Agriculture committee  The NAFTA would be the one that had the greatest impact on us. I think the sectors would vary, but our overall trade between Canada and the U.S. has doubled since the NAFTA, so—

Agriculture committee  A lot of the other countries that we've signed trade deals with so far have not been really.... There may be pockets where some of our agricultural sectors have benefited, but to my point, we really haven't seen the kind of broad trade deal that we need to make a really significa

Agriculture committee  Listen, the trade agenda right now is phenomenal. The EU, Korea, Japan, TPP, and India, these are major economies around the world, where in most cases we have trade relationships, but we can also enhance them. These are the kinds of deals that will really make an impact on the a

Agriculture committee  I think the Canada–EU free trade negotiations are really the best, and probably the only example we've seen of what I would consider to be a next-generation or 21st century trade deal in that they're incredibly broad. They cover every topic you could imagine—-labour mobility, inv

Agriculture committee  There are international forums, whether it's the OIE or it's through the WTO or Codex, that establish standards for things like maximum residue levels. We don't have one for LLP, but we'd like to see one. Standards for BSE, for example, would be done through the OIE. Those are th

Agriculture committee  Yes, sorry. That happens when you work on a Sunday.

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have handed out a presentation, but I'm going to give a condensed version of it for your benefit. Good afternoon. I'm Kathleen Sullivan, executive director of CAFTA, and I thank you for the opportunity to speak today about the importance of trade and mar

International Trade committee  I think the biggest problem we have with the European Union right now is differences in how we deal with biotech issues. Eighty-five percent of our canola is exported. Right now it's our largest cash crop in Canada. Canadian consumers have been very accepting of genetically modif

International Trade committee  Yes, we do have challenges with beef and pork. Regulations for our meat slaughtering plants in particular here in Canada are different from those for plants in Europe. We have said that on the food side, all our regulations have to be, first of all, based on human safety and anim

International Trade committee  It is the key issue, and in the future we need to spend far more time ahead of time talking about what the regulations are going to be if we're going to have commercial trade with Europe. I think part of the problem we've discovered is that because we're not trading with Europe i

International Trade committee  Good afternoon. My name is Kathleen Sullivan, and I'm the executive director of the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance. CAFTA is a coalition of national and regional producer groups and processor associations that support an open and transparent international trading environment

International Trade committee  I'm not sure we've really viewed the exports from Europe on the food side as a threat. I suppose, in fact, they would likely be trading products very complementary to ours. As I mentioned, on the pork side we have a deficit in ribs, and they have a deficit in ham, so a very nice

International Trade committee  Sorry, my translation went out for a few seconds.

International Trade committee  Yes. One of the interesting things about Europe as a potential trading partner is that--and this is not always the case with other countries we might trade with--they are culturally very similar to us. A lot of Canadians have European heritage. The idea of trading with Europe is

International Trade committee  --negotiating tables actually deal with topics that fall under provincial jurisdiction or shared provincial and federal jurisdiction. We've certainly heard stories that the sole European negotiator is sitting across the table from quite a number of competent Canadian negotiators