economy.”
It takes years to negotiate and ratify new trade agreements, and the federal Liberals, like other governments before them, have focused a lot of time and energy on prodding provinces and territories to reach an internal free trade agreement (the Canadian Free Trade Agreement) and concluding trade deals with 10 other AsiaPacific nations (the Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership), with Europe (the Canada Europe Trade Agreement) and most recently its North American partners (the United States-MexicoCanada Agreement).
Indeed, internal trade barriers are expected to be a major topic of discussion for an upcoming first ministers meeting on Dec. 7 in Montreal.
But there are immediate fixes that provinces, municipalities, transportation companies and other private sector actors have flagged to the federal government that would have a direct and positive impact on trade, says Garneau.
In fact, Garneau was surprised by the “sheer number” of applications that flooded his office after the Liberals unveiled in 2017 a $2.1-billion fund, to be spread over 11 years, to improve critical trade corridors like ports, waterways, airports, roads, bridges, border crossings, rail networks and the interconnectivity between them. Between 350 and 400 requests for funding arrived on Garneau’s desk, amounting to requests totalling $16 billion.
“We don’t have $16 billion,” Garneau said with a wry smile.
However, he has so far announced 38 projects, totalling $800 million. And that means the first tranche of money is done.
The projects cover a wide range of demands.
More than $9 million went to improve railway and road works at Ashcroft Terminal in British Columbia’s interior, hundreds of kilometres from Vancouver’s port, where roads and rail lines converge for truckers and two rail companies vying to load and off-load goods. It will allow railways and truckers to more efficiently, assemble container combinations for quicker shipping and ease costly congestion, says a federal official.
Another $22 million went to improve two bridges in New Brunswick, which could not accommodate the weight of heavy lumber trucks and otherwise required two-hour detours.
Garneau says it was difficult to choose among those projects that were “the most immediate and the most deserving.”
But he said there is a “very clear, strong demand” for more money, and a need “to get rid of bottlenecks.”
“If I can’t get things efficiently to the port of Vancouver to go to Asia, or the port of Halifax or Montréal to go to Europe, then our economy will suffer,” he said.
Garneau wouldn’t say if he’s asked for the remaining $1.2 billion to be released more quickly, or for more money overall for the fund.
“Let’s just say that I would like to have more money and because it is addressing something that I think is very much in demand and has a very important benefit,” he said.
“Anything that can be done that can improve the flow of goods across the country is good for the economy. That’s my pitch.” Garneau may have found a sympathetic listener in Morneau.
As the finance minister hustled out of Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, Morneau declined to tip his hand, and said only that he’d have “lots to say” after Wednesday’s fall economic statement.
But Morneau highlighted that he, too, has been saying the same thing since coming into government: “One of the most important things we can do is expand our internal trade and be more effective at trade diversification around the world,” he said.
“And if it’s not clear to Canadians in 2018 that trade diversification is a good idea, then it never will be.”