Thanks very much.
My name is Chris Davison. I'm the president and CEO of the Canola Council of Canada.
The council is a national value-chain organization, representing approximately 40,000 canola farmers together with exporters, processors and life science companies. Our industry, as you heard a few minutes ago, represents $43.7 billion in direct, indirect and induced economic activity annually and supports over 200,000 jobs across the country and $16 billion in wages. Canola also represents one of the largest and main sources of farm cash receipts.
International trade is critical to the success of the industry. The vast majority of canola products are destined for international markets, with exports totalling $14.5 billion in 2024.
As you know, we are currently shut out of our second-largest export market, China, which represented $4.9 billion in export value in 2024. This is the result of an anti-discrimination investigation, which led to 100% tariffs on Canadian canola oil and meal in March of this year, followed by a preliminary anti-dumping duty of 75.8% on canola seed announced this past August. China's anti-dumping investigation is ongoing and has recently been extended until March 2026.
While it is still relatively early in terms of the imposition of these tariffs, removal of a demand signal of the magnitude of China has widespread impacts on the industry, starting at the farm gate and extending across the value chain. Farmers, as you heard, are currently harvesting this year's crop and face an uncertain future. What will their marketing options be for this year's crop? What price will they receive if these tariffs remain in place for an extended period of time? What are the implications for cash flow and their ongoing farm operations?
The uncertainty and unpredictability farmers are facing extends to the full canola value chain, including processors and exporters, whose infrastructure and assets are not being fully utilized. This is not cost-neutral in terms of its impact. It is cost negative, and it comes at a time of significant investment by the industry, including to significantly increase domestic canola-processing capacity.
While we are fortunate that Canadian canola and canola products have a very strong reputation and that there are other markets that want what we produce for a variety of reasons, they cannot be expected to make the Canadian canola industry whole in terms of volume or value as a result of the demand signal that has been lost with the closure of the Chinese market.
Thank you.