Canada needs a strong negotiating position during Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s visit to China, but hasn’t necessarily demonstrated that it has one, according to former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson.
“We have to know what we want; I’m not sure we do yet,” said Robertson, now a senior advisor at Dentons LLP, in an interview with BNN. “The Chinese know very much what they want from us. They want access to our resources, particularly energy, but also agri-food. They also want a better arrangement for state-owned enterprise investment in Canada. But what is it we really want out of the relationship?”
Trudeau embarked on his first official visit to China Monday where canola imports, human rights, free trade and energy investments were among the key issues up for discussion. But, according to Robertson, the Trudeau government has a lot of work ahead of them.
“Do we have the capacity to get energy to China? Have we got the LNG terminals? Have we got the pipelines? There’s a lot of things we still have to do on our part and should be very clear about what we want when we sit down and negotiate with the Chinese because they are tough negotiators,” he said.
Robertson went on to say that delays in projects like the proposed Energy East pipeline, which had its hearings put on hold today, likely hurts Asia’s confidence in Canada to “deliver the goods” to market.
The most recent move by China in this week’s talks was to delay stricter canola shipment rules – an agreement that likely won’t be reached until Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visits Canada in a few weeks, Robertson said.
He added that Canada’s application to join a new infrastructure bank led by China “shows we truly are serious about Asia.”
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