Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses who are before us.
When we talk about the U.S., I know that Senator Cassidy, a Republican, and Senator Whitehouse, who's a Democrat, both have introduced a bill that would essentially impose a tariff on jurisdictions that don't have a price on pollution or measure carbon intensity on pollution. On the idea that the U.S. is not necessarily talking about it, definitely the folks who have the power to introduce a law are talking about it.
My goal here is not to predetermine what may happen tomorrow morning, but what may happen in five, 10 or 15 years. You've all testified that the EU and the U.K., by 2026-27, will impose a carbon adjustment tariff on fertilizer, which is an input that we all use—that farmers use in terms of growing food—but carbon also is an input in the steel industry, the aluminum industry and the cement industry. The world is looking at this. Carbon leakage is a major issue.
Here, we're talking about reciprocity clauses; in Europe, they're talking about mirror clauses. Farmers are putting a lot of pressure on the European Commission regarding mirror clauses. In fact, what is this about? We want the agricultural standards that apply in Europe to apply in the same way to importing countries, such as Canada. Canada exports agricultural products to Europe.
My first question is for the representative from the Department of Finance.
I know there have been consultations on carbon border adjustment mechanisms. Of course, in agriculture, they say that this is not the time to implement such mechanisms, because we don't yet know how to measure carbon emissions effectively. I know that's what was said in Europe. Are the international conversations going to be somewhat along the same lines, that is to say that, although the agricultural sector may want to get to that point some day, we have not yet found an effective way to do so?