Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
There are a couple of facts here. Obviously, Canada exports more than 50% of what we produce, so we're subject to export controls from other countries, and I think that's why we're having this conversation today. Canada's not necessarily talking about implementing a carbon border adjustment, although G20 countries are talking about it. Canada is having this conversation, but nobody's talking about imposing a CBAM tomorrow morning.
My issue is that, when you analyze the political landscape of what's happening in the EU and understand what happened in December, January and February with the farmer's movement there.... My colleague Monsieur Perron and I call these les clauses de réciprocité here. In the EU, they call them mirror clauses.
The largest economy in the EU is pushing the EU to implement a CBAM on agricultural products right now. I agree with you that there is no perfect way to measure this right now, but if you're chatting with the folks in the academia sector, they are trying to measure and find out, whether in a wet season or a dry season, if we can we find that delta to determine how much crops are capturing carbon versus how much they are exposing carbon.
I just believe that if we do not take this seriously, we may end up putting our ag sector at a competitive disadvantage.
In the U.S., down south, right now we have a presidential candidate who is actively saying that there will be a 10% tariff on anything, so the world has completely changed from what it was 10 years ago. That's where I'm trying to take us to. What does Canada do?
Monsieur Charlebois, you mentioned that more incentive is the best way to go. Back in the early 1990s and late 1980s, we said, “We're going to put a price on CFCs.” We got rid of CFCs that were in the refrigerators because two countries got together and said that enough was enough.
The carbon tax, whether you agree with it or not, is the cheapest way to motivate a sector to move to substitute products, Mr. Steinley. That's what economists would say.
They both won a Nobel Prize, by the way—I'm just saying.
What does Canada do in 10 years if we export 50% of what we produce and they start introducing a CBAM, and because the technology has adapted it's now easy to measure our agricultural carbon output? What do we do?
I can start with Mr. Charlebois. I would also ask you whether you've looked at other jurisdictions, what they're doing and the political landscape as well.
I'll start with Monsieur Charlebois, and afterwards I can go to Mr. Cosbey too.