Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, folks. Thank you for coming.
We started with hearings in Ottawa. We were in Penticton, B.C., last Monday, and we've moved across the country. There were quite a number of common themes. Certainly among them, but not limited to, is a product produced in other countries, using whatever herbicides, pesticides, different safety standards, etc., that we're not allowed to use, and it's imported into this country. This has to be addressed. The whole issue of disaster assistance needs to be fairly broad, and it may include issues as a result of trade as well in terms of that component.
There are a number of areas, but I'll go to a few specifics.
To the pork producers, in your presentations you mentioned your administrative costs and timeliness programs. I think you should know that in terms of administrative costs on the Agriculture Canada side, in the last two fiscal years the administrative costs alone for government programming were $481.9 million. If it's been spent on administration by Ottawa, it's not getting to you. It's budgeted for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, but you're not getting the money.
A big one is CAIS, which on average is $108 million a year. It's not the simplest of programs for anyone. Production insurance runs from $94 million one year to $98 million another year. I can see it in the production insurance, because you have to field people out there, etc. It's really for your information.
Justin, you mentioned something we haven't heard a lot about. I'd like to get on the record what you're really asking for, and maybe others can give their comments as well. You said they can ship products more cheaply here because they basically have a lower price due to their environmental standards and for other reasons.
It's always baffled me why we have international trade laws that do not take into consideration environmental standards on an equal level or close to a level footing and labour standards on an equal footing. I mean, we're not only losing industries in agriculture; we're losing the auto industry, we've already lost the garment industry, and the list goes on and on. You can go to any town in this country and see industries closing due to those two factors.
What's your view on that? As part of Canada's negotiating position, should we say environment and labour have to be part of the discussion and there has to be a level playing field in those areas as well?