Evidence of meeting #19 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was border.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gerry Ritz
I call this meeting to order.
This afternoon we have before us Gary Groves--
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
I want to express my apologies to the witnesses who are here. I'm going to have to leave, because apparently Mr. Easter has found something much more important than this in the House. He's apparently introducing a concurrence motion on one of the agricultural issues. It's unfortunate that he couldn't be here to take this seriously, but some of us will have to go deal with that.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gerry Ritz
Thank you.
The meeting will continue.
Before us we have Mr. Gary Groves, minister-counsellor, Foreign Agricultural Service.
Gary, welcome. It's nice to see you again.
With him we have Lisa Anderson, the agricultural attaché. Welcome, Ms. Anderson.
If you have a bit of a presentation to give us this afternoon, we'd welcome that.
3:35 p.m.
Gary C. Groves Minister-Counsellor, Foreign Agricultural Service, United States Department of Agriculture
It's not really a presentation.
I would like, first of all, to thank you for the invitation to come here to share views on the state of agricultural trade relations between our two countries.
As you mentioned, I'm the minister-counsellor for the U.S. embassy here in Ottawa. In my role here, I'm the principal USDA representative in Canada. I have with me Lisa Anderson, who is our agricultural attaché. We are trade types. We are not technical. We will try to address all your questions as well as we can, but please understand that if things get too technical sometimes, they can be outside the scope of our expertise. But we will certainly get back and pursue ways to get the answers you're seeking to this committee.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
3:35 p.m.
Minister-Counsellor, Foreign Agricultural Service, United States Department of Agriculture
Frankly, I'm a diplomat, and I don't let that interfere with me either.
On the topic today of agricultural trade relations between our two countries, frankly, we think we have a very good relationship. It is our number one relationship, in many ways. We are each other's best markets for agricultural products. That has been growing ever since the FTA and NAFTA came into effect.
There are always many trade issues between us. In my foreign service career, I have dealt with many countries, and I've never seen such a list of issues, which we seem to be able to develop between us. But the thing with our relationship, that often is not the case with other countries, is that we try to find ways to.... We at least listen to each other and try to find solutions to the problems.
We realize that at times there are frustrations on your part. Many times you think it takes us a lot longer to do something than it should. But we do take our actions very seriously. We take our relationship with Canada very seriously. We try to do everything on the basis of science and on the basis of law. I think overall we have managed to do that.
One thing I mention as I travel around, and it's important for people to understand, is that in the case of the United States, we are just about everybody's best market for agricultural products, or at least a prime market. We face a lot of requests from around the world from people who want us to take action. It might be to provide access to the market, or whatever. The list, for example, that APHIS deals with on risk assessments and whether to allow products in is just amazing--it's in the hundreds--because every country wants to get into that market.
The problem, in our case, is that they might have pests or diseases that could affect many of the products we grow, since we do have such a wide range of products. So while it seems that we are doing this just to be protectionist or whatever, there are legitimate reasons why we go through this process.
In my experience, Canada gets incredible priority in terms of the issues it raises, whether it's to look at risk assessments or to look at whatever issue. Having served in South America, I can tell you that the Uruguayans have been trying to get their fruit in and get on our list for risk assessment for years and years.
We realize the importance of this relationship with Canada, and we have to give these issues priority. It's important to us economically and politically in every way. We may not do things that you agree with, or whatever, but at least we try to get people to listen to your concerns.
I think a good example of that is the recent visit by your agriculture minister, Mr. Strahl to Washington. He had I think three items on his agenda that he basically wanted to talk about. He felt that he was not getting enough collaboration from us, and we are actively dealing with all three of those issues and I think making progress.
This is the type of relationship we have and that we want to maintain.
With that, I will turn it over to whatever questions you have.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
3:35 p.m.
Lisa Anderson Agricultural Attaché, United States Department of Agriculture
No, I have none.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Steckle Liberal Huron—Bruce, ON
First let me welcome you people here today.
Obviously, as all of us here know, Canada and the U.S. have a tremendous trade relationship. Were it not for our American neighbours, we would be duly filed with a whole lot of product for which we probably wouldn't have a home. So we do appreciate the openness we have.
But there have been a number of issues, and I think you're quite aware of what those issues are. I would be remiss today, as a person who has been part of this committee and part of this ongoing BSE issue for a long time—in fact it's going on three and a half years....
