MP Seeback shares his focus as Shadow Minister for International Trade

By Sam Odrowski

Dufferin–Caledon MP Kyle Seeback has been named the Shadow Minister for International Trade by the Conservative Party of Canada and has his sights set on lobbying the federal government to address a host of problems.

He said his primary goals are solving trade irritants with the United States, creating fairer trade globally, maximizing Canadian exports and eliminating Canada's competitive disadvantage stemming from the carbon tax.

The export ban on potatoes from Canada into the United States has had a devastating impact on Prince Edward Island farmers, which Seeback is looking to lobby the Liberal government to address.

The Canada–U.S softwood lumber dispute will be another issue Seeback hopes to focus his efforts on to find solutions.

“Those are some big immediate things that I want to put pressure on the government to solve and resolve because it's causing all kinds of economic damage,” he said.

When looking at the carbon tax, it's placing Canada at a competitive disadvantage around the world as it makes Canadian goods more expensive, prevents investment and pushes industries to develop in other countries, he said.

“With the carbon tax, it can take sometimes 10 years to develop projects in Canada. Whether it's to mine cobalt or something else. What happens is, that project takes place in another country and so we lose the jobs as a result of the project not taking place here,” said Seeback. “Those jobs then go to a country that usually has a poor human rights record, usually has a terrible environmental record. and they produce that at 10 to 15 times the carbon emissions.”

While preventing industries from developing here might make Canada's carbon balance sheet a little greener, Seeback said it makes the global carbon balance sheet much worse while driving jobs away from Canada. It also forces the country to import products it should be exporting.

Seeback added that the carbon tax has been unsuccessful in reducing emissions and has made life more unaffordable for Canadians.

“We actually have to do things to reduce emissions, other than put on a carbon tax that's not working,” he remarked.

“The carbon tax makes it so hard for Canadian businesses to compete around the world and this is something that we have to look at. And whether that's carbon border adjustments, so that countries can't dump their cheap goods that they're producing with highly polluting industries or some other mechanism. We have to find a way to make trade fair for Canadian businesses.”

Seeback said his background as a lawyer will help in his Shadow Minister for International Trade role as he can use his legal expertise when reading over trade agreements.

“One of the things that I think we have to do as a country is we have to start looking at who we have trade agreements with and our supply chain,” he noted. “We really have to move away from being reliant on critical minerals or critical pieces in the supply chain from countries that are seemingly hostile to our interests. For example, China and Russia. “

Going forward, Seeback said he looks forward to pushing Minister of International Trade Mary Ng on resolving trade issues impacting the Canadian marketplace.

“I'm really excited to take on this role and it's going to be a very steep learning curve, but one that I'm excited to take on,” said Seeback.