Address by Minister Champagne to the Canada-Chile Chamber of Commerce

Speech

March 14, 2017– Santiago, Chile

Check against delivery. This speech has been translated in accordance with the official languages policy and edited for posting and distribution in accordance with the Government of Canada’s communications policy.

Thank you for those kind words of introduction. 

Good afternoon, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

It’s a great pleasure to be visiting Chile for the first time as Canada’s minister of international trade.                                                                                                   

I want to begin by thanking our Chilean friends for your warm hospitality during my visit to this beautiful country. 

I must say that I’m also enjoying the warm summer temperatures here – a welcome break from the minus 18C I left behind! 

I want to thank the Canada-Chile Chamber of Commerce and our Canadian Embassy team, led by Ambassador Lebleu, for bringing us together here this afternoon.

We have a lot to celebrate today, including a milestone in our economic partnership.

As we all know, it was 20 years ago that our free trade agreement entered into force.

It was a special agreement for a few reasons.

For Canada, the free trade agreement with Chile was our first with a country in Central or South America.

For Chile, it was one of the first of an enviable number of comprehensive free trade agreements – 25 in total, I am told.

We have in Chile a partner committed to a rules-based, fair trading environment and a progressive and open trade agenda.

So on behalf of the Government of Canada, I want to personally recognize and thank Mr. (Eduardo Frei) Ruiz-Tagle for his role in putting this agreement in place as president of Chile in 1997.

I also want to acknowledge the contribution of Eduardo Aninat, who was the Minister of Finance responsible for the negotiation of the agreement with his Canadian counterpart Roy MacLaren. 

Mr. Aninat now sits on Scotiabank’s board of directors.

It was also great to hear a video message from my friend and Canada’s prime minister at that time, Jean Chrétien, under whose leadership this agreement was negotiated and signed.

Canada and Chile may be at opposite ends of the American continent, but we are both Pacific nations resisting the tide of protectionism. We know that our prosperity lies not in isolation but in openness and the pursuit of free trade between nations.   

The common values that led to our trade agreement have promoted not only our prosperity but a fruitful and growing relationship.  

Chile is the only country in South America to enjoy a visa waiver to travel to Canada.

Chile is also one of our closest bilateral defence partners in the Americas.

Canada, meanwhile, is among the most popular study destinations for Chilean post-secondary students.

Our scientists, researchers and innovators work together in important areas such as the environment and climate change, as well as water resource management. 

This collaboration is made easier by Canada’s Agreement on Environmental Cooperation with Chile, one of two side agreements to our free trade agreement.

Last November, Canada announced a $14 million contribution to Chile (and Mexico) to promote the adoption of clean technologies and to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases like methane.

As you can see, this wide-ranging partnership was built on the basis of those first tentative steps 20 years ago towards a stronger commercial relationship – a relationship that continues to soar to new heights.

In fact, bilateral merchandise trade between us has more than tripled since our free trade agreement entered into force – to $2.4 billion last year. 

The agreement also helped create the right conditions for a much bigger Canadian investment presence in Chile. 

The stock of Canadian direct investment in Chile stood at $15 billion at the end of 2015. 

That makes Chile our top investment destination in South and Central America, and our 10th-largest worldwide. 

When nations trade together, good things happen for our people and that is ultimately our primary objective: making trade work for people.

But while we celebrate these admirable accomplishments, we know that not everyone has enjoyed the benefits I have described to the same extent. And today we see the results.   

Those working hard to join the middle class are feeling significant anxiety and many people around the world are expressing that anxiety in anger and hostility to trade agreements and globalization. 

In this context, we need to take the legitimate concerns of our citizens seriously and address them concretely.

As Prime Minister Trudeau said in Hamburg last month, “It’s time to realize that this anger and anxiety we see washing over the world is coming from a very real place. And it’s not going away.”

We need to do everything we can to ensure that the benefits of trade are more widely and equitably shared.

Failure to do so will only strengthen the forces of protectionism and embolden those opposed to freer and more open trade. 

That is why Canada is pursuing a progressive trade agenda with our partners at home and around the world.

Progressive trade means helping ensure that all segments of society can take advantage of the opportunities that flow from trade and investment – with a particular focus on women, Indigenous peoples, youth, and small and medium-sized businesses.