While we have some degree of openness in terms of the cross-border movement of live animals under thirty months, and certainly product taken from animals under thirty months, we still have that irritant of not being able to move older animals. I quite understand the reasoning, which you mentioned earlier, or at least I think you said that you base your decisions on science. But I'm wondering whether sometimes political science gets in the way of animal science, going both ways. I'm wondering how we can reconcile true science, in the fairest sense of trade, and allow these products to flow more fairly.
Obviously when we look at the causes in the first place, on a percentage basis it would have taken thirteen animals to have caused the Americans to close the border. But the border was closed with one animal. So it was a decision taken, and we didn't argue the decision. I guess the argument we have is, why so long, when so many times we thought we were getting close but the border remained closed?
I know that's a long preamble to perhaps not a short answer either. But can you respond to that?
3:40 p.m.
Minister-Counsellor, Foreign Agricultural Service, United States Department of Agriculture
Regarding this whole saga that we've been through over the last three years or so, there have been frustrations on our part as well. From the start, I remember Secretary Veneman saying Canadian beef is safe, but we have this process--and we have tried to do what we can too.
Now you mentioned the political angle. Obviously politics enters any government decision. But we have been trying to base this on science and structure the rule-making in a way that politics cannot get in the road. Obviously the challenges that were made to the USDA slowed down the process.
There were a few other events here and there. When we had an animal with BSE, that got people wondering about things. You had another animal that maybe was outside the band of what we were expecting, and so on, so we had to go back and do the....
Right now, when you had that animal of fifty months, there was just no way we could go forward with the risk assessment, as it was made. We had to wait on the study that was done here and incorporate the results into it. So there wasn't an alternative, and the rule-making process is very slow.
As far as I can see, the best way to try to expedite these sorts of things is to get internationally accepted standards that we all can play under. You've been working in the OIE; we've been working in the OIE. We think that by doing this we can get some internationally accepted standards, so that the reaction will always be in a certain way and we won't have to go through this whole process again. But the first time around is always going to be the longest one, and that's really what we're facing.
Secretary Johanns has indicated all the way through that he is very committed to getting this border back open completely and normalizing trade. He has not faltered on that. He said he saw nothing in the study on the fifty-month animal that altered this for him.
So that is going forward, and there's very much a commitment to get that taken care of. We know if we don't, as he says, dot all the i's and cross all the t's, then we're going to be subject to challenge and possibly a successful challenge.
That's really what the ninth circuit court said when they looked at our first rule and it was challenged. The courts said that we are empowered by Congress to make these sorts of decisions. So as long as we do our homework, or do our efforts to ensure that what we're doing is having the impacts we claim, then they're going to yield to our judgment on this. We think that will hold and we'll be able to move this forward without delay.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Steckle Liberal Huron—Bruce, ON
These kinds of challenges are never without some difficulty, of course, because there are interest groups that play into this. We know that our cap played a big part in this, as well as a number of other matters pertaining to the politics of certain states. Elections, and this type of thing, all play into it.
I guess if we have standardized rules that we both believe are fair and safe when it comes to the health side.... We need to work as countries. Both Canada and the U.S. need to work toward standardization of principles, values, and standards that all of us trust--we trust you, you trust us. I think at some point we have to do that anyhow. Regardless of how clear we think the science is, we have to do that.
But I guess having said that, we have other matters. We have the softwood lumber issue. We have other issues, where we've had appeal after appeal, and after winning the appeals, we still don't have resolution. At what point does the appeal process work for us, or does it always work against us? I don't know. It comes to a point when you say, why have this appeal? It's very costly, and why have this appeal process if we don't live by the rulings of those appeal boards?
3:45 p.m.
Minister-Counsellor, Foreign Agricultural Service, United States Department of Agriculture
The actions they took in that case are all in accordance with the international rules. They have the right to make these appeals and to file these cases. We can't just stop doing that. It has to go through its process. I would hope that when we set our international trade rules....
We used to run into this a lot--we still do to a certain extent---on phytosanitary. In the Uruguay Round, we managed at least to expedite that. To me, those are the mechanisms we have to use to get at these sorts of delays.
But I would use the example of frustration that our industry had with Canada over the bluetongue issue. That was something that was around for twenty years. We couldn't get any progress on that with Canada until recently. Now it is basically worked out.
So there are things in the reverse that our producers feel have been delayed longer than they should, or they feel were not based upon sound science. There are always going to be these sorts of disagreements. I actually think we are working in more and more areas towards coming up with standardized rules that will deal with this.
3:45 p.m.
Minister-Counsellor, Foreign Agricultural Service, United States Department of Agriculture
Bluetongue.
The case of bluetongue is something that goes back to restrictions I believe were started maybe thirty years ago on our bringing U.S. cattle into Canada--basically western Canada. There were concerns they would bring bluetongue, and it became focused around feeder cattle.
