International Trade committee  I'll let my colleague Dennis Laycraft respond. He'll have the numbers right in front of him.

International Trade committee  I can go ahead. Going back to the original agreement on CPTPP, one advantage of being one of the early countries signing on to it was the ability to bring down tariffs quickly. That was key. Then we went back to carcass wash and all of that. The CETA and the EU and the U.K. agreements put us at a disadvantage, as compared to the CPTPP.

International Trade committee  Thanks for your question. Japan falls right in behind the United States. It's our second-largest export market. Recently Japan dropped all the restrictions I talked about earlier in regard to BSE. In a perfect world, if all markets could be similar to Japan's, that would be what we would ask for.

International Trade committee  Oh, definitely that agreement has favoured the beef industry tremendously.

International Trade committee  Thank you.

International Trade committee  Yes, we're very disappointed in the accession of the U.K. to the CPTPP without addressing the trade barriers with the carcass wash.

International Trade committee  I guess that's a good question. Why are we making the same mistake? It's happening again. I mentioned the U.K. before. We weren't getting any beef over there in 2022, whereas they were shipping $33 million worth of beef over here. On the EU side of it, the trade deficit last year was $100 million, so it's definitely disturbing to the beef industry.

International Trade committee  I'll maybe turn that over to Dennis Laycraft.

International Trade committee  I'll chime in there. In 2022, Canada exported zero dollars' worth of beef into the U.K., while they exported 33 million dollars' worth into Canada. Basically, there are still bilateral negotiations going on there. We're asking for the full systems approval from Canada with our food safety system so that we can continue exporting to other countries under the same regime as we could into the U.K.

International Trade committee  I'm going to turn that over to Dennis Laycraft, my associate.

International Trade committee  Thank you, and good afternoon. My name is Jack Chaffe. I'm chair of the foreign trade committee with the Canadian Cattle Association and a beef producer from southwestern Ontario. With me today is Dennis Laycraft, the executive vice-president of CCA. We're grateful to have the opportunity to contribute to today's committee study on non-tariff barriers and how these barriers prevent the Canadian beef industry from growing our exports.