This is not just the right thing to do. It’s also essential for economic growth and prosperity.

SMEs, for example, are the dynamos of our economies and the lifeblood of our communities.

In Canada, SMEs account for virtually all Canadian businesses – and employ 90 percent of our private-sector workforce.

But only a small percentage of these businesses export. Under our progressive or middle class trade agenda, we are putting their needs and aspirations, and those of all non-traditional business owners and entrepreneurs, front and centre to help them reach their full export potential.

Progressive trade also means being open and transparent, and maintaining an ongoing dialogue with civil society and a broad range of stakeholders.  

It also means ensuring that trade agreements include strong provisions in important areas such as workers’ rights, gender equality and environmental protection, and reinforce the continued right of governments to regulate in the public interest.

In short, it's about efforts that help ensure international trade works for businesses and citizens alike. That it works for people.  

If we fail in that - if we fail in making trade real for people - we lose the social license necessary to make the deals we forged together 20 years ago.  

Trade accounts for approximately 60 percent of our respective GDPs so we both know the value of open trade.  

And yet there is more we can be doing together; there is always untapped potential for our people and that is one reason why modernizing our free trade agreement is a priority for Canada, Prime Minister Trudeau, and for me as trade minister.

And we must do so for commercial and social reasons. And the imperative is clear, just look at a few examples:

  •  Canadian companies are the number one foreign investors in Chile’s mining sector, with an estimated $19 billion in Canadian mining assets.
  •  Another great example is Transelec, whose CEO, Andres Kuhlmann, also happens to be president of this Chamber, is Chile’s leading power transmission company, employs nearly 500 Chileans, and is fully owned by Canadian institutional investors.
  •  There is also Teleforest, a company from my home province of Quebec, recently created an innovative new cabling system called Sky-Log, which allows timber to be harvested on steep slopes.

Let me return to mining for a moment, and I want to do so because it provides an illustrative case in point of the progressive engagement we need to be doing when we’re investing. 

As I said to Chile’s Mining Minister, Aurora Williams, that Canada is very proud of its mining industry and the huge role our companies play in mining operations worldwide.

We also believe that governments and corporations have a responsibility for proper stewardship of the environment and other public interests and we have high expectations for Canadian extractive sector companies. 

Therefore, the Government of Canada is currently assessing its Corporate Social Responsibility approach and identifying ways to strengthen it. 

With that in mind, I want take this opportunity to highlight Scotiabank’s ‘Premio Ellas Emprenden’ prizes for women entrepreneurs in Chile.  

These prizes have been awarded since 2012 to recognize the leadership and abilities of women to successfully manage and grow businesses. 

I also want to highlight another example of a company leading the charge. Together with UN Women, Teck entered into a US$1 million partnership last year to promote the empowerment of Indigenous women in the northern regions of Chile. 

The project seeks to promote capacity building among Indigenous women and address the barriers to their active political and economic participation. 

These examples are exactly in line with what Canada is working hard to accomplish through our progressive trade agenda for middle class jobs and growth. 

We also want to be a constructive partner in building opportunities for everyone in our region.

I don’t just mean the Americas. I mean the Pacific region as well.

Canada is very much a Pacific nation – as is Chile – and the region is a priority for Government of Canada.

Deeper ties with the Pacific Alliance are of particular interest for Canada.

Canada has comprehensive and ambitious free trade agreements with all four members of the block. 

And in June of last year, my predecessor and now our Foreign Minister, Chrystia Freeland, signed a Joint Declaration on Partnership between Canada and the Pacific Alliance – the first agreement of its kind to be signed by the Alliance and one of its observer nations.

That is one reason why I’m visiting Chile – to attend the Pacific Alliance High Level Dialogue in Viña del Mar later today and tomorrow.

I commend Chile for hosting this important meeting and for its ongoing commitment to regional and multilateral trade agreements.

As we celebrate our 20th anniversary as free trade partners, I hope that good partners like the Canada-Chile Chamber of Commerce will join us in our efforts to shape the forces of globalization so that its benefits are more widely shared by Chileans, Canadians and citizens around the world.

We must be ever-vigilant in making the case for trade to our people; we must build a modern, progressive and ambitious trade agenda to grow the world’s middle class and we must do so together.  

Thank you. Muchas gracias. 

Page details

Date modified: