Evidence of meeting #13 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was producers.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Gord Owen  Director General, Energy and Transportation, Department of the Environment
Steve Verheul  Chief Agriculture Negotiator, Negotiations and Multilateral Trade Policy Directorate, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food

10:55 a.m.

Chief Agriculture Negotiator, Negotiations and Multilateral Trade Policy Directorate, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food

Steve Verheul

We cannot do it on hogs or pork. We have the right to use export subsidies to some extent on dairy products, but that's all.

Beyond that, we also have the challenge, which France doesn't have to the same extent, that our pork sector as well as our beef sector rely heavily on export markets, so we always run the risk of countervail actions being taken by our trading partners, particularly the U.S.

On your second question, on the issues of labour and environment, as I think you know, there were efforts to put labour and environment onto the agenda of this negotiation, primarily from the U.S. side, and other countries rejected that. Particularly, developing countries are arguing that they shouldn't have to meet our standards in order to compete with us because they can't afford to reach our standards. But obviously the issues of environment relate to questions that are much more broad. They also tie into food safety and other issues that are linked.

There are some environmental issues being negotiated by this, very peripheral environmental goods, that kind of thing.

So it's not part of this negotiation, and those issues will have to be addressed in another way.

11 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Bezan

Time has expired, and we do need to get out of here for the next committee that wants to meet.

Steve, thanks for coming and giving us a briefing. We're looking forward to seeing the Faulkner report, which will be out tomorrow, and hope that we do have the ambitious outcomes that we want and access to markets, as well as considering our sensitive products that we have here in Canada.

Thank you. Keep up the great work.

The meeting is adjourned.