With MPs set to return to Ottawa on Dec. 5, progress is being made towards implementation of the new NAFTA south of the border, highlighted by the recent visit to Parliament Hill of the chairman of the important U.S. House Ways and Means Committee.

The implementation is viewed as an important priority by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland (University-Rosedale, Ont.), according to a spokesperson for her office.

Liberal MP Wayne Easter (Malpeque, P.E.I.) said the new NAFTA should be implemented as soon as possible.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, right, is pictured with U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence on May 30. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

The signing of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)called the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) in Canadawas signed on Nov. 30, 2018, after being agreed upon two months earlier. It has yet only been implemented in Mexico, as U.S. House of Representatives Democrats are in the midst of negotiations with U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lightizer before the pact is brought to the House floor for a vote. The Canadian government has maintained it will proceed with implementation in tandem with the U.S. The agreement doesnt come into force until all three countries have implemented it.

Ive been in some meetings with the Americans lately and CUSMA is on their agenda as well, and I think were trying to find ways to ensure that they move ahead on it and we dont want to move in advance of that, said Mr. Easter, chair of the Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary Group and chair of the House Finance Committee in the last Parliament, but we should have this implemented as soon as possible.

Adam Austen, press secretary for Ms. Freeland, wouldnt say the level of legislative priority of the implementation bill in the coming Parliament, but said Ms. Freeland and the government as a whole view the ratification of the trade deal as an important priority.

The future of implementation in Canada, Mr. Austen said, will become clearer once the new cabinet is sworn in on Nov. 20.

Before Parliament was dissolved at the call of the election, the USMCA implementation bill had passed at second reading and was referred to the House Committee for International Trade.

Brian Kingston, vice-president of international and fiscal policy at the Business Council of Canada, said Canada should wait until there is a clear signal that there has been an agreement between the House Democrats and Mr. Lightizer in order for Canada to make the necessary changes needed before tabling a new implementation bill.

He added that tabling the bill would have no impact on the speed in which the process unfolds on Capitol Hill.

Canada moving now wont do anything and, if anything, it actually just complicates the process, because if we move ahead with the implementation bill as it exists and changes are made at a later date, we would have to go back and amend the agreement, Mr. Kingston said.

Sarah Goldfeder, a former U.S. diplomat and current Earnscliffe principal, said the Americans are going to move at their own pace.

Theyre not going to get sped up by anything [that Canada would do]. The Mexicans passed it and the Americans still didnt move, she said.

The recent visit of U.S. House Democrat Richard Neal, chair of the powerful Ways and Means Committee which has jurisdiction over trade agreements, to Ottawa is a sign that progress is being made towards ratification, trade specialists say.

The new NAFTA was signed on Nov. 30, 2018. White House photograph by Shealah Craighead

The chairman wouldnt take the time to come up to Ottawa unless there is genuine progress being made, and a real sense that theyre getting to a place that there may be an agreement between House Dems and the USTR, said Mr. Kingston.

Democrat Collin Peterson, chair of the House Agriculture Committee, told U.S.-based agriculture-focused podcast D.C. Signal to Noise last week that Mr. Neal told him that the implementation may be forwarded when the House sits this week or next.

[Mr. Neal] told me he is going to try and move it when we get back, Mr. Peterson said on Nov. 7. The U.S. House of Representatives is sitting from Nov. 11 to 15 and 18 to 21. It will return in December to sit from Dec. 3 to 6 and Dec. 9 to 12.

The question [is if it is] going to get done in those two weeks or it gets down in December. I think its going to get down by the end of the year barring some other thing that comes along and blows it up outside of the USMCA, Mr. Peterson said.

Eric Miller, president of the Rideau Potomac Strategy Group and a former senior policy adviser at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., said the visit signifies that the deal is coming into the home stretch and the House Democrats are making sure that the changes being agreed to in D.C. are agreeable to the Canadian government.

This is essentially signal checking that what they would see as more or less the outlines of the final agreement are acceptable to Canada, Mr. Miller said, who serves on the external advisory committee on international trade policy to the deputy minister of international trade.

Mr. Neal and a Congressional delegation made a similar trip to Mexico last month.

The sticking issue from getting a U.S. House vote on the USMCA is the labour issue, Ms. Goldfeder said.

Ms. Goldfeder said a goal of Mr. Neals Ottawa trip was to make enforcement provisions less about Mexico and more about all three partners, and to find out if Canada could be helpful resolving outstanding issues between the U.S. and Mexico on labour.

The white smoke signalling a deal is close to completion, Mr. Kingston said, will be the words of AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka.

In an October speech to the University of the District of Columbias law school, Mr. Trumka questioned, according to Politico, the need to have a House vote before the end of the year. Politico reported that support of Mr. Trumka and other U.S. labour leaders is key to getting enough Democrats to vote for the new NAFTA.

nmoss@hilltimes.com

The Hill Times

Neil Moss is a reporter at The Hill Times covering federal politics, foreign policy, and defence.- nmoss@hilltimes.com

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Implementation of new NAFTA will be 'important priority' for Liberal government as U.S. negotiations progress - The Hill Times