I did, indeed, attend the G20 meeting. The talks focused on the importance of reliable rule-based trade, market stability and evidence-based decision-making. It was the perfect opportunity to speak with my Chinese counterpart. I was quite clear about Canada's concerns over his country's suspension of the licences of Canadian exporters.
He said there was a problem with Canada's canola seed, and my response was that we'd undertaken all the necessary inspections and found no evidence of any issues. I asked him to show us the evidence and stressed that, if there was a problem, we wanted to know what it was so we could fix it. I made it very clear that we needed to have an evidence-based conversation.
At this stage, our respective scientists and experts need to talk and sit down with one another. He's the agriculture minister, but he's not in charge of customs. I got the distinct impression that he heard what I was saying and was going to raise the issue with his colleague. That may be why, yesterday, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency was involved in new talks that were more science-based. The general feeling was that the discussion would result in something more. Did one thing lead to another? I can't say for sure, but at least there some movement on the file. Our respective scientists are talking.