It was a privilege to hear your testimony before the Senate-Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Enquiring into Bill C-30 and the Canada-Europe Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), as a representative of the Canadian Shipowners Association on 6/4/17.
Though many thought the Association had disappeared after it’s amalgamation with the Chamber of Marine Commerce on 28/9/16 ( a month before CETA was signed in Brussels on 30/10/16) and its Headquarters and other assets taken over by them, it was interesting to hear the Association make its’ case on CETA with no less than 3 witnesses.
Though it was disappointing that you would speak for the Association only as Acting President, some thought this may be due to legal constrictions owing to the Association’s recent takeover by the Chamber of Marine Commerce.
Though you were the only panelist during the Senate-Committee Hearings on CETA and Bill C-30 to mention Reservation II-C-14 (indeed, during the entire Parliamentary Debate), you did not mention the advantages it and other clauses it would shortly confer on Canadian maritime shipping companies.
Considering your concluding statements:
” First, the C.S.A. understands that the negotiated outcomes of the CETA are a done deal and that they will be implemented…”.
“In our opinion, the amendments to the Coasting Trade Act in Bill C-30 as they are currently drafted are consistent with the negotiated outcomes in the CETA… These provisions do not need to be changed or amended at this stage.”
It may be understood that, because the C.S.A. accepts CETA as it is and that Bill C-30 required no amendments by the Senate:
• The Canadian Shipowners Association accepts that Maritime Cabotage Rights to all ports in Canada be granted, likely in perpetuity, to European registered ships (which generally operate with low wage, Flag of Convenience crews) in Chapter 14, Article 3, section 2 of CETA, even though this competition with Canadian ships and their Canadian crews will likely make them disappear, should Reservation II-C-14 (pages 1209 and 1210 of CETA) be withdrawn.
• The Canadian Shipowners Association accepts that Reservation II-C-14 of CETA, which only temporarily suspends those Maritime Cabotage Rights granted in Article 14-3.2, (except for the Halifax-Montreal Corridor, which leads many to think that CETA’s Maritime Provisions only concern these 2 ports) as well as a few others and therefore cause Canadian seafarers and their Unions to need consider accepting drastic wage and benefit cuts as well as to working conditions, knowing that Reservation II-C-14 could be withdrawn at any time.
This would restore the Maritime Cabotage Rights to all Canadian ports granted in Article 14-3.2 to low wage European ships, permitting them to flood the Canadian market and cause Canadian ones, as well as their thousands of seafaring jobs, to disappear, all without requiring any further assent from European authorities or the Parliament of Canada.
• The Canadian Shipowners Association accepts Canadian seafarers not being considered for employment on European ships operating in Canada under CETA (as stated in the Federal Temporary Foreign Worker Program, which does not require such consideration in the case of free trade agreements, such as CETA).
• The Canadian Shipowners Association accepts the exemptions granted to European Shipowners in Bill C-30, Clause 92, sections 2.3 and 2.4, from seeking Temporary Foreign Worker permits for their seafarers, which otherwise would have provided these with Canadian median wages while in Canada under CETA and made competition with Canadian ships more even.
• The Canadian Shipowners Association accepts clauses in CETA that permit European Interests to bid on contracts for the provision of government services to the public and could result in Canadian passenger ferry and Coast Guard crews being replaced with foreign, Flag of Convenience ones.
• The Canadian Shipowners Association accepts granting Maritime Cabotage Rights to all Canada’s ports to not only first, but to the many second registry European vessels (which are granted no such Rights in Europe) and that CETA should grant no reciprocity in such Rights to Canadian vessels in European waters.
Your concluding remarks reflect a dramatic reversal in the Association’s position, made under its’ previous President, Mr. Brent Patterson (prior to its’ amalgamation with the Chamber of Marine Commerce) since September, 2014, shortly after the CETA’s Maritime Provisions became public.
The Association then stated that, in tandem with the renewal of its’ Members fleets with new built, technologically advanced ships, it preferred the retention of Canadian crews, who were already familiar with these vessels and the Canadian waters in which they sail.
This change of position seems to contradict assurances given by Mr. James Givens of the Canadian Seafarers International Union that neither the Union nor Canadian Shipowners had any need of Bill C-30’s and CETA’s changes to the Coasting Trade Act (The Canadian Sailor, December, 2016, “President’s message”, page 3.).
The Saint-Lawrence Ship-operators Association have also spoken against the threat to Canadian crews implicit in the CETA:
However, President Serge LeGuellec of Desgagnes Transport, a C.S.A. witness who appeared with you before the Senate-Committee on 6/4/17, as you endorsed the CETA and Bill C-30 and will likely engender the above mentioned effects, was appointed, shortly after testifying, to its’ Board of Directors.
Further, the projected appearance as Guest Speaker at an upcoming S.S.A. Conference of Former Québec Premier Jean Charest (who’s support for CETA, as presently written, has been public since at least November) suggests that this group now, in fact, holds the same views as those of the C.S.A., regardless of their effects on Canadian sea-going personnel.
This of course includes the knowledge that under the CETA such iconic vessels as the Great Lakes bulk-carriers, which many of the C.S.A.’s members operate, could be reflagged to European Registry, their Canadian crews dismissed and replaced by foreign, Flag of Convenience ones, should CETA’s Reservation II-C-14 be withdrawn and the Rights granted under Article 14-3.2 fully restored.
Similarly under CETA, another national maritime icon, the Canadian Annual Arctic Sealift:
By having Canadian maritime shipping companies send their ships to load a few locks higher on the Saint-Lawrence Seaway in Morrisburg, New York (or anywhere else outside Canada), their cargo could then be regarded as International and such ships reflagged as European and their crews replaced by foreign, Flag of Convenience (perhaps some at $1.26 an hour, as was mentioned at the Senate-Committee Hearings on 6/4/17).
Although the loss of wages and benefits mentioned above (Reservation II-C-14), up to and including the disappearance of thousands of sailor’s jobs and seafaring as a profession in Canada (Article 14-3.2), that the CETA’s Maritime Provisions and others may likely bring to Canada after it’s Implementation on 21/9/17, have been public knowledge for some months, if not years, and known particularly to Canadian seafarers, of whom an ever increasing number are learning of what the Maritime Provisions and others will mean to them in terms of wage reductions and job losses once CETA is implemented on 21/9/17.
Although it has been said that CETA’s Maritime Provisions and others were arrived at without consultation with Representatives of either shipowners or labor of the National Maritime Transport Industry, Canadian seafarers will ask “Cui bono?-Who benefits?”.
There have been no major strikes by Canadian sailors since 1966, and this may be due to the forbearance of shipowners and the moderation of seafarers that both have exercised since.
As enumerated above, CETA will change all this:
Canadian sailors and the public may now be able to know how and when seafaring in Canada became unfeasible and the Merchant Marine lost, where most did not when the same happened the United Kingdom, France, Germany and elsewhere.
Sincerely,
Marc de Villers,
Wheelsman, “Camilla Desgagnes”,
marcdevillers@icloud.com
514-404-6008.