Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks for that introduction.
We had a report that came out last fall about agriculture and climate change mitigation at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. It's an independent auditor's report from 2024.
When we're having this hypothetical conversation around carbon border adjustments, one thing I always wonder is what our benchmark is. Where does our dataset start? What are we trying to go down from?
Right in the overall message on the first page it says, “Despite this, the department had yet to develop a strategy for how it would contribute to Canada’s 2030 and 2050 greenhouse gas mitigation and sequestration goals. In the absence of [any] strategy, we found that the department had undertaken extensive science-based [due diligence].” We really don't have a mitigation strategy in the Department of Agriculture from the Government of Canada.
Mr. Petelle, you said it very well: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I am asking all the witnesses. Can you unpack some of those good intentions that have resulted in some of these non-tariff trade barriers, which I think is the same road we would go down if we go to a carbon border adjustment?
I will start with Mr. Petelle.
Give some of the examples of what we've done with good intentions that have resulted in not being able to do some trading with some of our key partners.