We worked for years to come up with pilot programs and ways to mitigate the risks and so forth. Our feeling all the way through was that it was a low-risk area. The Government of Canada has now agreed with that, and it has made those changes.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gerry Ritz
We worked it through, Robert. There was the seasonal allowance of cattle, such as in winter months when it was cold, and from certain states where the bug, I'll call it, wasn't as prevalent as in other states. Now, we've cleared the decks, and it's not a trade irritant anymore.
Monsieur Roy, seven minutes.
3:45 p.m.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Roy Bloc Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
I agree very much with Mr. Steckle. I am more particularly interested in the opening of the border. What happened at the border since September 2001 has been most difficult for producers in Canada and Quebec.
Apparently, the United States are considering customs tariffs for the inspection of agricultural products, and they could go into effect around November 24. I have a hard time accepting this.
It means you have no trust at all for the Canadian and Quebec inspection system. You do not trust producers or other people here. If you levy customs tariffs for the inspection of our products and if we do the same with yours, all these products will end up being more expensive. Products from Canada and Quebec will be less competitive and so will be the American products.
If we were to decide also to levy custom tariffs for the inspection of your products, if we did not trust your own system, we would both end up with a problem. In that case, products from European countries or other countries would be less expensive for big companies serving all Canadians and Quebeckers.
Do the United States actually intend to levy customs tariffs starting on November 24 for the inspection of agricultural products from Canada?
3:50 p.m.
Minister-Counsellor, Foreign Agricultural Service, United States Department of Agriculture
The issue you raise doesn't actually involve customs tariffs. It involves what we call user fees, which are for recovering the costs the USDA or Department of Homeland Security incur in order to inspect products coming across.
This issue actually has a rather long history to it. We adopted this program about ten years ago and imposed it on all countries, but we provided an exemption for Canada for the user fees.
The reason for that was because we looked at what was coming in from Canada at that time, and it was basically Canadian products in terms of fruits and vegetables. Other than potatoes, because potatoes always have something in particular, the Canadian product didn't have problems in terms of passing on diseases that we were concerned about or in terms of diseases that the Canadian government was obviously able to take care of, so we exempted Canada.
But about five or six years ago the USDA started to see more and more fruits and vegetables coming in from Canada that were products we would not allow to directly enter into the United States.
Really the crux of one of the main parts of the issue here is that, with globalization and all that has gone on, we're all bringing in fruits and vegetables from all around the world now. In the United States, as I mentioned, we have growing areas, we grow citrus products, and we grow different kinds of products, but we may have a concern about Med fly that you don't have.
We've now created a system for some Central American countries to export bell peppers to the U.S., but they have to treat them for Med fly, whereas you might allow those to come in without treatment because that's not an issue. But why raise the cost to the exporters and ultimately the cost that the consumer has to pay?
We found that some of these products are being re-exported down to the United States. There have been several times when the CFIA has actually found that and has fined companies for re-labelling products and shipping them down.
We are concerned about that part of it, product coming in, because over 80% of the pests that we are concerned about, you're not concerned about. There are a lot of things that come in.
Based upon some sampling at the border and so forth, for example, we've also noticed at pre-clearance that travellers bring in fruits and vegetables that they can't get in the United States, take them down with them, and so forth. This presents a risk. If you take a Med fly into California, you could need a billion-dollar eradication program to deal with that. My point is that we now have some very legitimate concerns here.
You asked if there are other ways to do this. This is what the minister was appealing to our secretary.... The secretary said we were perfectly willing to look at options on this, and it's actually a process going on right now. We are working with the appropriate people in CFIA to look at some options as to how we can meet our concerns about these kinds of products, through other types of inspection, inspection at origin, treatment at origin, or whatever. We look at options other than imposing the user fees, additional inspections, and so forth.
My answer is yes, there are other ways to possibly do it. We hear you, and we are actively looking at that. I can't say what the outcome of the process will be. I'm not in a position to say anything regarding the date of November 24, but it is something under active consideration.
3:50 p.m.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Roy Bloc Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Could you answer briefly my question? Will these user fees actually go into effect as soon as November 24? Is it not possible to postpone their implementation until we can find some other ways or options?
3:55 p.m.
Minister-Counsellor, Foreign Agricultural Service, United States Department of Agriculture
The rule-making that was done is an interim rule. It came into effect ninety days after that was published, but a government agency can delay or suspend it. Yes, from a rule-making aspect, that is a possibility. I don't know if it will happen, but it can legally be done.
