It’s Canada’s time to shine, Beatty says
KITCHENER — A Donald Trump presidency and emerging nativist movements in Europe mean it’s more important than ever for Canada to assert itself on the global economic stage, Perrin Beatty says.
“The world has changed as a result of last Tuesday’s election,” the former federal cabinet minister and current president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce said Thursday following a speech in Kitchener.
“We need to respond to that, but we need to do it in an intelligent way,” Beatty said. “We need to diversify our trade, we need to maintain openness to the global economy, we need to take down barriers to Canadian goods and services … and we can really exemplify the values that we believe in to the rest of the world.”
Beatty told a Confederation Club luncheon that Canada should be prepared to forge ahead with its own trade agreements should American participation in such deals as the Trans-Pacific Partnership collapse.
Similarly, we should view the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement as “an important strategic advantage” should attempts between the U.S. and the EU to draft a similar deal fail.
For European firms looking to get into the North American market, Canada could serve as their entry point. Likewise, producing goods in Canada could serve as a way for U.S. companies with a subsidiary here to access European markets, Beatty said.
If the U.S. decides to reopen the North American free-trade agreement — a 22-year-old deal between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico that Trump has termed a “disaster” — we’ll have to be at the table, Beatty conceded.
But that means Canada can fight for a deal that’s benefited all parties, he said. “We need to remind our colleagues of why the world envies what we have built together.”
Beatty, from Fergus, held a number of federal cabinet posts from 1979 to 1993, serving while NAFTA was drafted in the early 1990s.
“Negotiations are not a one-way street,” he said. Revisiting the agreement could provide an opportunity to modernize the deal and to present Canadian requests.
As nativist sentiments rise and more countries talk of closing their borders to the flow of people and products, Canada’s openness can stand as both an advantage and an example, Beatty said.
Our welcoming immigration strategy can help to attract the best and brightest minds in an increasingly competitive global market, for example.
“Closed borders are almost always bad for Canada,” said Beatty. “Canada loses when we’re denied access to other markets.”
There’s much work ahead, he cautioned.
New trading opportunities mean Canadian transportation infrastructure must be up to the task, and significant investment is needed. Faced with carbon pricing to combat climate change, Canadian companies must be able to remain competitive, especially when U.S. companies aren’t likely to face such a tax in a climate change-denying Trump presidency.
“We expect transparency,” Beatty said. “If the government is tempted to treat a carbon tax as a tax grab to fund other priorities, the program will fail.”