Agriculture committee  That is not quite accurate. In fact, product import regulations include mechanisms for acceptance. Products must be in compliance with Canadian standards or standards that are deemed equivalent to them. However, a big problem remains. As I explained earlier, we do not have the option of unilaterally accepting a product because we are a small country.

Agriculture committee  We wrote letters to the minister. We started with the Canada organic office. We went up to the CFIA president. We wrote letters to the vice-president of policy and programs, and then we wrote letters to Minister Ritz. We wrote several letters, which Mr. Blackburn got carbon-copied.

Agriculture committee  Article 29(2) is on the equivalency agreement. Article 29(1) is what we are negotiating with the U.S. right now. Article 29(1) in the regulations says that if we have an equivalency agreement then we can export to the U.S. according to the agreement. Article 29(2) says that if we have an equivalency agreement with the U.S. but we don't have one with, say, Costa Rica, and the United States agrees to oversee all imports from anywhere in the world, then we would be allowed to import products from everywhere in the world.

Agriculture committee  Perhaps I can answer that question. This regulation is a disaster because there are two ways of importing a product into Canada. The first way consists in asking the producer outside of Canada to respect all the standards and to be certified by an accredited certification body in Canada that applies Canadian standards.