I agree that we need to be on top of things, but right now we're at the monitoring phase. I don't represent the seafood sector, but I'm going to be shucking a dozen Malpeque oysters tomorrow night—but that's not an international trade issue.
What's an international trade issue? Today, the European CBAM doesn't cover Malpeque oysters or Canadian agri-food products. We're watching, because it covers steel, cement and fertilizer, and that's starting to get towards agriculture, but it's not there. It doesn't cover those things, so for Canada to be implementing a border carbon adjustment today on similar products from other countries would mean Canada would be going it alone and doing something that's trade restrictive and would probably lead us down a path that will be complicated for us with partners.
We do see people talking about things. We don't have a position because we're not faced with it today, but I read American trade blogs and Substacks and stuff in order to do my job well. I see that some U.S. senators have discussed the issue. It's not totally clear to me. I haven't hired somebody to study how close that is to getting adopted and if it's like a private member's bill that rarely moves but sometimes does. I know people in the U.S. are talking about it, so we're at the monitoring phase.
If the world starts moving toward it, Canada shouldn't be leading and doing that and starting trade disputes out of nowhere. If different countries in the world were to move toward it, we'd be having a different discussion and we'd be coming back saying that we should be doing this with our partners and not going it alone, because what we always want to be doing is strengthening the rules-based trading system and not tearing it apart.