First of all, as one of the other witnesses said, the devil is in the details. In the case of agriculture, and even pointing to GIFS' own study, we ran a carbon life-cycle analysis from end to end in terms of the impact it had. We followed the accepted international rules, and one of the things that does not measure is the impact of agronomic practices on the contribution the soil has on the carbon footprint.
When you follow the “accepted practices”, it misrepresents Canada's footprint. It actually also misrepresents the United States' and Australia's footprints relative to France and Germany. When you look at agronomic practices and consider the impact on soil carbon sequestration, you see that Canada pulls further ahead of everybody else, and the Americans and the Australians actually outperform their European peers.
Now, we did that to make a juxtaposition with what the standard international rule is, which is based around stick-built industries, or built industries, versus agriculture. I think it points to the need to have an international agreement on what are we measuring and how are we counting it.
Our study also pointed out...because remember, we looked not only at Canada relative to our trading peers, but also at various regional breakdowns of Canada, of western Canada and Saskatchewan. Again, this reflects the differences of agronomic practices in the region. We can't have a one-size-fits-all on how we measure. We need to have a one-size-fits-all on the criteria we're measuring but to optimize the measurements and the models that would go into a carbon footprint analysis for a good under a border carbon adjustment process that reflects the performance in the region. Again, I think it really gets complicated.
I will be honest. It worries me a bit about the added cost on producers and on the entire value chain to implement such a process unless there are additional benefits, which would be increased trade opportunities and more export opportunities for Canada. That, I think, is the biggest challenge.
The other challenge is that I don't know if the international organizations that would have to implement it are prepared to deal with this, because it could be very much perceived.... Remember that in the context of the Paris accords only about a quarter of the countries have actually implemented a carbon price. Again, if you can't get agreement at that level on a carbon price, other countries might perceive—