Agriculture committee  Thanks, everyone, for giving us a chance to be heard today. It's very important to us. While we have the chance to be in front of you, I will take a minute and a half to introduce us. You have the documentation. We are a maple syrup cooperative. We belong to 2,000 families. Be

Agriculture committee  Let me answer in stages. There will be a positive impact, but there is a time factor, a momentum factor. An additional market will be created. Maple syrup is in competition with all the other sugar products, including other sugars that are not as good for the health. The idea is

Agriculture committee  Yes, if we sign and finish the agreement before they do. My fear is that they will start after we do but they will finish the final agreement before we do because they might have fewer problems going through an agreement.

Agriculture committee  If you're right, that's good news.

Agriculture committee  We've been helping the honey producers for the last 40 years but we finally joined with them three years ago. We've been selling cranberries for the last 10 years, but when Europe came with the 17.6% two years ago, it killed us as being an in-between guy.

Agriculture committee  There are a whole bunch of them in Quebec, including Ocean Spray.

Agriculture committee  No, the competitors are the other U.S. and Canadian cranberry companies.

Agriculture committee  That's exactly what we're looking for. They're smart. They put on this 17% only a year and half or two years ago, just before the agreement.

Agriculture committee  Every single time I have an important meeting like this, I talk about that, and people say that it's not easy. Nothing is easy. When it's easy, it's already done. But I think we need to protect that name because there are a lot of maple—

Agriculture committee  —products packed in Europe and if you taste them, you will understand what I mean.

Agriculture committee  There is a specific maple that produces maple syrup. Even in China I know they're working to grow their own trees to make their own maple syrup, but from what I know, that will be—

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  We can work with the CFIA to have a label with a certain verification of what has been packed in Canada instead of being packed anywhere else around the world. We want to produce Canadian jobs, and this is not what is happening when we pack it in Europe.

Agriculture committee  We will work all together for that.

Agriculture committee  We have 30 brands. It allows us to have eight partners in Japan because one brand could cover the retail market and the other brand could cover the food service market.