Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have handed out a presentation, but I'm going to give a condensed version of it for your benefit.
Good afternoon. I'm Kathleen Sullivan, executive director of CAFTA, and I thank you for the opportunity to speak today about the importance of trade and market access for Canadian agrifood products.
Canada's agrifood sector depends on trade. We are the fourth-largest agriculture and agrifood exporter in the world. We currently export about $40 billion a year in agriculture and food products, and that's about half of all of our production. If we didn't have access to foreign markets, the structure and size of our domestic production and processing sectors would be radically impacted.
Agrifood exports are critical to the national, provincial, and rural economies across the country. Agriculture and food account for almost 10% of Canada's total merchandise trade. Across Canada, 210,000 farms are dependent on export markets. It is critical that we identify new trade opportunities for our agrifood products and that we protect existing and valuable export markets.
Trade must be a priority for this country, and as we look towards the future of agriculture policy in Canada, we can think that trade must be a major concern. For us, this includes three key priorities: first, continuing to seek opportunities to conclude a multilateral trade deal that will further liberalize agrifood trade; second, to actively and aggressively pursue meaningful bilateral and regional trade deals; and third, to address market access issues. I'll talk just very briefly about all three of those.
With respect to multilateral trade deals, around the world agriculture is subject to both domestic and trade policies that impact international prices and the flow of goods. These policies continue to create imbalances in trade and to establish trade patterns that are based on historical preferences or on bilateral trade deals rather than on natural competitive advantage. Only a multilateral trade deal, like that being negotiated through the WTO, can fully resolve these issues.
We recognize that the WTO is at an impasse right now. We do encourage the government, though, to continue to work with other WTO countries to try to breathe new life into those talks.
Second, bilateral and regional trade deals must be a priority. It is critical that Canada act aggressively and uncompromisingly to pursue our export interests around the globe. I have to say this government has put in place the most ambitious trade agenda this country has seen in a generation. We are now looking at the possibility of trade deals with lucrative markets that include the EU, India, South Korea, Japan, and the trans-Pacific partnership. These deals combined would increase agricultural exports significantly, but even more importantly, being left out of those deals, such as that with the TPP, for example, could have devastating consequences for our industry.
We strongly support the government's trade agenda and priorities, and we offer the following observations. First, it's critical that we prioritize our resources. Canada has world-class trade negotiators, but our resources are ultimately limited. We need to focus on FTAs that have the greatest potential to benefit our agriculture and food sectors and the economy overall.
Second, while our current trade agenda is impressive, we have yet to conclude a major trade deal since the NAFTA. It is imperative that we do so as soon as possible to demonstrate that we are serious about trade and that we have the resolve to conclude modern trade deals.
Third, our FTAs going forward have to be ambitious and comprehensive. Countries around the world are negotiating next-generation trade deals like the trans-Pacific partnership, deals that are broad in scope and substantive in depth and that address new and emerging issues.
Finally, FTAs have to go beyond tariffs. We need 21st century deals that address non-tariff barriers and that incorporate disciplines to ensure regulations and decisions that impact trade are based on science.
The final priority in a new agricultural policy framework needs to be market access. Regardless of our trade status with a country, market access issues continue to be a growing problem. Our trade relationships need to be stable, and decisions that impact trade need to be predictable, enforceable, and based on science. We strongly commend the government for establishing the Market Access Secretariat. Going forward we need to provide the secretariat with the appropriate resources and give it the authority necessary to manage issues across federal departments.
We also need to ensure that there is industry participation and expertise to work together with and to support the secretariat's activities, and we need to find longer-term solutions to some of the market access issues that continue to plague our industry. Trade is critical to Canada's agricultural producers and food processors. We welcome the government's strong approach to trade, and we, in particular, thank both Minister Ritz and Minister Fast for the efforts they have made to find new trade opportunities for our sector. We look forward to ensuring that trade is a key component of Canada's future agricultural policy framework.
With that, I look forward to your questions.