The issue you raise doesn't actually involve customs tariffs. It involves what we call user fees, which are for recovering the costs the USDA or Department of Homeland Security incur in order to inspect products coming across.
This issue actually has a rather long history to it. We adopted this program about ten years ago and imposed it on all countries, but we provided an exemption for Canada for the user fees.
The reason for that was because we looked at what was coming in from Canada at that time, and it was basically Canadian products in terms of fruits and vegetables. Other than potatoes, because potatoes always have something in particular, the Canadian product didn't have problems in terms of passing on diseases that we were concerned about or in terms of diseases that the Canadian government was obviously able to take care of, so we exempted Canada.
But about five or six years ago the USDA started to see more and more fruits and vegetables coming in from Canada that were products we would not allow to directly enter into the United States.
Really the crux of one of the main parts of the issue here is that, with globalization and all that has gone on, we're all bringing in fruits and vegetables from all around the world now. In the United States, as I mentioned, we have growing areas, we grow citrus products, and we grow different kinds of products, but we may have a concern about Med fly that you don't have.
We've now created a system for some Central American countries to export bell peppers to the U.S., but they have to treat them for Med fly, whereas you might allow those to come in without treatment because that's not an issue. But why raise the cost to the exporters and ultimately the cost that the consumer has to pay?
We found that some of these products are being re-exported down to the United States. There have been several times when the CFIA has actually found that and has fined companies for re-labelling products and shipping them down.
We are concerned about that part of it, product coming in, because over 80% of the pests that we are concerned about, you're not concerned about. There are a lot of things that come in.
Based upon some sampling at the border and so forth, for example, we've also noticed at pre-clearance that travellers bring in fruits and vegetables that they can't get in the United States, take them down with them, and so forth. This presents a risk. If you take a Med fly into California, you could need a billion-dollar eradication program to deal with that. My point is that we now have some very legitimate concerns here.
You asked if there are other ways to do this. This is what the minister was appealing to our secretary.... The secretary said we were perfectly willing to look at options on this, and it's actually a process going on right now. We are working with the appropriate people in CFIA to look at some options as to how we can meet our concerns about these kinds of products, through other types of inspection, inspection at origin, treatment at origin, or whatever. We look at options other than imposing the user fees, additional inspections, and so forth.
My answer is yes, there are other ways to possibly do it. We hear you, and we are actively looking at that. I can't say what the outcome of the process will be. I'm not in a position to say anything regarding the date of November 24, but it is something under active consideration.