Thank you very much.
Thanks to the witnesses for being here.
Mr. Kuhl, I gather from your statement that perhaps the greatest danger, if there are any dangers in this agreement, is for our exports going into Europe rather than imports coming here. I'll come back to that.
When we sign trade agreements, we obviously hope that it will be an advantage to us; otherwise we wouldn't sign agreements. I think it's documented that your sector perhaps was one of the hardest hit under the FTA and NAFTA, whereas prior to these agreements we had in-season tariffs that protected our fruit growers and our vegetable farmers.
For example, in B.C. we used to have a thousand onion producers. We have maybe half a dozen now. I was talking to probably one of the largest broccoli producers in Ontario, and he said he makes money when there's a drought in the United States. These things have happened. Even now we often see current dumping of American apples and cherries below the cost of production. Yet our farmers, those who have survived, seem to be doing okay.
This has been a negative aspect of those trade agreements. Is there any danger of subsidized fruit and vegetables, for example, coming into our market and flooding our current market? Or is this more of a danger that we have from the United States for our producers?