Any strategy for agriculture needs to have a vision, and what I propose you consider is the vision we've laid out in the pulse industry, which is one that focuses on profitability. A focus on profitability says we have to get into a little more detail than just talking about meeting the growing need of the growing world population for food. We have to focus on profitability.
Growing Forward 2 has to be a business strategy that focuses on the issues that keep our industry competitive in the international marketplace. We'll just go through the first two pages and leave them.
I want to lay out what we believe are the four key points that need to be part of Growing Forward 2, and in part of the “foresighting” exercise that we all go through, I think we have to consider that we're probably going to have not more money—we may be lucky to get the same amount of money—but it's conceivable we'll have less. So in my discussion I want to talk about the four priorities in order of descending importance.
Number one is market access, and I really don't know that we need to spend a lot of time talking about it. Our sector exports 80% of what it grows, so market access agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership, are key. When you're an export-dependent economy, you need access to markets.
Number two is under the category of food safety. We have an increasing number of non-tariff trade barriers. I would put into this category issues of low-level presence policies and chemical residue policies. I want to emphasize that everyone in the food industry is most interested in ensuring that we're protecting human health and environmental safety. The question is, what can we do to ensure that all consumers around the world have that confidence, but not have food safety issues become impediments to trade? I think one of the key areas there has to be harmonization of regulatory processes among governments around the world. Again, I would reference some of the comments that have been made about the Regulatory Cooperation Council, the recent initiative that just started with meetings in Washington, D.C. There is a need for codex reform. A lot of policy initiatives need government drive and support, and these need resources. So under Growing Forward 2 we need to ensure that some of these initiatives are properly funded.
Frankly, in our view, some of the departments, rather than having budget cuts, need to have additional money, because this is paving the way to allow business to be profitable and to be competitive on a global basis.
I'm cutting out a lot of really good stuff here, but you can read it later.
Number three is on transportation, and again, it's a point that's been made. A lot of things are on the go on transportation. As you know, I'm co-chair of the crop logistics working group, which is a committee that was set up by Minister Ritz to look at some of these issues. What I want to emphasize on transportation is that having a service level agreement in place is not the end point, and having facilitated discussions about a service level agreement is not an end point. None of us get to unfold the “mission accomplished” banner until we see performance statistics that say the entire supply chain is functioning better—and we never get to unfurl it, because it's a constant process of continual improvement.
We've heard presentations from the Canadian Soybean Exporters' Association. Again, as an export-dependent economy we have to be competitive. I'd like to remind the committee of a comment that was made when we did sign a bilateral trade agreement with Colombia, and that was that even with a 15% tariff advantage, some of the Colombians did not see Canada as a preferred supplier, because we were not reliable. So the focus on transportation has to continue as we go forward.
The last point is one that's been made, and that is that we need to be competitive in marketing and trade to be an innovative agricultural sector, and that means investments in research—not just investments in science, but investments that take that science and put it into the business community. So these are investments in innovation.
As a fourth element, as a key core principle of Growing Forward, we have to have investments in innovation that include investments in scientific research. All of us will have to do a better job of making sure that the public understands why public investment in research is a good investment for everybody.
Those are the four key elements that we see that will ensure we have a profitable sector.
The last comment I want to make is on the transition. When I look at the calendar, I see that we have 13 months left in Growing Forward 1. Being realistic, counting back from March of 2013 and starting to ask when application forms and policy decisions need to be done, all of you need to have the work done before you go on summer break. That will give the department time to put applications and programs together, have industry respond, and have applications submitted. It will give us ample time to review the applications and have decisions about funding for Growing Forward 2 in place by January 1, 2013. That will allow industry to be ready to roll with new programs and a new policy framework on April 1.
The timelines are tight. But if we're not going to have to get into bridging programs, if we're going to make sure that we have a strong government and industry partnership, that's what we're going to need.
Mr. Chairman, I will leave my comments there with those four points and a concluding comment about the need for speed, so that we have a seamless transition from Growing Forward 1 to Growing Forward 2.