International Trade committee  Obviously that would be our position as well. Again, we were also one of the first to open up and re-export Kobe beef. So we've set a couple of firsts there, and we haven't seen that same response. What's interesting for us is that there's a difference between positioning your domestic product as a high-value product—which they do, and we don't have a problem with that—and putting in tariff barriers that restrict beef from coming in.

International Trade committee  In my consultations with key importers over there—and this happened within the last month. We had a reception with over a hundred meat importers, so we had a chance to visit with them quite a bit. Our ambassador was there as well, which we appreciated. Canada is very highly viewed abroad.

International Trade committee  Maybe I should say that, generally speaking, in all these trade agreements, and we've experienced this in the past, of course, with some of the FTAs we've signed already—with Colombia and Peru, for example—we don't have the same type of access as maybe the U.S. might have, or others.

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  In fact, Mr. Easter, if they adopted OIE, that says meat from cattle of all ages with the SRMs removed is allowed, so it wouldn't even need to be under 30 months. But the reality is we would likely trade no product from cattle over 30 months, because then we're into sort of cull cow beef and processing beef, when really that market is a key market for prime cuts.

International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman and honourable members. I will quickly introduce myself. I'm Brad Wildeman, the chair of Canada Beef Inc., which is the amalgamation of three prior organizations that you are probably aware of: Canada Beef Export Federation; the Beef Information Centre, which did domestic and U.S. marketing on behalf of beef; as well as the national check-off agency that's responsible for collecting the check-offs from cattle producers based on their sales.